Emerging details indicate that Members of Parliament have devised more clever ways to extort money from Kenyans.
According to a recent probe by the Sunday Standard, it has been revealed that the members have been using illegal petitions to summon individuals to appear before them.
It is alleged that they angle for tokens from the persons, in another extortion spree.
According to the paper, there are over 60 expired petitions before the various house committees but the teams have continued to summon the involved persons for questioning.
This way, it has been revealed, they get to benefit from sitting allowances while at the same time swindling money from the persons, usually top government and private officials.
This has since been confirmed by Kimilili lawmaker Didmus Barasa who has successfully drawn Speaker Justin Muturi's attention to the many delayed petitions.
“The Speaker has given strict deadlines to conclude petitions yet many are pending for more than three months and others have lapsed. It is a worrying trend despite the hype by the petitioners to whip up emotions,” he is quoted.
Muturi has called upon the targets to snub any summon on a petition that has been before the house for over two months unless the case is a special one.
“If any person is invited to appear before the committee, I have given strict instructions that they should ignore those invitations unless the House, in exercise of its power, has extended the time for consideration of the petition," he said.
MPs earn Sh5000 committee allowance per sitting and another similar amount every time they clock into the plenary.
The committee chairs, on the other hand, earn double the amount.
This also follows the lawmakers recent new ongoing attempt to allocate themselves more privileges, including a government vehicle, expansion of hospital insurance and rent-free houses.