Government will increase the allowances for Councillors from K700 to K3,000.

In a ministerial statement to Parliament this afternoon, Local Government and Housing Minister Vincent Mwale announced that the increment was in line with the Local Government Act which stated that ‘Local councillors are entitled to be paid fees and allowances approved by the Minister of Local Government’.

“My ministry will through a statutory instrument revise upwards the councillors allowances from K700 to K3000. I have since submitted a Statutory Instrument to the Ministry of Justice for clearance. Therefore, the new allowance will be effected immediately the Statutory Instrument is published within the course of this month,” Mwale said.

Mwale told the House that the Ministry of Finance would be responsible for the payment of the local councilors.

“We agreed that this money (allowances) would come from the Treasury and the Finance Minister shall be in charge of these allowances. He will have to bundle them together with equalisation funds and forward them to councils where they would be disbursed into various accounts for councillors at their local level,” said Mwale.

When asked why councillors could not be paid as much as Executive Mayors, Mwale said the councillors could not be put on a fixed salary because were not hired as permanent employees and were allowed to work for other organisations.