Facing Life's Realities After Parliament

28/04/2010 17:46

Emmanuel Kendemeh

27 April 2010

Members of parliament have to prepare for the post-National Assembly period.

Cameroon's electoral law provides that the term of office of a member of parliament is five years renewable. The present 180 parliamentarians serving the eighth legislative period were voted into office in the July 22, 2007 twin legislative and council elections and their term of office ends in 2012. During this period, they have to legislate and vote bills that are finally enacted into law by the President of the Republic, exercise an oversight of government actions through question plenary sittings in parliament, carry the development needs of their constituents to government and fight for solutions. The people's representatives equally have to facilitate development in their constituencies by supporting projects with the present FCFA 8 billion government gives them annually as micro-projects grants.

As the legislative period moves toward the end, some of the parliamentarians have sleepless nights. This is because they have only two options. Either fight to win elections at the primaries organised by their political parties to select candidates to face the candidates of other contesting political parties. The second option is to start parking out of the Ngoa-Ekelle Glass Palace. This option is usually bitter either because the electorates have manifested their determination not to vote back the MP to the National Assembly or because the MP in question has fallen out with authorities of his political party and is sure never to be invested as candidate. In this case, the title "former Member of Parliament" comes into use. It is clear nobody can remain in parliament for eternity but few parliamentarians would want to bear the title "Former MP".

Many outgoing members of parliament even at advanced ages still want to put a frantic fight to remain at the Ngoa-Ekelle Glass Palace. This is partly because of the immunity given parliamentarians, the prestige to be called "Honourable", besides their salaries, allowances and the FCFA 8 million allocated to each of them to finance micro-projects back in their constituencies. Cameroon's members of parliament are from varied social-cultural, professional and economic backgrounds. Some who before being voted into the National Assembly had no lucrative jobs and income- generating activities would consider life out of Parliament a fore-taste of hell. There are yet others who while in service had bad relations with people with whom they will have to continue life's journey once out of National Assembly. Indeed they would have to reap what they sow during their mandate as the people's representatives.

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The post- National Assembly life is therefore partly prepared during one's term of office. Retirement for a member of parliament as with other workers must come. Those who leave from different professions, to serve the nation in parliament, go back to their jobs. Business people go back to their businesses, teachers to their classrooms and farmers to their farms where life's struggles continue. Some MPs use the mandates to set up businesses, others create income-generating activities and join international organisations as a way of preparing for the rainy days.

The National Assembly also gives the opportunity for MPs to prepare for retirement by creating the Parliamentarians' Retirement Fund. Only members would benefit from the Fund. It is thanks to this Fund that parliamentarians who have served three straight terms (15 years) and who are 55 years and above, have a right to pension. In this case, the monthly pension will be 60 per cent of the FCFA 280,000 basic legislative allowance. Parliamentarians who leave after serving two terms of office (10 years) have a right to a pension of 45 percent of the basic legislative allowance.