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TODAY we carry a story about the plight of ex-legislators who have fallen on hard times after failing to make it into the Eighth Parliament. As we report elsewhere in this issue, several former legislators from the last Parliament have fallen on hard times, with many urgently seeking loans from banks to be borrowed against outstanding allowances they are owed by Treasury.
The situation is so bad that some ex-MPs have failed to send their children to boarding schools this term.

Others have had their properties attached after failing to service debts. While we sympathise with their plight, it also brings to the fore the long running question of who qualifies to be a legislator?

Is Parliament a job or a calling to serve the people?
In the past we have seen and heard legislators make noise about issues of their welfare and precious little about service to the electorate that sent them into the august House.

Throughout the life of the Seventh Parliament we heard sordid tales of abuse of Constituency Development Funds by some legislators who ended up dipping hands into the cookie jar at the expense of their constituents and constituencies.

It appears the reason was some knew no other livelihood than the parliamentary allowance. And that raises questions about the calibre of people we should send into the august House.

Yes — we are aware that an MP is an intermediary between the people and the Government or development partners and does not necessarily have to dip into his/her pockets to bankroll constituency development programmes — but the question remains if an MP still has to meet his own basic needs, won’t the temptation be high to divert constituency funds to personal development?

In our opinion, an MP should be a person who has distinguished themselves in their area of endeavour, and have expertise that can be harnessed to channel development to the people. Sadly, over the years we have had cases where some earned their first “jobs” as it were on being elected to Parliament, where the sitting allowances became the source of livelihood. We cannot help but wonder if we do not need to raise the bar of who qualifies to be a legislator?

Let it be a person with proven livelihood, preferably a person who has succeeded in whatever his/her sphere of activity and can be trusted to spearhead constituency and national development.

This also feeds into the nature of deliberations in the august House where at times the childishness and disruptive behaviour of some legislators has left a lot to be desired.