LILONGWE, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Some non-governmental organizations in Malawi are set to petition the Speaker of Parliament on Wednesday in protest to the House's decision to increase sitting allowance for MPs and to put tax waiver on their cars.
Recently, the house agreed to increase the lawmakers' sitting allowances from about 77 U.S. dollars to around 103 dollars per day.
The parliamentarians also agreed to give themselves exemption on vehicle duties as part of their benefits among others.
But this has angered NGOs and one of the leaders of the organizations, Robert Mkwezalamba, told local media that they will petition the speaker so that the decision should be reversed.
Mkwezalamba has described Malawi Parliamentarians' decision as "stealing public funds at the time the country is passing through financial challenges".
"We know that this may not be easy to achieve, but we will still go on to demand that as our request is from people who voted them into power," said Mkwezalamba.
"We also want to persuade government to start paying parliamentarians' sitting allowance basing on the time they stay in parliament as most of them are paid even for the time they spend at their homes or elsewhere without attending parliament meetings," he said.