By Andrew Ehrenkranz

Thursday’s swearing in of a broad coalition Cabinet  seems have ushered in  a new era of peace in Kenya. While relief and in some cases, jubilation, is palpable on the streets  of Nairobi today, there’s also a growing dread at sticker shock of this new government of "unity". With opposition leader Raila Odinga as Kenya’s 2nd post-independence Prime Minster, the new Cabinet is the country’s largest ever, at 40 Kenyan cabinet ministers and 52 assistant ministers,  and will cost   Kenyan taxpayers  nearly  $800 million dollars more than last year's government, a huge burden  for average Kenyans already struggling to  make ends meet after months of unrest.

Kenyan politicians are not just among the highest paid in Africa, but around the world, says Tiberius Barasa, a research fellow at Nairobi’s Institute of Policy Analysis and Research .  In a country where the average salary is less than $400 US dollars per year, a Kenyan Cabinet minister makes $18,000 per month,  plus thousands more in allowances and a host of other perks like country homes, club membership, and two new cars.  Earning approximately $216,000 annually (of which only $3,000 is taxable income), Kenyan Cabinet members  make more than their counterparts  in the United States. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki earns $615,000 US dollars a year, tax-free, far more than that of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (about $373,000 ) or President George W. Bush($400,000).    “The salaries are actually nearing the level of  comparable politicians  in Italy, currently the  highest in the world. “Barasa says.  Though the original argument had been that higher government salaries prevent corruption,  there’s little evidence to support that justification in Kenya, where a number of high profile corruption scandals have been unearthed over the past few years. A movement amongst civil society groups for a re-adjustment of the pay scale of politicians was thwarted last year, unsurprisingly voted down by the politicians themselves when it came to vote in Kenyan parliament.  At this current moment in Kenya, with a severely hobbled economy after months of unrest and where  more than 300,000  displaced Kenyans still  languish in internal displacement camps,   it remains to be seen if a bigger government will yield results. “Kenya is  struggling to move up the ladder of industrialized nations, we can’t afford to sustain such high salaries.”

For poorer Kenyans, the high salaries are a source of rage. “How can ministers get 1 million(shillings) a month when I am lucky to get a dollar a day?," complains 25 year old Ryan idling near a fly-blown fish-fry in the slum of Kibera. “It’s just greed, they don’t hear us!”  Kibera, a 30-minute walk from downtown Nairobi, has calmed down after the violence that wracked Kenya in the wake of last December's disputed poll. There's even a cautious optimism. "This government is better than no government," says Abdul Fakir, one of a group perching on milk crates in the Makina section. But Fakir is hardly overwhelmed by the new political deal.  "We have faith but more in ourselves than with this government. We have hope for [new Prime Minister Raila Odinga], but we'll see..."