NO wonder Bahrain's MPs are squabbling over who gets to go on official trips overseas - with personal allowances of BD300 a day to line their pockets.

How can they possibly justify a daily allowance of more than that which tens of thousands of people in this country earn in a month? What are they eating, caviar?

Air fares and hotel bills for these trips are already paid for either by the foreign hosts or out of parliament's coffers, so what travelling MPs are actually getting is BD300 a day in pocket money.

Yet many of those who voted for them will be living in rundown homes in Bahrain's villages, with barely enough money to put food on the family dinner table, or to buy their children decent clothes.

How can any MP take this pocket money and then look in the eyes of a constituent who earns BD200 a month, to house and feed his family on?

MPs should be made to declare in public what trips they have taken, what the total allowance was that they claimed - and what they spent it on, with receipts as proof. I am sure newspapers would be delighted to publish these expenses in the run-up to next year's parliamentary elections and to let the public judge whether those they put their trust in are worth the money. Shura Council members, who are appointed rather than elected, get the same daily allowance for foreign travel, on top of what are already sizeable salaries for them and their parliamentary counterparts.

The Shura and parliament chairmen each get BD3,500 a month, vice-chairmen BD2,500 and council members and MPs BD2,000, plus other benefits, including a BD500-a-month car allowance each - for what is basically a part-time job.

They also get BD750 a month to rent offices and pay staff, but I understand some simply pocket the cash.

Now, I am not suggesting that they should not be paid reasonable salaries, nor that they should meet genuine expenses out of their own pockets but there can by no justification for a BD300-a-day allowance just to attend overseas conferences, or to travel on so-called fact-finding missions.

It is even more objectionable when the health service is struggling to meet the cost of caring for the nation, with declarations that free care is on the way out and thousands of people are queueing for government homes yet to be built.

Shame on the government for paying this sort of allowance and even more shame on those jostling to take it. lhorton@gdn.com.bh