South Australian politician Lucy Gichuhi to pay back thousands after misusing taxpayer funds

AN AUSSIE senator complained of the difficulty in getting “house girls” and how $200,000 salary was “not a lot of money”.

KENYAN-BORN senator Lucy Gichuhi has complained of the difficulty in getting “house girls” and of her $200,000-a-year salary.

It’s not a lot of money for a politician, she told a Kenyan TV show.

But under questioning she agreed the pay rate for a senator was “reasonable”.

The mother of three jokingly considered bringing over some Kenyan domestic help to help her, husband William and three children.

The South Australian senator, who came to Parliament to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Family First senator Bob Day is now a Liberal with an inspiring story of immigrant success.

But there was the problem of house girls, she told a Kenyan talk show last January.

“There are no house girls, for your information,” she told the program host with a laugh.

“Without house girls it was such a challenge but I learned and learned very quickly.”

At another point she said: “How can I get my house girl here?”

And she made a special reference to Mr Gichuhi: “My husband was working so hard to adjust from that man attitude to help around the house.”

Money matters have already been a problem for the new senator.

At the weekend Senator Gichuhi acknowledged she had incorrectly used $2139 in taxpayer funds to fly relatives from Darwin to Adelaide and return for her birthday party last October.

It had been an administrative error and the money had been repaid, she said in a statement.

But it was her comments last January on the size of her pay which could further attract attention.

“Yes, my salary it is somewhere on the website, I don’t look at it because it comes into the bank, but it’s not a lot of money by the way,” she told the program host.

“Politicians, and I mean Australian politicians, work so hard 24/7, nobody, and I mean nobody, can compensate them for the work they do.”

And she said: “Two hundred thousand Australian dollars, in a whole year, that’s not a lot of money.”

But when her salary was compared to that of Kenyan politicians she conceded: “It’s a reasonable pay.”

Lucy Gichuhi and her family arrived in Adelaide in 1999 and she and her husband went looking for work.

She told the Kenyan interviewer that race was not a problem, although she had been verbally abused by one person in an Adelaide street.

“Australia, they go by skills, they go by how you are contributing,” she said.

“If you have nothing to do, don’t go and do it in Australia.”

Senator Gichuhi trained as an accountant, but her first Australian job was cleaning at a hotel.

“But within three months I was able to get a job with the Auditor General’s Department of South Australia,” she told the program.

And she said of those first few years here: “We were working so hard. It was the most challenging time, that cultural adjustment. I’m glad we did it.”

SHE HAS BECOME A MEME LEGEND

In the eyes of the internet, Senator Gichuhi is a celebrity and a meme legend.

But internet fame aside, she is still going to have to fork out the thousands of dollars she owes to the Australian taxpayer for misusing public funds.

Joining politics in 2016, Senator Gichuhi has been a member of the South Australian Liberal Party since February.

And in those past few months, Senator Gichuhi is facing mounting pressure to explain her apparent misuse of taxpayer funds, spending more than $12,000 on trips to Sydney for “electoral business” despite being hundreds of kilometres away from her Adelaide office.

According to parliamentary records obtained byThe Advertiser, taxpayers regularly footed the bill for flights given to Senator Gichuhi’s family members including a trip to Sydney in April last year, before she was sworn into Parliament.

Senator Gichuhi also claimed $4000 for two one-night trips to Sydney, one of which was for an appearance on ABC’s Q&A.

Politicians appearing on Q&A normally charge all of their expenses back to the taxpayer.

In a tweet yesterday, Senator Gichuhi agreed to repay the $2139 she spent for her birthday and said it had come from a “misunderstanding of travel rules”.

Regarding the media reports about my travel expenses, this was an administrative error involving misunderstanding of travel rules.

I’ve raised an invoice from the department to pay the costs of $2139 in full.

— Lucy Gichuhi (@senatorlucy) June 17, 2018

A spokesman for Senator Gichuhi said the office was confident that all of the travel was in line with the rules.

In March, Senator Gichuhi birthed arguably one of the most viral memes to ever hit the internet when she was asked a question at a press conference.

It came a day after Innovation Minister Michaelia Cash threatened to expose sex scandals in Australian Parliament.

When Senator Gichuhi was asked about it, she gave the now-viral response.

employer: why should we hire you?

me: pic.twitter.com/1sB5uqrdpg

— 𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖊𝖗 ⋆ (@tristehomo) March 11, 2018

My mother: So how much did you spend on the Beyonce tickets?
Me:pic.twitter.com/3bYeNTrnOA

— Kalen Allen (@TheKalenAllen) March 14, 2018

“Hey aren’t you one of Jesus’s disciples????”

Peter: pic.twitter.com/2hUjII23ts

— ♡ Atang Agwe ♡ (@atangagwe) March 14, 2018

me: smoking weed hasn’t affected me at all

someone: count to 10

me: pic.twitter.com/SUoGzARpom

— 𝒶𝒹𝒶𝓂 (@brokeangeI) March 13, 2018