By Otim Nape
Coalescing under civil society budget advocacy group, leaders of the NGO community have castigated the GoU for authorizing the spending of Shs166.8bn on the purchase of new cars for each of the 529 MPs who Uganda will be having under the 12th parliament (2026-2031).
Each MP will be given Shs315.3m for the purchase of a good car to enable him or her move around freely and comfortably. Even when the law mandates government to avail chauffeur-driven vehicles for every MP, the practice of the leadership at Parliament has been to just provide money for each MP to buy, manage and service their own vehicle.
And even when CSOs think the money should be expended on more inclusive and life-changing things like boosting the country’s emergency services, such as buying enough ambulances for the health system, the practice of MPs getting money to buy their own vehicles isn’t new. It’s been with us for now 25 years having started in 2001 during the pendency of the 7th Parliament.
In 2001, MPs of the 7th Parliament (totaling 326 of them) were each given Shs20m to buy a vehicle-and that is 25 years ago. In the 8th Parliament (2006-2011 with 375 of them), it was raised to Shs60m. Under the 9th Parliament (2011-2016 with 432 of them), it was raised to Shs103m and to Shs150m under the 10th Parliament (2016-2021) which had 449 MPs.
During the soon-ending 11th Parliament (2021-2021), which has a total of 529 MPs, the offer was Shs200m. It’s now being increased to Shs315m per MP under the 12th Parliament (2026-2031) in order to reflect inflationary changes in the economy whereby everything has naturally become more expensive today than was the case five years ago.
The decision to enlarge the grant from Shs200m per MP to Shs315m was this week unanimously supported by all MPs who sit on the Budget & Legal Affairs Committees of Parliament. And this was the case regardless of party affiliation.
The wisdom behind this was that life has generally become more expensive today than was the case 5 years ago and being very important people, who go through a lot to land the privilege of being called Honorable member, MPs deserve to live decently by virtue of the office they occupy.(For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
