The Leader of Opposition, Mathias Mpuuga (pictured) has defended the decision by Parliament to request for more funds for allowances of MPs, arguing that the initial unavailability of the funds had curtailed legislators’ oversight roles.
Mpuuga made the remarks while addressing journalists at Parliament on Tuesday.
When asked by journalists to respond to the decision by Parliamentary Commission to increase allowances of MPs by Shs193bn, the Leader of Opposition, who is also member of the Parliamentary Commission, explained that MPs’ salaries are statutory and set, and allowances are paid for work done and the decision to increase the allowances followed shortages in allowances that bogged Parliament in the first session and this latest move was to avoid such a scenario in future.
“One of the things we encountered in the last session is that the Commission didn’t have money, you could have detected that committees never did work; they were never in the field and part of the reason was that we didn’t have money. So we requested for more money, now it will be upon the users of this money to plan for this money to give parliament this output,” Mpuuga said.
He further defended the increment saying, “I don’t feel any guilt about someone getting an allowance for a task given and accomplished that is why it is an allowance not a salary.”
The development comes at the time Speaker Among protested contents of the letter from the Ministry of Finance that had indicated that in the next financial year 2022/2023, Parliament would have to operate without inland travels and travels abroad.
This followed a similar move in the current budget of 2021/2022 where the Ministry of Finance implemented budget cuts to a tune of Shs203.417Bn against the Parliament budget amongst other 321 entities that suffered similar cuts.
The other entities that suffered budget cuts include; Ministry of Finance whose Shs25.961Bn that the Ministry had set aside for travel abroad was taken away. Next victim was Parliament that had Shs24.567Bn removed, while Judiciary lost Shs2.029Bn, National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) and Uganda revenue Authority Shs8.832Bn.
Article 85 of the Constitution empowers MPs to determine their emoluments, a privilege no other public officials enjoy. And according to the latest rates, MPs are paid USD700 about Shs2.4 Million for travels abroad, while in land travels fetch MPs Shs450,000 in per diem.
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