Uganda Parliament Allocates Shs 20m ($5330) to Each MP to Fight Covid-19.

Members of the 10th Parliament (MPs) have each been earmarked a total of Shs 20m to help them fight the spread of COVID-19 in the country.

It should be noted that last week Parliament passed a supplementary budget of Shs 304bn that was tendered in by government to help finance several activities in the fight against Corona virus.

The supplementary budget was meant to cater for the activities under the emergency response to COVID-19 under several agencies including; Health (HQs, Referral Hospitals, District Hospitals, DMOs), Security (UPDF, Police, Prisons, ISO, ESO, Immigration), Local Government (RDCs and Districts), KCCA, Disaster preparedness/ Support to the vulnerable.

Parliament however used its discretionally powers to make several reallocations of the funds and as such allocated a total of Shs10b to the institution of Parliament.

While speaking during a television interview, the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga justified the allocation of funds to Parliament and later to Members of Parliament noting that they need to facilitate the ambulances which they handed over to the Ministry of Health.

“We have ambulances which are commandeered by the Ministry of Health, these belong to us, we pay the workers, we maintain them and now they have been handed over to the National Task force; the members were getting expenses of now sending money for fuel, the driver and it had become a burden to the MPs,” Kadaga said.

The Speaker noted that she was approached by several legislators who noted that this had become a burden and they need some support from the Parliament commission budget.

“I said, I didn’t budget for this in the Parliamentary budget and this is a campaign that were are in together, so let us get money from the supplementary budget and support the members to make sure that the ambulances are in the field,” Kadaga explained.

She added that the legislators also need funding to sensitize the citizens against the virus in their local languages.

However, government has just extended the partial lockdown for the next 21 days. All public gatherings are prohibited to combat the spread of corona virus.