PAYMENT ALERTS: Allowances for Gulu Sitting Deposited on MPs’ Bank Accounts. See How Much

Uganda’s Parliamentary Commission has deposited on all MPs’ accounts Gulu sitting allowances, according to an opposition lawmaker, as the speaker and her team insisted on a contentious move to conduct regional plenary sittings in the name of bridging the gap between the institution and the people it represents.

Sittings will happen today through Friday, according to the program. Several MPs have travelled to the northern Uganda city of Gulu for the first regional sitting of parliament.

But some in the opposition have vowed not to step foot in Gulu. One of such is Nansana Municipality MP Musoke Wakayima who says the money spent on regional sitting should have been put to better use.

Like fixing city roads and improving service delivery across the country. Other people have argued that the money earmarked for the regional sitting should have gone to facilitate medical interns who now have to wait an extra year before being placed. (See Details Here and There).

Even President Museveni has recently suggested that parents should shoulder the burden of internship placements for doctors.

“Why don’t we agree that a person who has qualified as a medical doctor after five years in the medical school, continues with the internship but with sponsorship from the person who sponsored him in the first place?” Museveni wondered as he met post medical interns after they had completed ideological training at Kyankwanzi.

“What is the problem? If someone was sponsoring you for five years, why does he stop now?”

Back to the allowances for MPs, Wakayima says each of the 556 members of parliament has received his or her allowance amounting to Shs1.5m.

That translates into up to Shs834m in allowances for MPs for the Gulu sitting.

For those who will skip the Gulu sitting, the money is expected to be hewed from their bank accounts.

“I don’t see the reason why people should be worried about the allowances. It is automatic, once you don’t do government work, next month, that money is deducted and it is taken,” said Wakayima.

“Whether I get it from the Bank to give it to the officers of Parliament, it will be automatically taken. The money that has been wired to the accounts of MPs is Shs1.5m and this is on the assumption that each day, you spend around Shs400,000,” noted Wakayima.

“So, they should hurry and reclaim their money, in fact they have delayed.”

Other opposition MPs like Jimmy Lwanga (Njeru), Veronica Nanyondo (Bukomansimbi), Abed Bwanika (Kimanya-Kabonera), Bashir Kazibwe (Kawempe South) and Twaha Kagabo (Bukoto South) are attending the Gulu sitting.

Abed Bwanika, who belongs to Bobi Wine’s NUP, has explained why he thinks it is not a clever move for the main opposition party to boycott the sittings. (See Details Here).

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