The Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has explained why legislators allocated Shs10 billion to fight COVID19.
Kadaga said the money was part of the Shs304 billion supplementary budget passed by Parliament and they took a decision to take the cut because they [MPs] are also actively taking part in the fight against the pandemic so they needed facilitation.
The Speaker also said individual MPs also released their ambulance to bolster the district taskforces in the COVID-19 fight so part of the Shs10 billion will be used to maintain the ambulances and provide fuel and allowances for the drivers.
“We are looking into constituents’ needs by providing food, water tanks among others,” she said while appearing on NBS TV on Wednesday.
Parliament is currently under fire after the MPs this week quietly allocated themselves Shs10 billion, even cutting the health budget by Shs5 billion to come up with the figure.
On Wednesday, four time presidential candidate Dr Kizza Besigye criticized MPs for taking such a move.
According to Dr Besigye, whereas leaders in other countries are contributing to the government in this period, those in Uganda are busy exploiting taxpayers.
“Surely, what’s wrong with Uganda’s leaders? Everywhere in the world, leaders are donating their earnings to help the COVID19 fight,” he said.
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