The Civil Division of the High court has halted the release of the Shs10bn to Members of Parliament until the hearing of the application challenging the money allocation which is scheduled for the 29th April.
The order was made by Lady Justice Esta Nambayo on Tuesday.
“The monies in the sum of Shs10,000,000,000 appropriated to the 1st respondent under the Impugned amendment to the report of the Budget Committee in supplementary Expenditure Schedules No. 2 Addendum 1 and 2 for the FY 2019/2020 remain undistributed until the determination of Miscellaneous Application No.179 of 2020,” She said.
Lady Justice Nambayo also ordered that if the monies were already released to MP that they should not spend it.
“If already paid the Members of Parliament are ordered not dissipate or spend the same until the hearing and final determination of Miscellaneous Application No.179 of 2020 or until further orders of this honourable Court,” she said,
Last week, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga said that Shs10 billion was allocated to facilitate the House and MPs for Covid-19 emergencies.
Kadaga said the money is part of the Shs304 billion supplementary budget that was passed by Parliament last week.
“The Members were getting calls for expenses on fuel and it had now become a burden to the MPs. They came here saying ‘find us some money from Parliamentary budget. Part of this money will also be spent by the committees of Parliament, which are following up on the Ministry of Health’s fight against Covid-19 and facilitating MPs who sit on the national task force,” she said.
However, this move was opposed by the public and this forced Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga and Erute North MP Jonathan Odur petition to the Hig court opposing the move by Parliament to get this free money.
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