Ninth Parliament demons back to haunt new MPs

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga recently reminded Ugandans of Marie Antoinette, bride of France’s King Louis XVI, who was immortalised by the French Revolution, a seminal area of study for Uganda’s history students.
Confronted by pupils of St Catherine Junior School, Mukono Municipality, who held a drama and music competition under the theme “Say No to Corruption” with particular emphasis on what they termed as “greed” that has bogged down MPs, the Speaker responded that if Ugandans are unhappy with the Shs150m car grant, the government can now buy cars worth Shs450m. Phew, what a proposal!

“Let them buy the cars, new ones at Shs450m for each member. This arrangement of Shs150m is to reduce the expenditure of government. If the public does not want the government to give us the money, government should buy the cars. New ones,” Ms Kadaga said, triggering an instant avalanche of criticism.
Parallels were quickly drawn between Ms Kadaga’s proposals and the unfeeling Marie Antoinette who told starving French peasants to eat cake if they could not afford bread. The Speaker was in effect saying if the citizens feel that Shs150m is too much to spend on luxury vehicles for MPs, then the government should buy Shs450m cars for our 432 MPs.

There is unanimity that MPs must be facilitated to do the work they are elected to do. But, with the size of our economy, how much money should MPs get to purchase luxury vehicles?
As economic conditions bite the rank and file Ugandan harder and harder, MPs are using the slightest of opportunities to line their pockets and insulate themselves from the fiscal rigors that the economy is facing.
This week it came to the fore that Parliament Commissioners secretly convened and mooted a proposal to increase their car grant from Shs150m to Shs200m.This has shot the money up from Shs64b to Shs87b. In the 9th Parliament, MPs were given Shs103m eash for cars but that had been increased to Shs150m to cater for the variations in the dollar exchange rate.

No reason was given for the increment that was inked during a meeting with President Museveni, who has also been criticised for watching as MPs live large at the expense of a struggling taxpayer.
To add insult to injury, MPs are opposed to a demand by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to impose a tax on the car grant.

Lunch bills
And just as the news of an increment in the car grant money was yet to sink in, it emerged that MPs would now not worry about lunch as Parliament would clear their lunch bills.
Parliament Commission agreed to pay for MPs’ lunch, meaning about Shs4.3m could be spent on food every day MPs are at Parliament.

The argument being flouted by House authorities for clearing the bills of MPs’ lunch is debatable. Ostensibly, the commission says buying for MPs lunch will ensure that they do not vanish from Parliament to look for cheap lunch. That Parliament wants to provide lunch for MPs to ensure that by the time plenary starts at 2pm, the House is ready to conduct business and will not be derailed by absence of MPs as they run around looking for cheap lunch.
But an MP who earns an average consolidated pay of anywhere between Shs20m to Shs25m (before taxes) should surely afford Shs10,000 lunch at the Parliament canteen.

The August update from Bank of Uganda indicates that inflation for food crops and related items rose from 3.2 in June to 5.2 in August. So, the average Ugandan will have to worry about the next lunch but not the MP!
When a delegation of the Parliamentary Commission appeared before the Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to defend its budget in March, Mr William Nokrach (PWDs, Northern), insisted that allowances for “lunch [had] came on the paper [budget] by mistake.” He told the committee to ignore the allowances.
What is the source of the money that a commissioner claimed was included in the budget by mistake? Your guess is as good as mine.

Attendance of plenary has always been an Achilles’ heel for Parliament and many tricks have been tried to root out this evil, with little success. Buying lunch for MPs to cajole them into attending plenary is the latest trick. But will it work?
Angered by MPs’ deceitfulness, Speaker Kadaga once revealed the tricks employed by MPs to make a quick buck from plenary allowances. They sign the attendance register even when they dodge plenary sessions, backdate their signatures to days when they were not at Parliament or even sign and leave Parliament, Ms Kadaga revealed.
The Speaker warned that MPs caught in such indiscretions would have their allowances for plenary sessions deducted.
To definitively deal with the vice of MPs dodging plenary, the Speaker had proposed a requirement where MPs can only sign for the plenary session for the opening one hour pending the instalment of an electronic device where MPs can check in and out of the chambers.

In the 9th Parliament, disgrace visited the House when the Speaker shamed more than 100 MPs, including ministers, who signed for sitting allowances for attending plenary and then vanished into thin air. Some 247 MPs out of the total of 375 signed the attendance register but less than 30 were in the chamber.
In a nutshell, MPs who sign the register book and dodge plenary will not be coaxed into attending because of lunch.

Bribery claims
At the House, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The demons that haunted the 9th Parliament are back to torment the 10th Parliament. It’s a classic case of an old script with new actors. With the 10th Parliament barely three months old, bribery claims that were a common feature in the predecessor Parliament are already making rounds.

In the 9th Parliament, the Rules Committee investigated MPs that were suspected of being compromised to vote against the termination of power distributor Umeme’s 20-year concession.
A report by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) also pinpointed an MP for pocketing $20,000 (about Shs67 million) from British American Tobacco (BAT) company as an inducement to doctor a parliamentary report. It was a common feature for MPs to be named in a bribery scandal. The 10th Parliament has just picked the bribery baton from where the 9th Parliament stopped.

Kilak North MP Anthony Akol this week accused some MPs of pocketing bribes to support the controversial motion by the Nakifuma County MP Robert Ssekitoleko seeking leave to prepare the Constitutional Amendments Bill.
Ms Annet Nyakecho (NRM, Tororo), one of the accused MPs, has admitted taking Shs1 million and a 25kg bag of sugar but insists it was a lobby from Mayuge Sugar Factory for the MPs to support the Sugar Bill when it comes to Parliament.

When the House resumes next week, Speaker Kadaga will have to offer guidance on what action will be taken against the MPs as the public clamour for them to be investigated.