Work for stability, Museveni tells opponents 

President Museveni, who also doubles as the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Party national chairman, has called upon all political parties in Uganda to work together and resolve issues affecting the country.

 Mr Museveni, who is also the  chairperson of the Interparty Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD), said despite the political differences, parties should take the lead in the promotion of peace and stability in the country.
 The President, who was meeting the IPOD Council of Secretaries General of member parties at State House, Entebbe, noted that although forum brings together all political parties represented in Parliament, some do not want to cooperate with others and therefore, should not qualify for government funding.

 “It should even be put in the law that those who don’t want to be part of the forum, should not share that money,” he stressed.  According to the IPOD council chairperson, Mr  Richard Todwong, the National Unity Platform (NUP) gets more funding than the Uganda People’s Congres (UPC), Democratic Party and Justice Forum (JEEMA),  yet they don’t want to cooperate.
 At the May 2019 IPOD summit, Mr Museveni committed to increase funding to political parties from Shs10b to Shs35b and to review the modalities of allocation of the said funding to a more equitable formula that takes into account the day-to-day activities of the parties, administrative expenses and the need to finance joint activities under the forum.

READ: IPOD: Is NRM dominance a bully to other parties?

Mr  Todwong thanked the President for ensuring that more funding is availed in accordance with the promise.
 “Indeed, the Shs35b was passed by Parliament in a supplementary budget for funding of political parties under the IPOD arrangement,” he  said.

 He, however, added that in the January-March quarter, Shs23b of the Shs35b was released by the Ministry of Finance, which the Electoral Commission (EC) again allocated to the seven political parties in Parliament, in accordance with their numerical strength contrary to the resolution of the March 2021 IPOD summit.
 According to the allocation, NRM got Shs17 billion (74 percent), NUP got Shs3.1 billion (13.5 percent), Forum for Democratic Change got Shs1.7 billion (7.4 percent), DP and UPC each got Shs485 million (2.1 percent).  JEEMA and PPP received Shs53m (0.2 percent).

But President Museveni maintained his earlier position that 15 percent of the total amount should be shared equally among member parties for administrative expenses, another 15 percent  be allocated to the IPOD secretariat for joint activities for the member parties and 70 percent be allocated based on numerical strength of parliamentary representation of member parties.
The President also agreed to meet the IPOD Council of Secretaries General every four months.