The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has castigated the government for continuously giving money to members of parliament, ministers, and other government officials to buy cars, proposing that MPs should instead be given the group interest-free loans, which can be deducted from their salaries.
On Tuesday last week, Parliament disbursed Shs200million to the 529 legislators and an additional 26 ex-officio members to buy cars of their choice.
The cash is part of the entitlements that legislators get throughout their five-year term.
However, this caused public outrage where the government was faulted for releasing such money at the time when Uganda needed money to procure vaccines.
The MPs were asked by the public to return the money they received so that it can be used in the fight against Covid-19.
Speaking to the media in Kampala, FDC spokesperson, Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda said, that the idea of free vehicles and free money is very costly to a needy country like Uganda where the size of Parliament keeps on growing.
“It is not mandatory that each MP must buy a car, there are those who actually don’t buy them. If we are dealing with 50 members of Parliament maybe one can understand but 529 MPs including ex officials is a luxury. Don’t give MPs free vehicles, don’t give free vehicles to public servants, just extend loans for those who want to buy,” he suggested.
“I don’t think there is any public servant who would want to borrow shs600million to go and buy a land cruiser but because they are given out with free fuel, drivers and maintenance, every department now keeps on demanding new vehicles. We need to go to the zero-fleet policy,” he added.
FDC also asked the government to relax the lockdown measures to allow citizens access their work places and business adding that even public transport can resume under strict standard operating procedures.
However, the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Immunization asked President Museveni together with the national task force against Covid-19 not to risk lifting the lockdown when the 42 days elapse this week.
Veronica Kadogo, the Chairperson of the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Immunization explained that lifting the lockdown when the country has not met the required 50% of immunized Ugandans will be a risk to the Country and may cause more infections and death as a result of Covid-19