President Museveni has approved an annual funding of Shs35b to Inter-Party Organisation (IPOD). This will increase the funding from Shs10 billion in the coming financial year 2019/2020.
The money is meant to cover the political parties’ administrative costs at both national and district offices.
The decision to increase the funding was reached by political party heads during the second IPOD Summit that took place on Monday at Protea Hotel, Entebbe.
The leaders included, National Resistance Movement (NRM)’s Yoweri Museveni, Democratic Party (DP)’s Norbert Mao, Uganda Peoples’ Congress (UPC)’s Jimmy Akena and Justice Forum (Jeema)’s Muhammad Kibirige Mayanja who represented Asuman Basalirwa.
Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) snubbed the meeting for a second consecutive time.
Reading a joint communiqué, Mao, the IPOD summit Chairperson said that IPOD shall get 15 per cent of the Shs35 billion whereas parties shall receive basing on numerical strength in Parliament.
“All parties in parliament will get an equal share for running offices of the same strength from the headquarters up to the district level [basic administrative costs].
“The public funding to political parties in the opposition shall be distributed in accordance with the numbers as opposed to one element of the opposition and the amount that goes to the leader of opposition shall be allocated 40 per cent equally and 60 per cent committed based numeric strength,” revealed Mao.
During the summit, Mr Museveni reportedly also agreed to the proposal to amend the Public Order Management Act (POMA), which the Opposition said is being used by police to block their meetings.
The political parties were concerned about Section 5 of the Act, which provides that the Inspector General of Police shall be notified about a public meeting or gathering by anyone or political group organising such a meeting at least three days before or not more than 15 days before the proposed date.
On the other hand, the summit also adopted a draft bill on the regulation of independents as proposed by the National Consultative Forum where an individual is required to resign from a political party 12 months prior to general elections, and that once an individual loses an election in the primaries, he or she should not take part in the general elections among others.
On his part, President Museveni said he was happy with the initiative because he always believes in dialogue.
“We always believe in dialogue. If dialogue was given a priority, Uganda would have avoided a lot of problems. You cannot be in leadership and you say that you do not want to talk, for me when you call me for a dialogue I will be there in the next morning,” said Museveni.
