The High Court Civil Division in Kampala has issued an injunction stopping the Parliamentary Commission from dispensing the Sh.10Bn to Members of Parliament, which is meant to help them fight the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in their respective constituencies.
Ntungamo Municipality MP, Gerald Karuhanga and Erute South legislator Jonathan Odur petitioned court seeking to halt the Parliamentary Commission from paying Shs10bn to MPs to fight Covid-19.
In the Petition filed against the Parliamentary Commission and the Attorney General, Karuhanga and Odur contend that giving the said contentious money to MPs during this COVID-19 lockdown is not only unfair but also illegal, because it is tantamount to corruption and looting state resources
They say the money was just smuggled into the report by the budget committee chairperson Amos Lugoloobi without the consent of the committee members.
Each MP is expected to get Shs20m from this money which was part of the Shs304bn supplementary budget passed on April 4.
Karuhanga and Odur say the Shs10bn was deducted from the Health supplementary budget that was to be used in the fight against Covid-19.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED as follows;
Miscellaneous Application No 179 of 2020 for a temporary injunction be and is hereby set down for hearing on 29th April at 11:00Am.
That until the hearing and determination of Miscellaneous Application No 179 of 2020, the status quo pursuant to paragraphs 16, 17, 18 and 19 of the Affidavit of Gerald Karuhanga sworn in support of this application be maintained i.e the monies in the sum of the UGX10,000,000,000 (Uganda Shillings Ten Billions) 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 or if already paid, the Members of Parliament are ordered not to dissipate or spend the same until the hearing and final determination of Miscellaneous Application No. 179 of 2020 or until further orders of this Honorable Court.”
Close to 17,000 people signed an online petition challenging the allocation of Shs10 billion to members of Parliament (MPs), to fight the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19).
The petition, is spearheaded by Sarah Kiyingi, the former state minister for Internal Affairs.
Kiyingi says that whereas she does not doubt the role MPs can play in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, she believes that the allocation is misplaced.
The petition is addressed to President Museveni, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga, and Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda.
The petition has so far received 17,000 out of the 25,000 required signatures.
Kiyingi says in the petition that given the lockdown, MPs are unlikely to be effective mobilisers since most of them are not in their constituencies and their targeted constituents cannot be reached because of the social distancing guidelines that were issued by the government.
Kiyingi proposed that the money should be sent to the National COVID-19 Taskforce and the Ministry of Health which are the lead agencies in the fight against COVID-19.
