A concerned citizen has petitioned the Constitutional court challenging the planned purchase of vehicles for members of the tenth Parliament.
Sanywa Twaha, a resident of Kajjansi, says that the move is erroneous because it creates differential treatment between the three arms of government (judiciary, executive, legislature) and reduces the level of wealth available to general public.
According to a budget outline by the Parliamentary Commission, each of the 427 MPs will receive an allocation of Shs 150m for the purchase of a personal vehicle to use when carrying out their official duties.
The total cost is estimated at Shs 64bn, an increment of over Shs 25bn from the same budget line in the ninth parliament.
At least Shs 38.6bn was spent on vehicles in the ninth Parliament that had a total of 375 members. Each vehicle for an MP in the 9th parliament was budgeted at a cost Shs 103m.
Sanywa says that MPs receive a monthly salary and amenities that includes housing, transport, medical, domestic servants and secretarial services, which he says puts them in a privileged position to buy themselves cars.
He believes that like the rest of other arms of government like judiciary and executive, parliament can equally acquire means of transport by public procurement to facilitate their duties pursuant to Public Procurement and Disposal of Public assets law.
Sanywa wants court to declare that using consolidated funds to buy cars for MPs is discriminatory and unconstitutional.
Source