High court judge Micheal Elubu has ordered Members of Parliament to return the contentious Shs10 billion they allocated themselves to reportedly help in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in their respective constituencies.
The order follows a consensus reached in court this afternoon by the parliamentary commission, Attorney General and Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga that the money should not be kept on MP’s individual bank accounts but rather be brought back to public control by either channeling it through the Parliamentary commission or be handed to the national district covid-19 task forces.
“The funds be paid to the district Covid-19 task force in which the Members of Parliament are incorporated through the Chief Administrative Officer and MPs representing special interest groups shall pay the funds to the national task force,” justice Elubu ordered.
Since the decision to share shs10 billion among themselves, Members of Parliament have been on the receiving end of a backlash from members of the public.
On Tuesday, President Museveni said the MPs laid a trap for themselves for allocating the money to themselves.
“We had planned in another way and you come and change! It is not a good way. It is morally reprehensible for MPs to give themselves money for personal use when the country is in such a crisis; and totally unacceptable to me and to the NRM,” Museveni said.
“I met the speaker and told her they had entered themselves into trap and best way to get out is not spending them money on themselves. We agreed they take the money and donate it to district task force where they come from.”
Last week, Karuhanga secured an interim order blocking fellow MPs from touching this money which he believes was wrongly wired to their individual bank accounts in batches of Shs20 million each as part of an approved Shs104bn supplementary budget for the fight against the pandemic.
Karuhanga is now left with the main case in which he questions the manner in which MPs amended and smuggled a clause into the supplementary budget to allocate themselves Shs10 billion.
The Shs10 billion the MPs allocated to themselves drew public criticism as they were seen by the president and a section of the public to be stealing from the poor.
