The opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) from the National Unity Platform (NUP), Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), and other parties have silently received sitting allowances for regional Parliamentary sessions despite announcing a boycott of the planned sittings.
According to a reliable source in Parliament, allowances have been disbursed to the bank accounts of all MPs to facilitate them for the regional sittings, which will take place in Gulu for the northern region, Mbale for the eastern region, Masaka for central Uganda, and Mbarara for the western region.
“All MPs, regardless of their political parties, have received their allowances for regional sittings, and we are expecting fair representation from all the political parties at all the sittings in the different regions,” the source confirmed, adding that no MP has boycotted the allowance.
On August 6, 2024, the Leader of Opposition (LOP) in parliament, Joel Ssenyonyi, together with the shadow cabinet, announced that they were going to boycott regional parliamentary sittings, citing wasteful expenditure.
LOP said parliament was to spend at least Shs 5 billion on the regional parliamentary sittings, yet the money can be diverted to other urgent issues, such as medical interns, the majority of whom were not deployed by then due to a lack of funds.
However, Ssenyonyi and all members of the shadow cabinet are still holding on to the allowances disbursed for the regional sittings, despite their earlier concerns about parliament’s wasteful spending.
It is not yet known whether the MPs who are planning to boycott the sittings will refund the money, but on multiple occasions, opposition parliamentarians have collected numerous allowances despite publicly criticizing them.