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The Democratic Party (DP) has called for the reduction of Members of Parliament (MPs) to 300.

The Opposition political party says the move, will see the number of MPs fall from the current 556, to reduce the Government expenditure.

DP argues that Parliament has become Uganda’s biggest challenge as far as expenditure is concerned.

"The Government is struggling to raise money for the 2024/2025 financial year budget that is estimated at shillings 58. 34 trillion," acting DP spokesperson Ismail Kirya said. 

Finance ministry permanent secretary Ramathan Ggoobi had earlier proposed budget cuts on Parliament, which Kirya described as a good gesture to reduce government costs.

During the party’s weekly media briefing on Tuesday, April 2, 2024, Kirya said this will have little impact on the new budget if the bigger problem, which is the huge Parliament remains overlooked. According to him, MPs earn shillings 35 million, which is far higher than what is paid to most legislators in Europe. They are, therefore, according to him posing a high burden to taxpayers to sustain them.

“As the MPs are trying to prepare the budget we want to interest them in reducing or looking at areas where we are going to reduce administrative costs of government,” Kirya said.

He said that in the Electoral Commission (EC) Roadmap, the commission is planning again to have more demarcations of the constituencies, which he says should be stopped.

“We don’t see relevance in entertaining more constituencies. We have some constituencies which are covering only two sub-counties and whose MPs are representing only 40,000 people, which is a small number to be represented by an MP,” Kirya added.

Furthermore, he says the big size has made Parliament ineffective in addressing issues affecting the people since legislators are accorded little time to speak.

According to him, because of the vast Parliament, absenteeism has thrived since members are not rendered enough time to raise their matters in the House.

Excessive taxation

Reacting to the new tax proposals for the next financial year by the Government, Kirya said every year Parliament introduces a new tax and that now it is discussing taxes on land and houses and the tax they're adding on fuel.

DP called on the Government to first evaluate how the tax will affect the ordinary Ugandan before introducing it.

“Many Ugandans are unable to save from their work. They are working for food and rent,” he said.