Govt Slashes Spending For MPs Payrise

BY Felix Osike THE Ministry of Finance has slashed 15% of some ministry’s budgets to cater for the recent MPs’ payrise expected to cost billions of shillings, sources said yesterday. Parliament on October 29 passed a resolution awarding a 40% payrise to the 304 Members of Parliament and ministers. “We have to cut the ministries budgets and of other programmes like the Poverty Action Funds to meet the MPs demands,” said a source who sought anonymity. The source said some districts might also be affected although the defence budget would not. The source said there was a shortfall in revenue this financial year. Effective this month, an MP will earn sh4.7m up from sh3.5m. This excludes sitting and mileage allowance. The MPs will also get sh20m from the Government for transport facilitation and a gratuity of 30% of the annual salary. An MP’s monthly salary now stands at sh1,461,000; mileage at sh1,042 per kilometre on murram and sh868 on tarmac; and subsistence allowance of sh104,000, up from sh80,000. An MP will also get a monthly constituency mobilisation allowance of sh150,000 and sh200,000 for special interest group MPs. Members will also be paid sitting allowance for committee meetings varying from sh10,000 for members to sh15,000 for committee chairpersons. State minister for finance Isaac Musumba, who moved the motion, had said the increment was too small to affect the Treasury. The Uganda Debt Network and Forum for Integrity in Democracy described the payrise as “unreasonable, selfish and unacceptable.” “This is at the expense of national priorities for poverty eradication and the plight of the poor,” chairman Vincent Edoku said recently. The Speaker gets a sh6.55m consolidated taxable monthly pay and subsistence allowance. Ends