Concurrent elections would cut down costs

Mar 06, 2005

THE Government’s proposal to amend the Constitution in order to provide for the compensation of the members of the current Parliament when their term of office is cut short in order to expire at the same time with President Museveni’s term in May 2006, is incomprehensible.

John Kakande

THE Government’s proposal to amend the Constitution in order to provide for the compensation of the members of the current Parliament when their term of office is cut short in order to expire at the same time with President Museveni’s term in May 2006, is incomprehensible.

But it is not surprising that all the MPs have chosen not to talk about it. While they agree with the proposal, they realise it raises serious ethical questions and won’t go down well with the electorate.

Clause 112 of the Constitutional (Amendment) Bill seeks to shorten the term of Parliament to expire on the same date as that of the incumbent President. It further provides for compensation for the MPs ‘for loss of employment’ when the term of Parliament is cut short.

It is proposed that ‘the amount of compensation to be paid to an MP shall be equal to the salary and allowances that the MP would have earned if he or she had continued to be a member until the date on which the term of Parliament in question would normally have ended.’

Attorney General and minister of justice and constitutional affairs, Dr Khiddu Makubuya argues that an MP was elected to serve for five years. He adds that it is only reasonable to compensate the MPs in order ‘to forfeit a few months of their term in the national interest.

Proposal to hold concurrent presidential, parliamentary and local council elections is good because it will reduce election costs. Besides, there was a feeling that previous parliamentary and local government elections were influenced by the outcome of the presidential elections. The concurrent elections will eliminate this problem.

There were complaints during previous parliamentary and local council elections that the President spent a lot of time campaigning against opposition candidates. With the concurrent elections, the President will hardly have time to do this since he will also be preoccupied hunting for his own votes.
The term of Parliament is set to expire in July 2006. But President Museveni’s term expires in May 2006.

It means the Parliament’s term will have to be shortened by two months. Under the proposal, each MP will still get paid for the two months. The MPs’ earnings range between seven and eight million shillings a month. Each member would walk away with over sh14m. The taxpayer will therefore part with over sh4.2b to pay ‘compensation’ to the 305 MPs.

It is legitimate to pay sitting and subsistence allowances to MPs as part of lost earnings. A member is not supposed to receive subsistence and sitting allowances when the House is on recess.

Note that MPs don’t pay taxes on subsistence allowance because this allowance is not regarded as an income. An MP receives subsistence allowance purposely to meet his or her accommodation bills when he or she comes to Kampala to transact legislative business. It will therefore, be unethical for MPs to treat subsistence allowance as earnings.

It is important also to realise that MPs will not be transacting official work starting January, but will get paid. Under the revised transition roadmap, the presidential and parliamentary candidates will be nominated in December this year. This implies that starting January 2006, candidates will be busy campaigning.

Parliament won’t therefore transact any business from January to March when the elections will be held. Yet the members would receive their emoluments possibly in full. It will be improper again to pay the members compensation for the so called ‘lost employment’. It will be morally repugnant to pay colossal amounts of money to the MPs for free.

Besides, the Government will be accused of seeking to buy off the MPs. The proposed compensation could be perceived as direct financial reward to the MPs to support the lifting of the presidential two-term limit (kisanja). The proposal also raises the issue of conflict of interest. Is it proper that MPs approve for themselves compensation?

jkakande@newvision.co.ug

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