Kadaga, relocate to Kenya
Jul 05, 2006
SIR — Uganda if full of surprises. This week we got a pleasant one when President Yoweri Museveni refused to assent to a parliamentary bill giving MPs hefty pensions. Could it be that poverty is beginning to bite and the treasury is empty and that is why the president acted?
SIR — Uganda if full of surprises. This week we got a pleasant one when President Yoweri Museveni refused to assent to a parliamentary bill giving MPs hefty pensions. Could it be that poverty is beginning to bite and the treasury is empty and that is why the president acted?
Deputy Speaker Rebecca Kadaga however raises some issues which I want her to understand.
Kadaga says Ugandan MPs earn little compared to their counterparts in the region, that she earns less than a back-bencher in Kenya yet she is deputy speaker here. She tries to use this argument to justify a pay rise! How absurd! Madam Speaker, that is Kenya and this is Uganda.
If every Ugandan (teacher, nurse, university professor, doctor, mechanic) wanted to earn as their Kenyan counterparts we would get nowhere.
These are different economies, different GDPs, different incomes and different countries. Stop this nonsense of ‘like in Kenya.’
Fortunately for Kadaga, she is a very competent lawyer. She can resign her seat, cross over to Kenya, set up a law firm or get a job in a corporation.
That way she can earn ‘as the Kenyans do’.
The only sad thing is that she cannot be deputy speaker (or even back-bencher) in Kenya, but she could do thousands of other jobs and earn ‘like the Kenyans’. Kenya has a bigger population and economy but still has fewer MPs than the 305 we have in Uganda. If Kadaga can move a motion reducing the number of MPs to 80, I will be the first to support a salary raise. Uganda’s cost of administration is too high, and MPs are largely responsible for this mess.
They are the ones who authorised that the number of ministers be increased from the 44 suggested in the constitution to 69. It is the MPs who create new districts and allow the president to appoint hundreds of RDCs and ‘advisers’. Until they can check this spending, what right do they have to demand a pay rise?
I am sure Kadaga knows that money does not grow on a gooseberry bush. Take heart Rebecca, we are all poorly paid but we have to grin and bear it.
Nsekabuseka Muruhanga
Masindi
Deputy Speaker Rebecca Kadaga however raises some issues which I want her to understand.
Kadaga says Ugandan MPs earn little compared to their counterparts in the region, that she earns less than a back-bencher in Kenya yet she is deputy speaker here. She tries to use this argument to justify a pay rise! How absurd! Madam Speaker, that is Kenya and this is Uganda.
If every Ugandan (teacher, nurse, university professor, doctor, mechanic) wanted to earn as their Kenyan counterparts we would get nowhere.
These are different economies, different GDPs, different incomes and different countries. Stop this nonsense of ‘like in Kenya.’
Fortunately for Kadaga, she is a very competent lawyer. She can resign her seat, cross over to Kenya, set up a law firm or get a job in a corporation.
That way she can earn ‘as the Kenyans do’.
The only sad thing is that she cannot be deputy speaker (or even back-bencher) in Kenya, but she could do thousands of other jobs and earn ‘like the Kenyans’. Kenya has a bigger population and economy but still has fewer MPs than the 305 we have in Uganda. If Kadaga can move a motion reducing the number of MPs to 80, I will be the first to support a salary raise. Uganda’s cost of administration is too high, and MPs are largely responsible for this mess.
They are the ones who authorised that the number of ministers be increased from the 44 suggested in the constitution to 69. It is the MPs who create new districts and allow the president to appoint hundreds of RDCs and ‘advisers’. Until they can check this spending, what right do they have to demand a pay rise?
I am sure Kadaga knows that money does not grow on a gooseberry bush. Take heart Rebecca, we are all poorly paid but we have to grin and bear it.
Nsekabuseka Muruhanga
Masindi