The Christian Mission Church lead Pastor Samuel Lubega has called for a reduction in the number of Members of Parliament to at least 300 to save Ugandan tax payers money.
The current eleventh Parliament has 529 elected MPs and 27 ex-officio members – the largest Parliament in East Africa by far – having grown from 445 lawmakers in the 10th parliament yet audits by the African Leadership Institute (AFLI), a governance monitoring organization, show there is no evidence of increased effectiveness in a big parliament.
With a population of 45 million people and the current, Lubega says Uganda clearly has an oversized parliament and there is need to reduce public expenditure on the legislature and concurrently save Ugandan taxpayers, where money would be invested in a wide range of social services and productive sectors of the economy.
‘’There is a need to reduce the number of MPs and improve their emoluments. By its very nature, the constitutional roles of the legislature: representation, Legislation and oversight can be performed effectively with small numbers of MPs. Indeed, there is no connection between the numerical size of the legislature and its performance with respect to its core function’’, Lubega told our reporter.
Initially, there was a proposal to have each district represented by two people – a man and a woman – a move that would see the number of MPs fall from the current 556 – who include ex-officio members – to 292 MPs representing 146 districts. In addition to their benefits, MPs in Uganda earn a base salary that ranges between 22 million shillings ($5,963) and 40 million shillings ($10,793 dollars) a month. That’s as much as three times the salary of other senior government officials. Some senior government officials are given cars, but don’t own them as MPs do.
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‘’Over the years, the Government of Uganda has made notable strides in eradicating poverty since it assumed power in 1986 and we thank the President for always fighting to ensure that the country transforms. However, even with this improvement, Uganda is still considered one of the poorest countries in the world with a substantial number of its people living in abject poverty. It has been noted that 41% of the population lives on less than $1.90 a day. This means that the well-being of Ugandans in terms of health, education, vulnerability and deprivation among others, is still very low, which is a clear indication that a lot needs to be done if the country is to move from low to middle income status.’’, he noted.
Lubega says he is against most of the benefits that make the job of a legislator classy and attractive to many, pointing out, among others the hefty salaries and allowances when many Ugandans are languishing in poverty. He adds that the size of parliament has expanded, resulting in skyrocketing costs in terms of Public expenditure and governance.
He emphasized that besides corruption, many of these programmes have been watered down by inflated administrative costs, bureaucratic tape, and financial illiteracy among intended beneficiaries, and sometimes inadequate investment by the State but yet more programs continue to come up.
In the East Africa region, Uganda has the second-biggest Parliament with over 500 Members. Kenya has a two-chamber Parliament with 394 seats in the National Assembly and 67 in the Senate. Tanzania has a 393-seat Parliament however both Kenya and Tanzania have bigger populations than Uganda.
Rwanda also has a two-chamber House with 80 members in the National Assembly and 26 members in the Senate. In contrast, Burundi has up to 121 directly elected and co-opted MPs in its National Assembly and between 43 in the Senate.
South Sudan as well currently has 170 seats in the Transitional National Legislative Assembly and 50 in the Council of States.
Democratic Republic of Congo, the second largest country in Africa, has 608 members of Parliament, 500 in the Lower chambers and 108 in the Upper chambers yet in size the Democratic Republic of the Congo is 87.3 per cent larger than Uganda.
