Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has explained why he did not block decisions by MPs to increase their salaries over the years. In a country where a large number of government employees earn peanuts, Ugandan MPs are some of the best paid.
Determined by the Parliamentary Commission, whose head is the speaker of Parliament, MPs’ salaries and allowances have been increasing since Museveni came to power in 1986. Currently, Ugandan MPs earn up to Shs35m in salary and allowances.
With much of the money masked in allowances, each MP earns Shs 11 million every much before the taxman takes off his share, leaving Shs6.2m.
But the allowances are juicier: a housing allowance of Shs6.5m, a constituency support fund of Shs17m, a town running fee of Shs1.945m and fuel allowances between Shs10m and 31m, depending on how far one’s constituency is from Parliament Building in the capital Kampala.
Museveni says that unlike UPDF officers who understood his mission and, fresh from the 1981-86 NRA bush war, were okay working for little pay until the economy had improved, the MPs made a huge mistake of increasing their salaries.
Consequently, Museveni told his ministers, permanent secretaries and his ruling NRM party’s top brass attending the Public Service Leaders’ Introspection Retreat at the National Leadership Institute (Nali) in Kyankwanzi, the MPs created a culture of careerism, discouraging the spirit of voluntarism as was being promoted by the conduct of the soldiers he compared to ‘nuns’ in their being content with little salary.
“The only mistake, was by elements in the Parliament who distorted our historical movement by paying themselves high salaries. This distorted our strategy of voluntarism instead of careerism and mercenarism. They have now realized their mistakes. However, high you put the salary, it cannot run a constituency. Collective efforts are better – PDM, Emyooga, free education in Government schools, etc.,” said Museveni.
“I could have blocked the moves by the MPs to award themselves high salaries. I opposed but did not block because it is not always correct to block everything you consider a mistake. It is better, sometimes, to oppose but also allow people to learn from their mistakes or for the issue at hand to be clearer.”
On why he has always looked on as MPs increase their salaries, the president said he thought they would learn their mistake and return to the correct line. Museveni also kept a blind eye because he realized that the MPs were few in number and could not have eaten too much from the national cake in terms of salaries and allowances. Uganda currently has 529 legislators for a population of 45.9 million people.
“The mistake by elements in the Parliament could not have been solved correctly at that time. It was better that they learn from their own mistakes, preserve the unity of the Movement and give us time to improve the geo-strategic situation of the region with Mobutu’s Congo, Bashir’s Sudan, Mzee Moi in Kenya who would sometimes close our borders , as well as still having a young Army that needed metamorphosis,” he further noted.
“Besides, the MPs, unlike the other Public Servants, were not very many in number. Their disruption was in the bad example and not in the magnitude of the money involved. They have now learnt that mistake. That is why fund-raising is now very unpopular among MPs now.”
Museveni also vowed to crush officials selling government jobs for Shs10m each, in his long lecture on his plan to fight corruption in Uganda. (See Details Here and There).
You can also see the list of Uganda’s 25 most highly paid government employees HERE.
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