Tuesday, October 2, 2018 is one of those rare catastrophic days when the legislature once more made another significant decision against the will of citizens.
The MPs sat to decide on whether to scrap off a tax of 0.5% incurred on Mobile Money transactions, a law that that was effected last August which has however stifled financial inclusion across the country.
The decision, to many Ugandans is a clear indication that the masses no longer have a stake in decision making.
A survey conducted last March by Twaweza, unequivocally showed that incurring tax on mobile money would cripple businesses in Uganda because majority of the citizens would then prefer to keep their money in cash in their homes.
Whereas Parliamentarians voted in July in favour of the law, the mobile money business has greatly been affected since the law took effect, with majority shunning the service and thus the operators closing shop.
A day before parliament voted to make its pronouncement, the ruling party lawmakers had been summoned by their chairman, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
Whatever they discussed in the caucus remains unknown.
However, the nation anticipates that the President asked them to retain the tax, since government was collecting colossal sums despite calls to scrap it off.
The Deputy Speaker Rt Hon Jacob Oulanyah presided over the session.
He at first called off the voting exercise after it emerged that the votes cast were more than legislators in attendance.
Voting resumed after a while and by the time of filing this story, 101 MPs had voted against the tax while 136 had voted in its favour.