By Ambrose Mwesigye
I have refused to agree that the MPs should be castigated for the 20m.
On a daily basis, an MP who is popular among the population in their constituency received an average of 50 calls from constituents in search for financial support towards school fees, weddings, funerals, worship place fundraiser, local associations, etc; all to which they must respond affirmatively or they will be branded to be of no ‘work’ like the word is these days.
There is no amount of explanation they can make and be understood for not making these social contributions even if one just followed up on some valley dam project from government or shouted for road construction.
The average expense on these social obligations to the constituency is about 10m a month under normal circumstances.
Members of parliament are parents or guardians they too have personal development aspirations like any other progressive person.
During times like these; when the pandemic has confined every one, even the averagely self sustaining persons who certainly contributed a litre of fuel to their campaigns are stuck and it’s time for the Honorable to reciprocate, so the number of dependants has increased.
Because of this and many other reasons, in order for the MPs to remain rendering the social support they have been offering to the communities even in the post COVID 19 time, they had to find a way to empower themselves.
Apparently, there’s no solution to this apart from the opinion since leaders in our society across all gender and age accepting to sensitize our communities to always vote on the basis merit and ideals as opposed to the current situation.
Otherwise, we shall always have MPs reward themselves in a bid to recover from the huge expenses they meet from the day one declares their aspirations for a seat all through to the end of a term.
Let the MPs take the 20m but use it to support taskforce work on COVID-19 in their constituencies.
One area they can spend the money on is the current and post lock-down awareness media campaign on local Radio stations which are actually offering a free service to government, support to local emergencies which are currently having gaps, etc.
The writer is a former RDC.
