COURT TELLS MPs: Return the Shs20m COVID Cash or give it to task force

By Francis Otucu

High court judge, Micheal Elubu has Wednesday afternoon ordered Parliament to return the contentious Shs10 billion the institution allocated to Members of Parliament to reportedly help in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in their respective constituencies.

This, after last week’s petition by MPs; Gerald Karuhanga (Ntungamo) and Jonathan Odur (Erute South) in which they sort an injunction blocking MPs from using the money which they believed was wrongly wired to their individual bank accounts.

Wednesday; Parliamentary Commission, Attorney General and Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga agreed that the money should not be kept on MP’s individual bank accounts but rather be brought back to public control by either channeling it through the Parliamentary Commission or be handed to the national/district covid-19 task forces.

Karuhanga is now left with the main case in which he questions the manner in which MPs amended and smuggled a clause into the supplementary budget to allocate themselves Shs10 billion.

On Tuesday, President Yoweri Museveni described the decision to give MPs Shs20m each as morally reprehensible.

“It is morally reprehensible for MPs to give themselves money for personal use when the country is in such a crisis; totally unacceptable to me and the NRM. They have entered themselves into a trap and the best way out is to donate the money to the districts where they come from,” he said, warning, “I heard that some MPs went and bought things, you are not a purchasing officer of the state. This is public money, not personal money, if you spent it wrongly you will pay it back with your salary; this will be sorted out by the Auditor-General.”