KAMPALA – The Opposition Forum for Democratic change party has slammed President Museveni for directing that all MPs should be provided with escort vehicles and UPDF snipers and urged members from the opposition side to reject them.
Last week, President Museveni directed the Ministry of Finance to purchase escort vehicles for all the 456 MPs and the army would provide them with “sharp shooters” to protect them from what he called “terrorists”.
However, FDC president Patrick Oboi Amuriat said the Shs290 billion that will be spent on procuring the escort cars could be used on other important issues in the country.
“Our MPs should not be part of those involved in excessive expenditures that are only burdensome to the tax payers. The whole country is under threat, what has been happening for the last two years shows that the government has lost charge over the security of the country and this manner of deception towards MPs should have never been discussed,” Mr Amuriat said at a press conference at their headquarters in Najjanankumbi on Monday.
“(President) Museveni and his people have ignore the important issues in the country and gone for the none-issues. This money can be used to provide medicine in hospitals where our mothers are dying while giving birth,” he added.
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He also said MPs should rather ask questions as to why their personal security is under threat rather than use the tax payers’ money to cover up holes dug by bad government in the security.
“They are targeted by their own communities, then they need to ask themselves, ‘why?’. What is the cause of alarm after the assignation of one the MPs? There are more people who need this security than they do,” he said.
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FDC Deputy Spokesperson Paul Mwiru said, “We don’t need the pick-up vehicles and the sharp shooters because we don’t have any threats since we have done nothing to warrant any attack from our people who voted us into our positions.”
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“Personally, I don’t need the sharp shooters and a car from government, the money that they were to use to buy me a car, let it be used to stalk Septrin for HIV/AIDs patients that have been out of stock for a while,” Mwiru said.
