KAMPALA —The Cabinet meeting for Monday, April 20, was heated, with President Museveni grilling his ministers on how they looked on as MPs allocated themselves Shs10 billion of the supplementary budget meant for COVID-19, PML Daily has learnt.
MPs have over the last week been in the spotlight for the allocation, which was on Tuesday, April 21 temporarily blocked by the High Court. Each MP is supposed to receive Shs20m of the money.
And now it has emerged that on Monday, the matter was the centre of debate in Cabinet, with the furious Museveni questioning how the MPs allocated public resources to themselves yet it had not been discussed by Cabinet.
“Who included this money in the supplementary budget? This is illegal. You cannot allocate public resources to your selves like this,” the President is quoted as telling the ministers, most of whom are also Members of Parliament.
Sources added that Mr Museveni also tasked Finance minister Matia Kasaija to explain the questionable allocation but the latter was unable to provide a convincing answer to the President.
The sources who attended the meeting said at this moment, all the ministers went silent for some time before Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kuteesa shot up and suggested that the Shs10 billion be rechannelled to the Health ministry.
However, sources said this did not receive much approval from the ministers and it was suggested that the matter be deferred to another day.
Following backlash over the allocation, Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga said that the decision to appropriate the Shs10b was reached by the Commission after several MPs who have ambulances approached her seeking for financial assistance to keep them up and running during this covid-19 crisis.
Last Thursday, Ms Kadaga warned MPs against speaking about the money saying on her and the Parliamentary Commission can authoritatively talk to the media about it.
