KABALE – Outspoken Catholic priest Fr Gaetano Batanyenda has described the decision by Members of Parliament to allocate themselves Shs10 billion of the supplementary budget for Covid-19 as outright thuggery.
Parliament has been under public pressure for allocating a share of the budget to themselves, with many members of the public saying such should have gone towards buying food for the needy.
And now Fr Batanyenda has added his voice to the critics, saying Parliament is now a bunch of thieves.
“Initially I thought it was “fake news. Parliament has turned into a bunch of thieves that continue to suck poor Ugandans in disguise no matter the situation at hand,” he said.
Fr Batanyenda hailed MPs such as Bobi Wine (Kyadondo East) and Francis Zaake (Mityana Municipality) who have returned the money.
“I praise a few MPs who have always come out to demonize and reject this kind of money, these are true pro-people MPs, they know this is the time where many Ugandans are stuck , hungry without food and not earning,” he said.
According to Fr Batanyenda, the action of the MPs chases away donors and disenfranchises the citizens.
“Walk around towns of Kampala, wakiso, Mukono, Kabale, Masaka, Jinja etc a huge volume of people are dying of hunger. Other diseases have also taken advantage to kill our people because the access to medical facilities is very complicated due to the current pandemic situation,” he said.
“This unending act of high way robbery, greed and selfishness hugely discourages donors and other Ugandans willing to offer help towards COVID-19 fight or even elsewhere in future-situations that may need donations. Could the lead problem be the speaker of parliament or the MPs?? Is it possible for president to stop this unending thuggery, selfishness and greed?”
