Speaker Among’s poor judgement on new cars

At a total cost of Shs3.5 billion or thereabouts, few Ugandans were going to stomach this capricious display of ostentation – and especially so in an economic environment where most of the population is grappling with how to put food on the table, let alone pay medical bills, for example.

You do not expect people to swallow this sort of thing after the Speaker herself has previously asserted that the Parliament she leads is pro-people. It makes a mockery of the claim when the same Parliament is splashing out such large sums of cash in clearly irresponsible fashion. That position is indefensible to the extent that its actions speak to the contrary.

The very least Parliament can do in these tough times is to be seen to be frugal, thus symbolically identifying with the struggling masses. The Speaker will probably be aware that the general public perception of the 11th Parliament is unflattering; people look at it as a ‘transactional’ House where votes are allegedly bought by the government in order to get unpopular policy positions shoved down the national throat.

As it is, whichever way one looks at it, the whole business stinks. Some of the former Speakers were already earning healthy pensions. Others still earn huge salaries as government officials. They are known to be generally well off. In a word, they can afford to transport themselves. There is absolutely no reason why the taxpayer should shoulder the burden of getting them around.

It is this insufferable culture of entitlement which Ugandans rightly object to. The money spent on public officials is already way more than we can afford. What the politicians ought to be doing is looking for ways and means to spend on more urgent needs that benefit the wider society.

Running through the national budget alone gives one a sense of the invariable disconnect between what the public expects, and where the politicians are stuffing the cash. There is a long list of what is rather euphemistically referred to as ‘unfunded priorities’. These are budget items for which no money is allocated, among them for the recruitment of urgently required additional manpower in the crumbling public health sector.

Instead of lavishing billions on undeserving politicians, the Speaker and her ilk would be better advised to pay attention to the public mood. Ugandans are generally not happy with the way their money is being spent. You do not go around buying fancy 4x4s when our pothole-riddled roads in the country’s capital are a veritable national disgrace.