Parliament Suspends Travel Over Cash Squeeze

Parliament has suspended all internal and foreign travels until January 2018 because of a debilitating cash squeeze.

The House burnt through its quarterly travel allocation like a hot knife in butter and the fund got exhausted two months before end of the quarter.

Already the cash squeeze had seen Parliament pass up a chance to fund a group of MPs who had planned to attend a Buganda 2030 conference in the United Kingdon later this month.

MPs Medard Ssegona, Betty Nambooze, Emmanuel Sempala, Mathias Mpuuga, Robert Kyagulanyi, Moses Kasibante Allan Sewanyana and Paulson Lutamaguzzi had requested the Speaker of parliament to fund their trip to the UK for the Buganda summit but Rebecca Kadaga’s office wrote back to the MPs informing them that the travel budget had been exhausted.

The cash burn has also ensured the Legal and Parliamentary affairs committee which is handling the Age Limit bill will not be traveling to outside countries to benchmark the controversial proposed constitutional amendment due to lack of funds.

Parliament had budgeted Shs24billion to be splashed on foreign travel alone this financial year. But allowances for MPs were increased and that partly explains the faster cash burn of the quarterly releases.

MPs on official travel are paid Shs2.5m (USD720) per day up from Shs1.9m (USD520). Staff also had their allowances increased from USD 320 per day to USD 520 per day.