We are at a time when everyone is sitted home very worried and sad because they are not working and they are financially out of funds to run their day today life.
Ever since government declared a lock down last year 2020, very many people lost jobs and even this year when a lock down was declared, some people lost jobs because their employers are required to have at least 10% of the workers on duty.
As we are here crying and praying to God that the situation gets better and we get back to normalcy, some people are totally not affected by the lock down, and they are enjoying life to the fullest and earning their huge salaries and allowances as many of their voters are now jobless and hungry at home.
Just recently, government through the Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Gender embarked on a mission to at least send some relief funds to the vulnerable people and very many people received the money and have used it to buy some food and other basic needs for themselves. It was a very nice initiative though many of the members of parliament were against it.
Just this week, a few of us were left in shock after parliament released Shs.200m to all members of parliament to buy cars. During such a moment of time when we don’t even have money to procure vaccines for all Ugandans, at this moment that we don’t even have enough Covid-19 testing kits so that the country carries out mass testing and vaccination, at such a time when people are jobless, sitted at home hungry without food. It’s a wow to our parliament and we have really understood that it’s there for the common person.
Yes, it’s their constitutional right to have cars and its government to purchase for them these cars which is very fine but at such a time really? I have been seeing several staff from the ministry of health being questioned on several committees about the Covid funds but again the people who have been questioning others about the Covid fund are the very people who received 200m to buy cars as if all this time they have been using wheel barrows and their foot to access parliament.
During campaigns and on several talk shows I have had chance to debate with so many people from the opposition but all they were telling listeners was that they deserved better members of parliament who cannot go to represent their own interests but interests of the people and at this moment the people are suffering but the members of parliament are busy minding about their own interests.
Some of us engage with the citizens and we really feel the pain they get every time they hear such issues of people getting millions of money just to put to waste. If they managed to have cars during their campaigns, can they really fail to have transport now that they are receiving over 22million per month? This gesture of buying members of parliament cars has really taken us back to the times of CLASSES, we are now being divided into classes of the important, (the importanter) and the locals where us who are not in parliament belong. Those who have been in parliament many times have received the 200m during every term ehhh, we can now see that people battle to be in that house to make their lives better, not the lives of their voters.
Now that they have received the 200m, they will soon table a motion to increase their allowances and salaries and this cuts across the ruling party and the opposition. The way these opposition members can make noise on Radio and Television shows you may even think they cannot accept such sums of money because they keep claiming to be saints and better leaders who care about their voters. For the People Power members, the struggle was theirs, not for the people they kept telling to misbehave on their behalf.
According to my little understanding, if a person is chosen to lead the people, it is his/her responsibility to take care of the interest of each person of the people who vote him or her into the power. For this to happen, a leader must first be able to identify the common good, to have a grasp of what is acceptable to all, to have an inclusive vision.
This requires vast capacity to listen to others, to learn from them, to have the intellectual ability to critically examine and evaluate what everyone wants and needs, and then put them all together but our members of parliament do the opposite, in fact they even never call rallies to inquire from us about anything yet when they wanted our support, they could organize public address systems to move around villages mobilizing for support.
But really why do we allow our leaders to practice these funny principles on us and steal the little we have through living above their means yet we have a lot we could do with such amounts of money.
Majority of Ugandans especially in the opposition are just waking up now to the realization that their leaders are more concerned with their own interests of amassing wealth than minding about the promises they made during campaigns.
It is very true that God intends for everyone to thrive economically.
He wants us to find provision for our daily life. He also desires for us to enjoy the wealth of his generosity. But we should at least always remember to look at priorities other than only minding about things that don’t matter a lot.
Anyway, as the President strives to make sure we get enough vaccines for every Ugandan to be vaccinated, let our members of Parliament cruise around and attend burials with their monster Shs200m rides.
MICHAEL WOIRA
Patriotic Ugandan
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