On October 23, the Electoral Commission (EC) brought the curtain down on the nomination of candidates for parliamentary seats in next year’s elections. One of the talking points from the two-day exercise has been the very high number of people scrambling for seats in Parliament.
It was not possible to establish the exact number of nominated parliamentary candidates by press time, but there were media reports suggesting the number could be around 2,700.
Some 113 candidates were, for example, nominated to fight for the 10 seats in Kampala, an average of 11.3 persons per seat. Then 42 people were nominated to contest for the four available seats in Jinja City, with a staggering 16 eying the Jinja North seat.
The number of people entering elective politics has been increasing with every election. The EC’s report on the 2015/2016 General Election shows that there were eight presidential candidates and 1,743 parliamentary candidates.
The number later rose to 1,816 candidates following the by-elections in newly created constituencies. Those who entered elective politics increased to 11 presidential candidates and 2,801 parliamentary candidates in the 2020/2021 General Election.
Why the mad rush?
Why are many people developing an appetite for elective politics? What has made it so attractive?
Dr Livingstone Sewanyana (PhD), the Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), says more people are scrambling for parliamentary seats because being in Parliament has turned into a lucrative enterprise.
‘Politics became a lucrative business. It’s one of the most lucrative businesses you can have now. And as long as you are able to be elected, you can actually start counting your money,’ he says.
Mr Dan Wandera Ogalo, a constitutional lawyer who represented Bukoli South constituency in the 6th Parliament and was later one of Uganda’s representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala), attributes the mad rush for seats to the changes over time, in public perceptions about Parliament and the role of a legislator. That change, he argues, has been occasioned by the social and economic realities, especially the failure of the economy to generate enough well-paying jobs.
‘There is generally a lack of opportunities. People do not have employment. So they take it (politics) as employment, which, of course, is absurd. That to me is what is making people rush in there,’ Mr Ogalo says.
Huge perks
Prof Sabiti Makara, who teaches Political Science at Kabale University, weighs in, saying the pay and hefty allowances that Ugandan legislators are paid have fast turned being a Member of Parliament into the most lucrative job in Uganda.
‘Politics has become a better-paying job than, for example, being a doctor or engineer. That tells you why professionals are running into politics. The reason being that they do not have to work very hard and get as many headaches as a doctor or engineer, but walk away with very big salaries and allowances,’ Prof Makara says.
The pay and allowances due to Ugandan MPs have always been a source of public anger because Parliament has always determined its own emoluments and allowances, which are way bigger and out of the reach of other Ugandans.
Those include a monthly salary of Shs25 million; a one-off vehicle allowance of Shs150 million; a subsistence allowance of Shs4.5 million a month; a town running allowance of Shs1 million per month, a medical allowance of Shs500,000 per month; a sitting allowance of Shs50,000 for committee meetings and a plenary sitting allowance of Shs150,000 for plenary sessions.
There is also a mileage allowance, which is determined based on the distance between Parliament and the furthest point of a particular legislator’s constituency.
Other allowances include an inland travel per diem of Shs150,000 a night, a foreign travel per diem of $520 (approximately Shs1.8 million), and air tickets when on official business.
A look at the salary structure for the Financial Year 2024/2025, which was released by the Ministry of Public Service on June 30, 2024, shows that the Head of Public Service is the highest-paid person in the public service with a monthly salary of Shs17.6 million. That one is followed by the Deputy Head of Public Service, who earns Shs16.4 million; the permanent secretaries, who earn Shs15.4 million. Medical officers fall further down the order with a salary of Shs4.5 million. All those pale so much in the face of what MPs earn.
Qualifications
Dr Sewanyana is, however, quick to add that money is not the only thing making a parliamentary seat very attractive. He argues it is highly likely that the requirements for being a legislator have been set so low that every Tom, Dick and Harry believes that they stand a chance.
‘The eligibility requirements are very minimal. To be a Member of Parliament, you only need a S6 certificate. If you go by any imagination, we have many people who would qualify because they have that certificate, but if the requirements, for example, had been a Master’s degree, then chances would be that you would have fewer,’ he argues.
Value for money?
The biggest talking point has however been that there has been very little value for all the money expended on Uganda’s legislators. There have been concerns that the quality of legislators and legislation has been deteriorating with every Parliament. Some of those concerns have actually come from within Parliament itself.
In October 2020, the late Jacob Oulanyah, who was the Deputy Speaker of the 10th Parliament, caused quite a stir when he brazenly stated that the MPs were not doing enough research before contributing to debates in Parliament, which meant that their submissions were often based on hearsay and or very little in terms of facts.
Dr James Nsaba Buturo agreed with Oulanyah, saying the quality of debate had been disappointing because some of the legislators were ‘unfit for legislative work’.
At the time, a parliamentary scorecard for the third session of the 10th Parliament had revealed that only 17 percent out of the 459 MPs had scored above the 75 percent mark, which was considered to be an excellent performance. The scorecard also revealed that 29 percent of the MPs scored between 50 and 74 percent, which was considered good.
The African Leadership Institute (AFLI), which has been the brain behind the scorecards, has not carried out any scorecards on the performance of the 11th Parliament. Ms Victorious Akell told Sunday Monitor that AFLI ran into funding difficulties, which made it impossible to assess its performance. However, there are huge question marks over the manner in which the House has been conducting business.
Quality issues
As of July 2024, the 11th Parliament had passed a total of 62 Bills, but most were passed without public consultations and the kind of scrutiny that would have been expected of the legislators. If the words of Dr Sewanyana are anything to go by, that is a sign that it has performed worse than its predecessor.
‘They no longer do consultations in the population. In the past, they would consult stakeholders on any Bill that would come before the House. But today, they have dispensed with that,’ he says.
Dr Sewanyana also raises issues with the quality of debate. ‘The quality is really lacking. The performance had declined tremendously.
You can see that the quality of Parliament has really declined. You can see that there are very few people who actually engage in the legislative agenda, whether in the committees or the plenary. Any legislation that goes to Parliament now passes hastily,’ Dr Sewanyana says.
He points to the hurried passing by Parliament on May 20 of both the UPDF Amendment Bill and the Political Parties and Organisations (Amendment) Bill, 2025. One of the issues raised by members of the political Opposition was that Parliament did not consult other stakeholders before passing the said Bills.
Leadership question
It is not clear whether the new approach to business has been precipitated by the new leadership at Parliament headed by the Speaker, Ms Anita Among, or the quality of legislators in the House. Mr Godfrey Kabyanga, the State minister for ICT and National Guidance, insists that it is down to the quality of legislators. Many of them, he says, are in Parliament for the money and not to fulfil their obligations as legislators.
‘There are so many people who are now coming in to contest for Member of Parliament seats, but it is not about representation. It’s about it being the highest-paying Job. Most of the people are coming in because of the money, not because they really want to represent the people,’ Mr Kabyanga says.
There are, however, those who think that the problem with the 11th Parliament has been Ms Among. Those who subscribe to that thinking argue that she is too keen to please President Museveni that she has decided to let the Legislature pander to the whims of the Executive.
Ms Among publicly declared her loyalty to Mr Museveni and the ruling NRM on August 21 during a meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) held at State House Entebbe.
‘I am a very disciplined cadre of the party.I have been trusted and given the top position of Speaker of Parliament. That is an arm of the government. A Speaker of Parliament who respects the party, who values the party NRM. As a Speaker of Parliament, I love my President. I love my party. I can never bring a motion of displeasure for my President. Never!’ she declared.
Calibre of MPs
However, though there are questions about the way Parliament is being shepherded, we cannot run away from the fact that, as Mr Nsaba Buturo pointed out during the life of the 10th Parliament, many legislators are unfit to be what they are. During the span of the National Resistance Council (NRC), which was the 5th Parliament and the 6th and 7th Parliaments, every region seemed to send its best to represent it.
Mr Wandera Ogalo says the dip in the quality of legislators has a lot to do with the number of constituencies.
‘If you have a constituency of 100 square kilometres, it means that all people in 100 square metres have to agree on one person who is likely to be an able legislator, but if you divide that 100 square kilometres into four, it is highly likely that you will get an incapable person.
A bigger area gives you a chance to capture people of quality while a smaller area reduces the chances of landing on people of quality,’ he argues.
That scenario, he says, plays into the hands of the ruling NRM because they know that it is thanks to the NRM that they occupy positions that they do not deserve. Others now think that it is by design that the quality of MPs and their performance have been dipping with every Parliament. That thinking is driven by comments that President Museveni made in March 2018 while campaigning for Mr Nathan Igeme Nabeta, who was the NRM’s candidate in the Jinja East parliamentary by-elections.
‘Even if the NRM MP was sick and sleeping, he is still better than a very active Opposition MP,’ Mr Museveni said.
The people of Jinja East voted for the Opposition’s Paul Mwiru, but those comments were construed to mean that Mr Museveni does not care about who ends up in Parliament, and the voting population, especially in the predominantly NRM areas, seems to have picked the cue. But minister Kabyanga insists that there is no design to ensure that ineffective people end up in Parliament.
‘We are doing civic education and telling people what they should expect of an MP, but the people decide who to elect and there are so many dynamics in elections. Someone can elect you because you are their brothers, another because one is their husband or because the person is a member of the local Malwa group. It happens even in towns! That is why you cannot blame the NRM,’ he says.
Which way 12th Parliament?
The question now is what kind of MPs will constitute the 12th Parliament. Does it stand any chance of doing better than the 11th and the 10th Parliaments before it? Mr Ogalo does not believe that the performance of Parliament will get any better, adding that it has a lot to do with the size of Parliament.
‘There are several problems around the question of debate. People do not have sufficient time to develop their arguments. You may have the ideas, but you have only three minutes within which to submit. So I believe the time available for debate is contributory to quality,’ he says Dr Sewanyana, too, believes that nothing will change, but Mr Kabyanga believes that the ongoing civic education campaign will cause a change. Those interested in good governance will be hoping that God hears him.