Eight opposition MPs in Uganda have so far returned the $8,000 (\u00a36,000) each of them were given by parliament for consultations with their constituents on the controversial presidential age-limit bill.<\/p>\n
The opposition has denounced the one-off payment as a “bribe” because MPs already get money to visit their constituencies, reports the BBC’s Patience Atuhaire from the capital, Kampala.<\/p>\n
The payment is seen as an attempt to gain the support of MPs for the bill, which seeks to remove the requirement that a presidential candidate be below the age of 75.<\/p>\n
The opposition believes that the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) wants to push through the bill so that President Yoweri Museveni, 73, can run for a sixth term in 2021.<\/p>\n
Uganda’s state-linked\u00a0New Vision newspaper reports\u00a0that the eight MPs returned the money because they believe it was meant to “compromise” them.<\/p>\n
Parliamentary officials announced that about $3.5m had been set aside for 445 legislators to facilitate consultations on the bill.<\/p>\n
Each MP would get about $8,000 for use in their constituency in the next 15 days.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eight opposition MPs in Uganda have so far returned the $8,000 (\u00a36,000) each of them were given by parliament for consultations with their constituents on the controversial presidential age-limit bill. The opposition has denounced the one-off payment as a “bribe” because MPs already get money to visit their constituencies, reports the BBC’s Patience Atuhaire from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[1637,457],"yoast_head":"\n