The Constitutional Court in Kampala on Thursday dismissed an application by a concerned citizen seeking for a temporary order to halt the awaiting purchase of vehicles for each Member of Parliament. Each legislator is entitled to 200 million Shillings for the purchase of a vehicle.
Sanywa Twaha 'a concerned citizen' had applied for interim orders stopping the payment arguing that unless the court intervened and halted wiring of the money into each MPs bank account, taxpayers were most likely to suffer as resources are drained from the consolidated fund.
However, the petition was on yesterday afternoon dismissed by Justice Richard Buteera in a ruling read out for him by deputy registrar Rosemary Bareebe.
In the ruling, the judge observed that it was not necessary to issue a temporary injunction stopping the Parliamentary Commission from wiring money to MPs' accounts to buy cars since the same money could be recovered if court later found out that it was illegally paid out.
He further held that the petitioner had failed to convince court that the general public would suffer irreparable damages in case the money was paid to MPs to buy cars.
In his main petition, which is pending hearing before a panel of five justices, the petitioner contends that buying of cars for the MPs gives them preferential treatment against other government employees both in the other arms of state who carry out their duties using public cars.
