The director of communication and public affairs at Parliament, Chris Obore, has said the two MPs who have so far lost their seats will not be asked to refund the money they received in July to buy cars.
MPs Christopher Komakech and Moses Attan, who represent Aruu County and Soroti City East, respectively, lost their seats after courts annulled their January 14 elections and called for fresh polls.
However, their cases have now gone to the Court of Appeal. They were among the 104 MPs battling election petitions in the High Court.
“They will not return the money for cars because they received it as elected MPs declared by the Electoral Commission,” Obore told Kaaro Karungi News on Wednesday.
On July 21, the government dished out sh200m to each of the 529 lawmakers and the 26 ex-officios to buy cars to facilitate their travel.
Some Ugandans had wanted some MPs’ money for cars to be held until courts dispose of the electoral petitions filed against them in the aftermath of the 2021 parliamentary elections.
They still argue that the taxpayers stand to lose billions of shillings should the majority of the embattled MPs lose the petitions against them.
However, Obore said all MPs sworn in are facilitated by Parliament regardless of electoral petitions.
“We can’t apply facilitation speculatively. For us, we don’t know who will win, who will lose in court, but we facilitated all elected MPs,” he said.
