At least seven political parties with representation in Parliament have received a share of the Shs23b from the Electoral Commission (EC) for running their activities and meeting other budgets.
According to EC officials, the money was sent to the political parties this month as soon as it was received from the ministry of Finance as provided for by the law.
In terms of figures, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), which has majority representation in Parliament, received Shs17b; National Unity Platform (NUP) got Shs3.1b, and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) received Shs1.7b.
Other political parties that received the money include Democratic Party (DP) (Shs485m), Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) (Shs485m), Justice Forum (Jeema) (Shs53m), and People’s Progressive Party (PPP) (Shs53m).
Mr Paul Bukenya, the EC spokesperson, said that although the supplementary budget indicated that Shs35b had been allocated to the political parties, EC indicated that only Shs23.7b was released on February 4.
“It is a matter of the law and it is what we followed. The money was received and we immediately sent it to the beneficiaries as we await the balance. There is a whole quarter coming so when we get the remaining money, we shall forward it as well,” Mr Bukenya said.
Section 14 of the Political Parties and other Organisations Act stipulates that government has the mandate to fund political entities with representation in Parliament through EC to run activities and pay bills for their offices.
On Wednesday, DP president Norbert Mao attacked NUP using his social media platform on why they had received the money and yet they had for a long time castigated and shunned the activities of the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD).
Asked what he meant in his statements on Twitter, Mr Mao said: “I want to let NUP, which has become a party of untouchables, know that there is threshold of accountability to do for the people. They are always preaching water and drinking wine and I think they now know what it means to work with government secretly and yet in public you say you can’t dialogue with them.”