Africa-Press – Uganda. The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party will spend at least Shs31.2b in facilitating campaigns for its flag bearers on parliamentary, city mayoral and LC5 seats ahead of the 2021 General Election.
Mr Godfrey Kiwanda, the NRM vice chairperson for Buganda region, told Daily Monitor in Masaka City, that the money is raised from remittances by the elected flag bearers from the President to the local governments.
“The party has money because the government gives us money under the interparty alliance. This is constitutionally given to each of the political parties. NRM gets the lion’s share because we have the biggest numbers because they give the money depending on how many MPs you have in Parliament. The party gets monthly remittances from MPs and we hope in future we are going to intensify ways of getting donors,” Mr Kiwanda said.
Only parties that have representatives in Parliament are entitled to government financing through the Interparty Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD).
The NRM fielded candidates on all the 518 parliamentary seats save for the 10 seats for the arm representatives in Parliament who are non partisan.
Daily Monitor has seen a December 21 internal memo in which party secretary general, Ms Justine Kasule Lumumba, explained to the party district chairpersons how the funds are being disbursed.
“The National Resistance Movement secretariat has begun facilitating her candidates for all elective positions in the ongoing campaigns drive towards the 2020/2021 General Elections,” Ms Lumumba stated in the memo.
The party is also facilitating the campaigns for city councillors, city division mayors and councillors, district councillors and LC3 chairpersons and sub-county councils across the country.
Ms Lumumba said the facilitation is meant to help candidates procure campaign logistics and materials such as posters, fliers, transport, mobile phone airtime and water for campaign task forces. The party has also reimbursed the nomination fees paid to the Electoral Commission by flag bearers on each of the listed levels of leadership.
Parliamentary candidates on the nationally elected positions will get the lion’s share with each being facilitated to a tune of Shs80m plus Shs3m reimbursement for nomination fees.
The categories of MPs that have one national flag bearer are Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), youth, Workers and Older Persons. Regional MP candidates for these Special Interest Groups will also receive Shs60m and reimbursement of Shs3m nomination fees.
Each of the 145 Woman MP Flag bearers will be facilitated with Shs50m in addition to the reimbursement of Shs3m nomination fee paid to the EC.
Only one Woman MP candidate, Ms Lillian Paparu who is unopposed will not partake on the campaign money but has had her Shs3m nomination fee reimbursed.
With NRM already having eight directly elected MPs declared unopposed, the party is sending campaign money to 345 candidates whereby each will receive Shs40m.
The party will also facilitate each of the municipal/city division mayors with Shs2.1m, including refund of Shs100,000 nomination fees.
Candidates in most of the categories have already received a half of the campaign facilitation through their bank accounts, and also reimbursement for nomination fees through mobile money.
Allocation
• Each MP- Shs43m
• Each Woman MP -Shs53m
• Each SIG Reps Shs-83m
• Each SIG (Regional) -Shs63m
• Each city mayor -Shs60.2m
• Each district chair- Shs50.2m
• Each councillors -Shs1m
• Each SIG (districts) -Shs1.5m
• Each Women councillor- Shs1.5m
• Each city (SIG)- Shs2m
• Each municipality chair -Shs20.1m
• Each women councillor- Shs500k
• Each municipality councillor – Shs500k
• Each Municipality (SIG) -Shs1.05m
• Each sub-county councillor -Shs120k
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect the changes in the figures that NRM plans to spend on its flag-bearers.
