{"id":21717,"date":"2021-11-24T16:13:06","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T16:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=21717"},"modified":"2021-11-24T16:01:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T16:01:17","slug":"states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps","title":{"rendered":"States move to cut number of EALA MPs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. <\/strong><\/span>Ministers in charge of East African Affairs are considering a proposal to reduce the number of elected members at the regional parliament from nine to five to cut costs.<\/p>\n

The East African Legislative Assembly \u2019s (Eala) Sectoral Council on Finance and Economic Affairs announced the proposal in a report presented at a Monday sitting in Arusha, Tanzania.<\/p>\n

The report shows that compared to its peers \u2014 Ecowas and SADC \u2014 Eala has the highest number of representatives, making it the most expensive to run.<\/p>\n

The report also shows that the assembly takes the lion\u2019s share of the partner states\u2019 contributions at 35.35 percent followed by the Secretariat at 35.16 percent, and the East Africa Court of Justice at 7.06 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cEala takes almost 35 percent of the partners states\u2019 contribution as noted in the budget analysis section, making it the most expensive assembly to run\u2026The decision for the number of Eala members from each partner state to be nine was made when member states were only three,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that the number of member states has doubled and is likely to increase, there is need to reconsider the number of Eala members appointed from each partner states,\u201d it adds.<\/p>\n

The move comes as the regional bloc grapples with budget shortfalls that have largely been attributed to failure by member states to make remittances. The report also shows that Eala has the highest number of sittings among all the benchmarked peer regional parliamentary assemblies, further bloating its budget.<\/p>\n

The council wants the sitting of the assembly be to reduced to four from six inside a calendar year.<\/p>\n

The proposal has, however, sent jitters across the members, with majority dismissing the move as ill informed and intended to cripple operations.<\/p>\n

Eala legislator Fred Mukasa Mbidde told Daily Monitor that downsizing will not address the budgetary constraints since they are as a result of failure by member states to meet their contributions.<\/p>\n

Mr Mbidde said if such a policy is to ever be considered, it should cut across all organs of the bloc, including the Summit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proposal is rather preposterous. It shoots the very objective that made it a logical necessity for the Eala to be created\u2026If you look at Eala in terms of how much you spend on it rather than the workload available to make East African integration closer to the people, then you have failed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Mbidde, however, said this could have been informed by the weak performance by the members on issues that affect the people of East Africa.<\/p>\n

Mr Mbidde said in the event that the presidents adopt the policy, he will go to court.<\/p>\n

Members’ reactions<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you reduce numbers of the assembly, what do you want to achieve? We were sitting the other days in the commission and we were trying to allocate work for this plenary,\u201d Ms Rose Akol, an Eala legislator, told NTV.<\/p>\n

Mr Paul Musamali, another Eala representative, described the proposal as \u201cvery unfortunate\u201d, saying the attempts to downsize \u201care all manoeuvres and manipulations that are aimed at collapsing the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Uganda<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. Ministers in charge of East African Affairs are considering a proposal to reduce the number of elected members at the regional parliament from nine to five to cut costs. The East African Legislative Assembly \u2019s (Eala) Sectoral Council on Finance and Economic Affairs announced the proposal in a report presented at a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":21716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-21717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nStates move to cut number of EALA MPs - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ministers in charge of East African Affairs are considering a proposal to reduce the number of elected members at the re ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"States move to cut number of EALA MPs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ministers in charge of East African Affairs are considering a proposal to reduce the number of elected members at the re ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-24T16:13:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/11\/img-619e61b85cc4a.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"States move to cut number of EALA MPs\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-24T16:13:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps\"},\"wordCount\":530,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/11\/img-619e61b85cc4a.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/states-move-to-cut-number-of-eala-mps\",\"name\":\"States move to cut number of EALA MPs - 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