Bushenyi district and municipal councilors on Tuesday shunned two separate induction workshops organized by the ministry of local government due to little allowances.
The councilors first tasked the ministry officials what was due to them in terms of allowances in the four days that they were going to be inducted.
When the officials told them that twenty thousand shillings was budgeted for each councilor per day, they stood up and abandoned the district council hall where the four day training was supposed to take place.
One of the councilors, Umar Muhanguzi representing Kakanju sub-county, told a URN Reporter a day before the training that if it was true that they would not attend the workshop if the organisers pay little money.
As the district councilors stormed out of the training hall, those of the Bushenyi-Ishaka municipality also did the same after they were told that they would earn 10,000= for each of the four days.
Bushenyi-Ishaka municipal mayor Jackson Kamugasha tried to convince them to come back to the training in vain.
The councilors accused workshop organizers of allegedly stealing the allowance money, a charge the officials dismissed as untrue.
According to Muhanguzi, the councilors demanded 500,000 shillings per day but the ministry officials told them that they cannot manage that money.
District and municipal councilors in Bushenyi get 100,000 shillings as a day’s allowance per council meeting. 30 percent of this money, however, goes to Uganda Revenue Authority as tax.
