Government to increase political party funding to Shs 30 billion

President Yoweri Museveni has pledged to increase political party funding from Shs 10 billion to Shs 30 billion.

Museveni's comments follow an agreement reached upon by the parties in the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue in 2019.

In this financial year, the government allocated Shs 10 billion to be shared out by the parties in this financial year, with NRM taking a lion’s share of about 80% due to its overwhelming representation in parliament.

Museveni said the money is meant to enable political parties to carry out their operations effectively amidst the increasing financial pressure.

The president made the remarks while flagging off bicycles to be distributed to NRM chairpersons in the over 68,000 villages of the country.

"That money is not enough to run the daily activities of the party and also do capital development. The other day we agreed that the party must be given enough money and we are talking of increasing that money from Shs 10 billion to Shs 30 billion or more,"Museveni said.

He said while some committed party members have been contributing monthly dues to help in the running of the party activities, this money is no longer enough given the increasing human resource.

"There are 68,000 villages in the all of Uganda and all of them will get bicycles.This has been long in the plans but you should remember we have not yet fully resolved the issue of funding political parties,but it will be handled,"he said.

Museveni pledged to purchase motorcycles for the party chairpersons at sub county level and vehicles for the party district leadership when funds are available.

"I thank some of our supporters who have been able to contribute money for these bicycles. In the same way we are going to raise money to purchase motorcycles for the sub county, NRM chairpersons and later we shall buy vehicles for NRM district chairpersons,"he said.