No vaccination card, no entry to Parliament- MPs told

Parliament has informed Members of Parliament that they will not be allowed into the August House if they don’t present evidence of full vaccination for Covid.

“You are hereby informed that with effect on Monday, November, 1, 2021, access to parliamentary precincts will be restricted to only those that have been vaccinated against Covid,” a notice to all MPs by the Clerk to Parliament reads in part.

According to the notice, in a bid to control the spread of the virus and ensure other members of the public get vaccinated , there is need for Members of Parliament to lead by example and that by locking those who are not vaccinated out of the precincts of the August House, authorities aim at demonstrating support to government’s public health strategy.

“The president in his address to the nation on Thursday, October 28 on the state of the fight against Covid emphasized the need to have as many Ugandans as possible vaccinated as a strategy to control the spread of the pandemic which is essential for the total reopening of the economy,” the Clerk told MPs.

“The office of the Speaker is in agreement with the president’s observation and in the communication of the Deputy Speaker, at the sitting of Parliament on Thursday, October, 28, 2021, she gave a directive that access to the precincts of Parliament should be restricted to Members of Parliament, staff and visitors that will show proof of vaccination against Covid.”

The development means that access to Parliament by anyone, including MP, staff and visitors has been barred for those who are not vaccinated for Covid.

Parliament becomes the third government entity to ban access to its premises for people who are not vaccinated for Covid after the National Medical Stores and Ministry of Health issued similar guidelines recently.

Several other leaders of local governments have also passed similar guidelines as the country aims at vaccinating at least 4.8 million people before the end of the year.

President Museveni on Thursday said by December, the country will have received over 23 million doses of Covid vaccines and that the economy will fully be reopened in January.

Despite calls by leaders for the population to get vaccinated, a number of people have not heeded to the call and according to the president, despite the low numbers of vaccinated people, the economy will be reopened by warned he should not be blamed in case another wave of the pandemic claims people, especially those who have not been vaccinated.