‘Obore earns too much money, yet doctors are suffering,’ Ex-MP who was earning twice as much complains

Former Member of Parliament for Aruu County Samuel Odonga Otto has complained about the salary of Chris Obore, the Parliament’s Communications Director contending that the money is too much in juxtaposition with what doctors and other ‘essential workers’ are taking home.

Odonga who was a Member of Parliament for the last 20 years and only missed his other term after losing the previous election, had been earning twice what Obore earns now.

Ironically, Odonga now claims that the Shs17million paid as monthly salary to Chris Obore is a basic lack of priorities as a country, arguing that the money would be better used to pay doctors who are more essential.

“Uganda May God uphold thee! How can Chris Obore a Public Relations Officer earn Shs17 million shillings a month plus a government vehicle fully fuelled and yet a medical doctor in Mulago National Referral Hospital earns Shs3.3million shillings a month? Are our priorities right? Odonga wondered.

Odonga’s argument raised eyebrows, especially given the fact that he and other Members of Parliament in his time blocked a proposal by President Museveni to institute a remunerations board at Parliament that would determine the salary of MPs under a reasonable threshold.

Museveni’s argument as consistently raised had been that MPs were making things hard for him by continuously revising their salaries upwards, yet they were doing less to help his agenda to pay scientists better.

Odonga is remorseful on the matter, claiming he did not see President Museveni’s perspective then as he does now.

“True and that truth shall set me free. At that time, we ganged up as Parliament that the Executive wanted to interfere with the principle of separation of powers and that it wanted to determine MPs' salaries making us stooges. Looking back the President meant well,” he agreed.

“To say that I was an MP until recently is not a defence or a reply. While I was MP I was not seeing things from this perspective. We opposed the "Salary and Remunerations Board" We were wrong and I talk responsibility for my part,” he added.

Just like a born again, Odonga Otto now wants the same idea implemented.

“We need a Salaries and remuneration Board. The merger of government entities proposed by the President should start with the Parliament of Uganda. Parliament has 540+MPs and 600+ staffs on the government payroll under the Parliamentary Commission. These needs restructuring.”

However, Odonga was adamant regarding the pay given to Obore, citing that he did not deserve it, especially with his qualifications in doubt.

“And we pay someone without proper academic papers 17m Yet real graduates of mass communication earn 700m in mobile money shops. So why waste time of people's children to go to school and read hard?” he said.

“And if you go and check on the academic papers you will find a lot and wonder how people without a degree other than this "kilogram degree" where they keep adding papers can earn 17m,” he added.

Odonga continued that while MPs' salary finds itself distributed amongst constituents, Obore’s salary is personal and therefore needs to be checked.