The civil society organizations have asked the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development to come out with the 2011/2012 pro people budget.

The Advocates for Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) executive Director, Godber Tumushabe says that the previous budgets have been favoring the administrative and political wings of the government leaving the public with only 23% of the total budget.

In the workshop of civil society organizations in Kampala, the members urged government to reduce the administrative costs by reducing the number of members of Parliament, avoiding creation of districts unnecessarily and stop creation of unnecessary offices.

The Program Manager of Twaweza organization, Morrison Rwakakamba says that the government will expend 28 billion shillings to facilitate the newly created districts where by about 1 billion shillings will be wasted in bureaucratic circles.

Rwakakamba urges government to adopt a pro rata representation basing on a 200,000 population quota, where the population of 33 million people in Uganda would be represented by only 165 MPs and government would save about 252 million shillings.

The current parliament has 375 members each earning 15 million shillings per month but they have petitioned the Speaker asking for salary increment to 19 million shillings.

By Issa Asuman