It is true that our Parliament is just too big and unsustainable for our economy. But the problem of poor social infrastructure and inadequate government service delivery is a little bit more than a big Parliament.
It is actually a compounded problem arising from poor planning, skewed prioritization, poor monitoring and evaluation mechanism within the government, unabated corruption, abuse of office, selfishness, indiscipline in managing public affairs and sometimes sheer negligence.
For a long time, we have been fed on family planning message that do emphasize that do bear the children that you are able to take care of. So why is that advice only applicable to family planning but not to government planning.
If you decide to have a large Parliament by you continuously allowing the creation of constituencies, districts and sub counties each year, you need to be prepared to foot the expenses that go with that bloated administration without leaving the basic social service delivery to crumble.
Unfortunately that isn't the logical thing happening to us. We continue to create more administrative consumption centers in total disregard to their effect on the overall national resource envelope.
As a result, it is the MPs that get bashed for lack of and inadequate government service delivery. They are our easy and vulnerable targets that can be easily blackmailed with no retaliation.
We sometimes forget that there are quite a number of civil servants who are being paid even double the salary of an MP in addition to enjoying several lucrative privileges like luxury fully fueled chauffeured vehicles, huge accommodation allowances, insurance benefits for the entire family, first class travels abroad and assured gratuity on addition to NSSF savings.
Yes the MPs get good money compared to the average wages in the country, but these guys do spend the bulk of that not on themselves but rather in bridging the gap for areas where government normally fails to meet it's social obligations.
This is why you find that most MPs inspite of the tauted big salaries, they end up having to deal with heavy debts which sometimes end them up in prisons.
We are running a system that is self defeating and which doesn't foster progress both for the legislators and their electorates.
Therefore, in a nutshell working only the reduction of the size of Parliament without addressing all the other variables, not much will be realized. It will definitely be a good starting point in the right direction.
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Let us see how it will probably be pulled off.
Now we might as well start guessing what could be the motivation for the idea of resizing Parliament when we all know that it is unheard of for any employee to work oneself out of a job.
The possible motivation for the mooted proposal can be said to be the following:
1. To appeal to the national outcry about a bloated Parliament.
2. To try and respond to the incessant concerns of the international donor community about the excessive government expenditures.
3. As a very convenient and subtle way of reducing on the influence or getting rid of the opposition in the Parliamentary affairs.
All the above can be achieved through a choreographed referedum manevouring. Contrary to what others may think, a national referendum on whether to reduce the size of Parliament will be overwhelmingly supported by the Uganda populace and is the only viable way for government to achieve its intended objective of having a resized Parliament.
