High court judge Micheal Elubu has ordered Members of Parliament to return the contentious Shs10 billion they allocated themselves to reportedly help in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic in their respective constituencies.

The order follows a consensus reached in court this afternoon by the parliamentary commission, Attorney General and Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga that the money should not be kept on MP’s individual bank accounts but rather be brought back to public control by either channelling it through the Parliamentary commission or be handed to the national/district covid-19 task forces.

Last week, Karuhanga secured an interim order blocking fellow MPs from touching this money which he believes was wrongly wired to their individual bank accounts in batches of Shs20 million each as part of an approved Shs104bn supplementary budget for the fight against the pandemic.

Karuhanga is now left with the main case in which he questions the manner in which MPs amended and smuggled a clause into the supplementary budget to allocate themselves Shs10 billion.

The Shs10 billion the MPs allocated to themselves drew public criticism as they were seen by the president and a section of the public to be stealing from the poor.