The sitting capacity of new parliamentary chambers currently under construction will be expanded from the initially planned 500 seats to 600 seats.
The new development follows the Solicitor General’s approval of a request by the Parliamentary Commission to have the adjustments possible, to ensure that more space in the new chambers is created for a larger number of MPs.
The speaker of parliament Rebecca Kadaga confirmed the changes, saying the move is meant to cater for the ever-growing number of legislators.
“As we speak now, we have 470 members and I don’t know what will happen at the next general elections, so we have to make some adjustments to make the chambers slightly bigger” said Kadaga.
However, this comes at an extra cost of 26BN which has been given a nod by the Solicitor General on top of 179BN initially agreed in the contract with ROKO construction LTD.
At the start of construction of new chambers in 2017, the work was expected to be completed in two years but had stalled for close to four months pending the approval of the contract changes.