Were you intending to buy an iPad one of these days? If you are in East Africa, please hold on for a while. For some three hundred extra-cheap, top quality units are about to enter the market.

Anytime now, Uganda’s Parliament Commission will be taking delivery of some 375 state of the art iPads, which go for about $1,000 apiece in East African cities.

But chances are high that 325 of the intended beneficiaries have more pressing needs than learning to massage the touch screen of the latest techno-beauties from Apple. If you are quick, you could pick up one these at $100. But if you delay, you could find when the price has gone up to $200.

The top-of-the-range iPads are being procured for use by Uganda’s MPs. But from recent events, learning to use iPads or anything else for parliamentary work must be one of the last things on the MPs’ minds. After all, the majority of them sign the attendance register and disappear into the city to go and make ends meet.

A recent report by the Observer newspaper left many people gasping with shock at what has befallen our dear MPs.

While each of the honourable members earns around $10,000 a month, many only take home about seven or ten dollars, the rest of the money going to loan sharks and banks — even though the Speaker had warned them publicly during orientation when they were assuming office two years ago to avoid taking loans from Kampala’s shylocks.

It seems the Speaker’s warning fell on deaf ears and today MPs are so indebted that when members of the Local Government Committee went to meet the president over the proliferation of new districts, they turned the occasion into a begging session, on all fours before the man they are supposed to hold to account, for money to settle their personal debts.

The “begging spree,” as the Observer termed it, got so tragically hilarious that at one stage a suggestion was made that MPs take over the management of agricultural development funds in their areas, apparently to solve their own private debt problems.

Though this strange suggestion could soon actually be enforced, the president warned them that they now pose a security risk since they are vulnerable to bribery given their precarious financial situation.

The president reportedly cited intelligence reports to the effect that only 50 out of 375 MPs (who include some 70 ministers) are currently able to meet their financial obligations.

These are the men and women whom now some humourless parliamentary commission managers want to burden with high-tech gadgets to make their work more efficient.

It is unlikely that half of them will even be in the mood to open the damn boxes in which iPads are delivered.

How more cruel can one get than giving iPads to a bunch of starving men for Easter? So if you have a hundred dollars to spare, why not send it to a friend in Kampala to procure you the latest iPad?

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International fellow for development journalism. E-mail: [email protected]