Mathias Mpuuga, the Nyendo-Mukungwe lawmaker and Commissioner of Parliament, has demanded an apology from his party, the National Unity Platform (NUP).
This comes after the High Court in Kampala on Tuesday ruled that the 1.7 billion shillings that were shared between Mpuuga and three back bench commissioners of Parliament were “legal.”
This occurred when Mpuuga was the Leader of Opposition in Parliament.
The news of Mpuuga and the three back bench commissioners of Parliament receiving the said money came to light after an online campaign dubbed #UgandaParliamentExhibition accused Mpuuga and three other Parliamentary Commissioners of illegally awarding themselves huge sums of taxpayer’s money, claiming it was service awards.
Mpuuga is said to have been awarded Shs. 500 million. The commissioners, Solomon Silwany (Bukooli County Central MP), Prossy Mbabazi (Rubanda District Woman MP), and Esther Afoyochan (Zombo District Woman MP), received 400 million shillings each.
The NUP described the development as corruption and asked Mpuuga to return the money, step down as commissioner of Parliament, and apologize to the people of Uganda.
A concerned citizen, Daniel Bwette, sued the Parliamentary Commission, arguing that the service award was illegal.
In a ruling delivered by Justice Douglas Karekona Singiza on Tuesday, the court ruled that the money used to pay the service award was part of the national budget and therefore lawful.
Just hours after the court ruling, Mpuuga asked his own party, the NUP, to apologize to him.
“What is appalling is that someone judges another without hearing their side of the story. That is what was done by my party. The party leaders, I know, are following what is happening. I am waiting to see what their response will be. They should apologize. If they don’t, I know what to do,” Mpuuga said.
He added: “The court ruling should be the answer to all Ugandans who have been hoodwinked and those who have endeavored to tarnish my name for their selfish interests to look for what to do. This is especially true for the idle Members of Parliament who have been in Parliament for 3–5 terms but have never learned how Parliament operates or the laws that govern parliament.”
Lwemiyaga county lawmaker Theodore Ssekikubo and his Erute South counterpart, Jonathan Odur, have been collecting signatures from fellow members of parliament to censor all four commissioners.
Recently, Ssekikubo announced that they had collected enough signatures to call a motion to censor the commissioners.
Following the court ruling, Ssekikubo said that what the court considered is not what they are grieving about, adding that the ruling of the court will not hinder them from bringing a motion to censor the four back bench commissioners.
“It has not erased our motion; it is still standing. Our prayers are different from those raised in the ruling, and therefore, they cannot be affected by the court ruling,” said Ssekikubo.
Odur re-echoed Ssekikubo’s remarks, saying, “The ruling has no bearing at all on the censor motion because this motion, as I understand it, raises several grounds, and the service award was just one evidence of the incompetence of the commissioners, of the misconduct of the commissioners, and then there are several other issues that are contained in the motion for the removal of the commissioners.”
The standing question now is whether the speaker of the house, Anita Among, will allow the matter to be debated on the floor given the court ruling.
