By Brendah Akankwatsa and Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
NATIONAL
Over the last one fortnight, there have been speculations in the public domain that parliament had allocated Sh40 millions to each member of parliament in Uganda as a appraisals towards passing of numerous bills in their first term of parliament and for accepting to approve Sh193 billion supplementary budgets.
The reports outraged the public accusing the legislators of being self-seekers than working to fulfill promises they made to their voters.
As the public still questionned the cash flow and source of this money, further reports pinned opposition legislators having received the Sh40m although they ardently denied this. Some ruling MPs too, denied having received the money.
This prompted the country’s popular opposition political party; National Unity Platform- NUP to call for an urgent meeting of all its 55 legislators regarding the subject.
During the meeting that was held on Monday 13th June at party headquarters in Kamwokya Kampala, it was disclosed that at least 40 MPs subscribing to the NUP had picked the said money.
“We established that a few NUP MPs had unfortunately picked this money, since everyone else was picking it,” reports indicates
According to reports, the cash handout was being issued to MPs at the home of Speaker Anita Among and MPs including those from the NUP had signed up for the money.
In the Monday meeting, the NUP leadership condemned the actions of its members to pick what they termed as Museveni’s ‘Dirty Money’ ordering them to return it to the consolidated fund.
“NUP condemns this open day of corruption in the strongest terms possible. How can public funds be handled in this manner? A quick summation of these funds shows that the regime is spending over 20 billion shillings on this illegal, immoral, and corrupt venture”, NUP condemns
“NUP MPs who had picked up the money have been ordered to return it immediately because it was clearly a bribe,” reads the statement.
NUP further allege that some MPs were being told that the money is meant to supplement their incomes in these hard economic times something the party disagrees with.
Its also alleged that they were asked not to go to the speaker’s home with their knoqn vehicles but using Boda Bodas to guisethemselves.
NUP leadership has hailed its members who sensed the bribery and refused to partake in it.
NUP leadership did not however disclose the names of legislators who received the money.
By press time, no any legislator or political party with representatives in parliament except NUP had come out to confirm or condemn recipient of the money.
