The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Hon Joel Ssenyonyi, in a press conference in Parliament today, has urged the Speaker not to play a game of hide and seek but to confront the corruption allegations with her own hands.
Courtesy of Uganda Parliamentary Exposure Anita Among has been widely implicated in a well-coordinated money scandal in Parliament where some junior staffers received millions of shillings on her behalf to run their errands.
The same parliamentary revelation leaked records showing how former opposition leader Mathias Mpuuga, along with three other commissioners, shared Sh1.7 billion in service awards, Mpuuga admitted, but he insists that the money that he received is legitimate and he has no case to answer for despite pressure from his party.
Now Ssenyonyi is asking his boss in Parliament to make a statement on these transactions.Some young parliamentary staff were paid between Sh100 million and Sh500 million in a single day to run their errands, which Parliamentary Communications Director Chris Obore says is reasonable and not a cause for concern as the President is always busy and able to carry out some of her duties by junior staff.
“Let her come out and explain how did that happen, from the case of Kazinda, government passed a new resolution that money meant to go to bank accounts of staff members in government agencies should not exceed Shs5m to do different government works not their salary but here we are seeing billions being transferred to accounts of members of staff of parliament when that money is meant to do speaker’s errands, we want her to come out and explain because it’s a lot of money”- Ssenyonyi said in a press conference for the LoP.
Ssenyonyi also called on the Speaker and parliamentary leaders to come out and talk about people who are not known but work at parliament.
“Even the auditor general said about it in his report that many workers were given jobs here at parliament under unclear circumstances, they sit here in parliament and work. The Office of the Leader of Opposition has different workers who help in running different errands. Every new leader of opposition who comes in, comes with his own team but me i said i have no problem with the old team and should continue working with their contracts expiring in January and i said let their contracts be renewed, speaker and Clerk to parliament told me there’s no money and didn’t renew contracts for the staff of leader of opposition but again we hear people are given jobs and contracts under unclear circumstances”-Ssenyonyi said.
Anita Among, through some bloggers, has disputed and rejected this. The documents were leaked but failed to provide a convincing statement on the controversial and extravagant spending of taxpayers’ money orchestrated by her office under her leadership in the 11th Parliament.
