For a couple of days Members of Parliament (MPs) have been signing a motion to censure the four backbench Parliamentary Commissioners over the sh1.7b they received as a service award.
The MPs claim they want to fight corruption and this time they are starting from their own house.
Parliament leadership say this money was passed in the budget and therefore there was nothing illegal that was done.
Whereas the moral and legal aspects of the issue remain a subject of debate, the censure of the Commissioners under the guise that the MPs are fighting corruption remains a big joke.
It is just a politics at play. A case in point the National Unity Platform (NUP) has threatened to deal with its MPs who don’t append their signatures.
To those in the shadow cabinet, I am told they have been told that anytime a reshuffle is coming to those who don’t sign.
In this case several opposition MPs are simply playing to the gallery, that is to be seen as fighting corruption even when deep in their minds they know they aren’t.
To those in ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM), the main complaint is that Commissioners are highly facilitated with fuel while their colleague MPs are suffering without fuel or money to run their Constituencies.
In this case it’s not about corruption but rather envy that some people are eating more than others. So here its just envy and not fighting corruption.
To understand this you will realise that one of the leaders of the process is Hon. Arion Odria , the same MP who in January raised in Parliament to challenge the re-appointment of NRM Commissioners yet the NRM Caucus had proposed that they get elected.
He had also expressed interest for the Commissioner job and so he is angry.
The other issue is that most NRM MPs have been dormant in the house and so are looking for relevancy before their voters.
If the MPs are interested in fighting corruption how come they have been silent on many other scandals that even involved more money?
The Lubowa Hospital scandal has so far cost Ugandans over sh300b and there is nothing on the ground.
Have these MPs attempted to censure the Minister of Health or Finance who release this money?
Minister of Science and Technology Dr. Monica Musenero got over sh30b for construction of the factory to manufacture the Covid 19 factory, did they censure her?
The Cooperative money scandal involved over sh130b and it has never been resolved, did these MPs raise any complaints?
The Minister of Gender Labour and Social Development, Betty Amongi was implicated in the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) scandal, did the MPs censure her?
Atiak sugar and many other project’s have received billions and billions of unaccounted for funds, did these MPs fight this kind of corruption?
With all those and many more corruption scandals, why would the sh1.7b become a more pressing issue than the hundreds of billions lost in the above mentioned scandals?
Therefore MPs should stop playing cheap politics and hoodwinking Ugandans.
What they are doing is like following up someone who is suspected to have taken a bunch of matooke from your garden yet others have taken 100 cows from you and you are silent.
Our MPs can only be useful to us by saving the many billions of money being stolen in various government departments than following the so-called ‘service awards’
Muhimbise George,
muhimbiseg@gmail.com, 0787836515
