Parliament has admitted that billions of taxpayer money were deposited in the personal accounts of some of its staff.
Speaking during an X (formerly Twitter) Space organised by the Agora Discourse, the director of public and corporate affairs at Parliament, Mr Chris Obore said the money was, however not deposited for personal use.
“Parliament is a public organ which carries out corporate social responsibility and this money was channelled into individual accounts to cater for these CSRs,” he said.
According to him, Speaker Anita Among has been using some junior parliamentary staff to run her errands due to several commitments she has.
“The question should be what was the money for and how was it spent. Instead of just attacking, let us be fair. I don’t want to condemn Anita for investing in her community yet other leaders have looted government more but did nothing,” he added.
Mr Obore’s remarks came a few hours after Ms Agather Atuhaire, an activist with Agora Discourse posted a document on her X-platform with a list of names of Parliament junior staff who allegedly receive money on behalf of the Bukedea Woman MP.
The document, which Ms Atuhaire says is part of the report of the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) shows that one Daniel Adilo and Emmanuel Okwii received billions of shillings on behalf of the Speaker for certain activities. This shows that Ms Among spends Shs400m per week.
Mr Obore said crucifying the junior employee was unfair because the funds are meant for CSR of the Speaker and Parliament but not for the staff members’ benefits.
Parliament has for the last 10 days been under public scrutiny through #UgandaParliamentExhibition championed by a section of Ugandans led by Ms Atuhaire and a senior cartoonist and satirist, Dr Jimmy Spire Ssentongo.
Top issues have been the alleged corruption, graft, unclear expenditure, nepotism, lack of transparency and diversion of funds at the August House under the administration of Ms Among, among others.
Ms Atuhaire has challenged Mr Obore to make public the documents he thinks have accurate information after the latter said some of the documents posted on social media by the former had been falsified.
“I got the document showing trips of Speaker Among from the EFMS and I reaffirm that they are true. I challenge Obore to bring his as well or take me to court since it will compel the Bank of Uganda and Ministry of Finance to bring the documents to court,” she said.
Obore however, says the exhibition is targeting Ms Among with a hidden agenda.
