Justin: Rt. Hon. Mathias Mpuuga asked to Resign After Admitting Taking Irregular Service Award 500 Million

Former Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga asked to Resign by the NUP party to resign from the position of Commissioner of Parliament after admitting to having taken part in an irregular service award amounting to UGX 500 million.

There is an ongoing online protest under the hashtag #UgandaParliamentExhibition. The protest aims at exposing the massive corruption, abuse of office and gross mismanagement of public affairs by the leadership of Parliament and other leaders.

Unfortunately, the protest has not only revealed grand corruption on the side of NRM leaders. Some leaders on the opposition side have had serious allegations of corruption leveled against them. Specifically, our former Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and current Parliamentary Commissioner, Rt. Hon. Mathias Mpuuga alongside three other Parliamentary Commissioners have been accused of irregularly awarding themselves huge sums of tax-payers’ money on the pretext of “Service Awards”. Under the scheme, Rt. Hon. Mpuuga was allocated 500,000,000/= (Five Hundred Million Uganda Shillings).

On Wednesday 28th February 2024, the President convened an urgent meeting comprised of senior leaders of the Party including all Deputy Presidents and some of our senior legislators. At the meeting, Rt. Hon. Mpuuga admitted that he indeed took part in this wrong doing and apologised for the same. In light of this, he was strongly advised that the moral thing to do in the circumstances is to step down from his role as Parliamentary Commissioner with immediate effect.

The nation will recall that the values of the National Unity Platform are Discipline, Reliability, Inclusiveness, Integrity, Patriotism and Service. All actions of corruption and abuse of office go contrary to these values. They also go contrary to the Integrity Oath which every leader of the Party swore at the start of this term.

We therefore ask our leaders at all levels to do self-reflection and recommit themselves to these values and the Oath they took to shun and fight corruption in all its forms.