NRM Top Organ Set To Initiate Move To Censure Mathias Mpuuga And Its Commissioners Over Shs 1.7Billion Service Award

The Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the ruling National Resistance Movement party is sitting to decide on the fate of its embattled parliamentary commissioners.

Bukooli Central MP Solomon Silwany, Zombo Woman MP Esther Afoyochan and Rubanda Woman MP Prossy Mbabazi will be cut loose as the NRM has decided to diffuse the smoke before it spreads any further.

The trio has been in the thick of a Shs1.7 billion service award scandal that they negotiated and received together with their then Leader of the Opposition Mathias Mpuuga in 2022.

The NRM legislators received Shs400 million each, a gratuity that was approved without being taken to the floor of Parliament.

Sources from the corridors of Parliament and CEC meeting have intimated that the ruling party does not want the matter to reach the floor of Parliament for the debate.

CEC is looking at the option of ending the two-and-a-half-year term of office of their commissioners prematurely to save the image of NRM government.

Silwany, Afoyochan and Mbabazi are facing censure after members of their own ruling party led by Theodore Ssekikubo (Lwemiyaga County) and Sarah Opendi (Tororo Woman) moved to have them removed from office through impeachment.

The censure motion was opened three weeks ago and is due to close today. Other key issues to be handled by CEC will be approval of NRM members to different committees and replacement of committee chairpersons.

However, Yesterday Museveni’s statement on corruption was seen as a hint at the ongoing issue with parliamentary commissioners, whom some MPs accuse of sharing Shs1.7 billion amongst themselves.

The censure motion faces challenges, and experts believe it could spark a debate on corruption in parliament, where three legislators are currently remanded in prison for soliciting a bribe from the Uganda Human Rights Commission.

Museveni’s statement on corruption may influence the decision of NRM legislators on whether to sign the censure motion or not.

“Corruption is very dangerous, don’t involve me in your struggles with the Commissioners, that is another matter, but it is corruption,” Museveni said.

Experts however believe that could the Censure motion make it to parliament, it will be a spark on the debate about corruption in parliament where even three legislators Cissy Namujju [Lwengo District], Yusuf Mutembuli [Bunyole East] and Paul Akamba [Busiki county] are remanded at Luzira prisons until tomorrow 14th June when they will appear for their bail hearing.

The three are accused of soliciting a 20% from the enhanced budget of the Uganda Human Rights Commission via the commission chairperson Marian Wangadya at a meeting they held at Hotel African in early May.