By Mulengera Reporters
Mathias Mpuuga has pushed back against those he says want to become political celebrities by soiling his good name and reputation. At the instigation of Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa, who presided over plenary sessions this week, a bellicose-sounding Mpuuga responded to Tororo woman MP Sarah Opendi who had accused him and others of allocating themselves up to Shs5.4bn which she said the four back bench Commissioners are destined to share under the FY2025/2026 which begins on 1st July.
Parliament was considering Ministerial policy statements as part of the budget processing process for the FY2025/2026 and Opendi said now was the best time to thoroughly look into everything so that they aren’t accused of inadvertently allocating Parliamentary Commissioners money as was the case last time as Mpuuga was being questioned for receiving Shs500m along with fellow back bench Commissioners.
Opendi called this extravagant way of sharing public funds at the time when the rest of Ugandans are struggling to meet basic needs. It was claimed during that same session by shadow justice & constitutional affairs minister Jonathan Odur that each of the back bench commissioners had been allocated Shs1.3bn and its all personal to holder for them to enjoy for the next 12 months.
Tayebwa, who deputizes the Speaker in chairing the Commission, dismissed all this as untrue and warned against demonizing colleagues on the eve of a major election exercise that 2026 is threatening to be. He explained there was nothing unusual that had been allocated to the Parliamentary Commission that was unprecedented. That everything allocated therein has always been happening even during the time of current Speaker’s predecessors.
He spoke about the Parliamentary Commission Secretariat having staff who have to be remunerated for their work. Tayebwa explained that whatever had been allocated was for all Commission members collectively and not for individual Commissioners as Opendi and Odur had implied. He stressed it wasn’t good practice to demonize individual back bench Commissioners in order to incite Ugandans to go after them on social media platforms whose previous day’s reporting even Opendi had referenced as she made her case.
Opendi was among the Theodore Sekikubo group members who had ganged up to collect signatures to force Mpuuga out of Parliamentary Commission membership and she remained outspoken until when one of the key leaders at Parliament spoke to her cultural leader in Japhadola land to ask her to deescalate. That is how she grumblingly backed off the Sekikubo-led fight to force Mpuuga out.
After saying a few things, Tayebwa signaled Mpuuga to say something. In his submission, Mathias Mpuuga (renowned for keeping grudges and not easily letting go) registered his disappointment at Opendi who he said is a senior legislator who ought to be more sophisticated than that. He said he was surprised to realize that Opendi would fall for what he called mere social media rumors and base on them to make such a very damaging submission about him.
He advised her to stop submitting on top of her voice while raising her voice because that alone doesn’t and can never improve the quality and acceptability of her arguments on the floor of parliament. He accused her of having personal vendetta which won’t take her very far.
Refusing to be cowed, Opendi demanded to know why back bench Commissioners have to get all that additional facilitation over and above other colleagues yet they equally sit to do oversight work in committees of parliament like other legislators.
Combative as always, Mpuuga said he was surprised to realize that a senior legislator like Opendi lacked capacity to correctly understand simple things such as contents of the Commission budget. He advised her to engage in self-restraint and also stop riding on his name to achieve cheap popularity among Ugandans on social media. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
