By Mulengera Reporters
Money spoke and talked big during the Wednesday tribute-paying session MPs held to celebrate the memory of fallen Kalangala Woman MP Hellen Nakimuli.
Led by President Museveni, VP Jessica Alupo, Speaker Anita Among, Thomas Tayebwa, Secretary General Hamson Obua and GCW Hamson Obua, the ruling NRM side registered their solidarity and support by handing over cash aimed at supporting the deceased legislator’s family.
The NUP side, renowned for being good at noise-making, was headed by LoP Joel Ssenyonyi who was the second to speak immediately after Robinah Nabbanja and offered nothing (at least not on the microphone) to support the material wellbeing of the family.
Ssenyonyi was speaking after Museveni, Anita Among, Tayebwa and Obua had already raised the bar by offering their respective cash contributions as follows: Shs20m, Shs10m, Shs5m and Shs1m.
From the NRM Secretariat came Shs10m which was also in cash and it accompanied the written condolence that was signed off by the Secretary General Richard Todwong. There was a powerful delegation from NRM Secretariat which comprised of the likes of NT Nekesa Oundo Barbra and Roses Seninde.
The NUP delegation was equally powerful comprising of Ag Party President Lena Zedriga, SG David Lewis Rubongoya, National Treasurer Benjamin Katana and Institutions head Judith Nalukwago and others. Both delegations sat in the strangers gallery up and the day’s presiding officer Anita Among was graceful enough to appropriately introduce and recognize their presence.
Anita Among, who presided over the session, kept reading out these messages and handing over the khaki envelopes to NUP MP Hassan Kirumira in whose Katikamu constituency the fallen legislator will be buried later this week.
Among provoked the NUP caucus even more when she explained that no mourner or diaspora-based well wisher should be burdened with contributing money for things like feeding mourners because the NRM government had fully taken care of everything through Parliament.
Peter Ogwang, a Minister from the NRM side, too helped the family realize up to Shs265m for the sustenance and school fees payment of the deceased’s only biological child Ssuubi who is an S1 student at Kibuli SS.
This was raised through Shs500,000 each of the 529 MPs agreed to be deducted from their salaries and delivered to the family to be fixed to cater for the young girl’s education up to university and beyond. All this credit goes to NRM whose MPs are the majority and whose Peter Ogwang had the guts to originate the proposal, amidst heckles and booze from reluctant legislators who are renowned for endless financial struggles.
All this is added to the millions Anita Among parted with personally to, in advance, pay the girl’s school fees at Kibuli SS all the way to S4. At Kibuli, school fees is about Shs2m per term, which means Anita Among, who handed over the proof via payment receipts to MP Kirumira, had to part with roughly Shs20m to cater for the girl’s S1-S4 education at one of Kampala’s best public schools.
Many watching the proceedings on TV from office and home had initially hoped that all this generosity by the NRM would mount adequate pressure on members of the NUP caucus to also announce some significant material and financial contributions to the family but this never happened.
Not even the LoP Ssenyonyi, who has an official budget of several billions, did announce any financial offers to the family as part of his eulogy during the Wednesday session. Predictably, foot soldiers will be all over social media defending their NUP bosses’ meanness with utterances like ’ours is a poor party because we aren’t yet in government.’
Ironically, NUP is the party Nakimuli loyally served to the point of resisting pressures from renowned Musevenists like Balaam Barugahara who confessed to have repeatedly offered her heaven on earth while asking her to defect to the NRM side. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
