Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga seems to have been abandoned by President Yoweri Museveni especially after Tuesday night’s revelation that he had told the head of the legislature that the Shs10b money was a trap, but behind the scenes, the speaker is sure of the backing of the Commander-in-Chief (CiC).
While delivering his 12th Coronavirus address at State House Nakasero in Kampala, President Museveni saw an opportunity to publicly distance himself from Parliament’s controversial Shs10bn Covid19 package that has earned the House public ridicule.
“That Shs20m is bad planning because we had already planned in a certain way. It is morally reprehensible for MPs to give themselves money for personal use when the country is in such a crisis; and totally unacceptable to me and to the NRM,” said Museveni.
“When I met with the Speaker, I told her they should get out of that trap and the best way to do it is by not spending this money on themselves. I agreed with the Speaker to donate that money to the district task forces.”
But away from the television screens, Kadaga is slowly winning the Covid19 cash scandal. First, this was not the first time Museveni was condemning Parliament for allocating each MP Shs20m. He had done so in a cabinet meeting before summoning the Speaker for talks on how to manage the crisis. And when the two held talks, in a meeting also attended by Prime Minister Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, Museveni helped Kadaga come up with an idea that would help justify the controversial deal.
In the new deal, MPs would have to take the money to their districts’ taskforces and plan with RDCs, then account to the CAOs and the Parliamentary Commission; MPs for special interest groups would have to take their allocations to the national taskforce.
And besides threatening that those who had spent the money without consulting their district taskforces would be probed by the Auditor General, Museveni used his April 28 address to regurgitate the same script he had read to Kadaga days earlier – and some anti-corruption crusaders were excited.
Museveni even pleaded with Ugandans not to be angry with Kadaga and her MPs because too much focus on the Shs10bn could easily divert the fight against Covid19. He promised that he would ensure that the money is accounted for.
“Ugandans, don’t be angry and be diverted from our war. If the MPs have spent the Shs20m wrongly, they will pay back using their salary. If they have spent the money on themselves, it’s a terrible thing.”
And hours after Museveni’s address, the High Court in Kampala also repeated the same presidential script in their ruling on the application filed by Ntungamo Municipality MP Gerald Karuhanga challenging the manner in which the allocation was made.
On April 29, Justice Michael Elubu ruled that those who didn’t want the money should return it to the Parliamentary Commission (which has decided that the returned money will now be sent to the MPs’ respective districts) while those who had accepted it should take it to the taskforces.
In the end, the three arms of government (executive, legislature and judiciary) have agreed on what to do with the money to save Parliament from further embarrassment. The script is the same but the actors are different.
And even when MP Karuhanga thought he had scored “the first goal” in his quest to save public money, Kadaga seems to be having the last laugh since Justice Ebulu’s ruling simply breathed more life into what Kadaga and Museveni had ordered the MPs to do so as to thwart public anger. And back in the House, the Speaker could easily castigate Karuhanga for seeking help from courts for an issue that Parliament had already resolved.
On the whole, Kadaga won’t be bothered by a ‘stupid order’ because its content looks familiar; neither will she be shaken by Museveni’s remarks because she knows she has the support of both the executive and the judiciary. For Museveni, cleaning up the image of Parliament is key because Kadaga is an ally and the House she superintends over has majority NRM MPs. Therefore, while it looked like the president was rebuking the speaker, the two know what they are doing – and they are almost winning the battle.
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