The Opposition National Unity Platform (NUP) President, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu alias Bobi Wine has stood his ground, urging the Commissioner of Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga to step down from the role, apologize to the people of Uganda and return the 500 million shillings he received from the Parliamentary Commission as “service award” for his former role as Leader of the Opposition in the House.
Mpuuga, who has since rejected all the demands, maintains that the money was paid to him as gratuity.
However, Bobi Wine disagrees.
“That is not gratuity. Every Member of Parliament receives gratuity, including the Rt Hon Mathias Mpuuga and everybody else. So, this is not gratuity. In the document, it is made clear, a ‘service award’ which is not provided for anywhere in the law,” said Bobi Wine while appearing on NTV on Monday morning.
“This was done by five people; three NRM Commissioners, and [Speaker of Parliament] Anita Among, and Hon Mpuuga,” he added.
Gratuity is defined as a sum of money paid to an employee at the end of a period of employment/ service.
Bobi Wine said that by the time Mpuuga received the money, he had not even been Leader of the Opposition for a year.
“This happened only two months after Hon Zaake had been kicked out of the [Parliamentary] Commission. And Hon Zaake had always been raising the issue, that he is being kicked out of the Commission, because he is exposing this gross mismanagement. Of course now it’s finally coming out, but it was immoral. And for us, it’s more of a moral question. Well, we can go into the legalities, but I don’t want to look so much at the legalities, because we know that even the slave trade was legal. Not everything legal is right.”
The NUP Principal questioned how the money can be termed as gratuity, yet the recipients (members of the Parliamentary Commission, including Mpuuga) who served two and half years in the role, received the money within the first year of service and kept it a top secret.
“I want to make it clear that this is not gratuity, because gratuity is paid, and all of them [MPs] are going to be paid,” said Bobi Wine.
Asked if the NUP advisories to Mpuuga that include; returning the money, stepping down from his role as Commissioner of Parliament and apologizing to Ugandans are the best solutions to the matter, Bobi Wine said, “we are the people that have been castigating the Museveni regime for corruption and immorality. We have castigated General Museveni for rewarding 42 people with 6 billion as a service award. Remember, the experts that we were told saved Uganda from a loss of 2.8 trillion, and therefore General Museveni rewarded them with 6 billion (“presidential handshake”). We all in unison, criticized them, including the Hon Mpuuga. The taxpayer was paying them to do their job. So, why should they be given extra billions. What extra work did they do? We must be seen to represent the values that we stand for.”
Bobi Wine also dismissed some social media allegations that he has personal grudge against Mpuuga.
“I want you to know that I have no personal problem with my Deputy President. I am the one that proposed the name to be appointed as Deputy President. I appointed him as Deputy President. I appointed him as Leader of Opposition, and also appointed him as Commissioner of Parliament with confirmation from the National Executive Committee. He is a leader that I personally held and would love to continue holding in very high regard. He has so in many other ways, and I only wish he can do the moral thing, even now.”
Various high profile figures in the country such as Hajji Kassim Nakibinge have called on leaders to avoid addressing their differences in public.
Asked why the matter could not be resolved in private, Bobi Wine said, “I never at all wanted this matter to go in the public domain and we did not take it to the public domain. We found it there, we just decided to address it. There have been so many allegations, not only against Rt Hon Mpuuga, but against many other leaders. And indeed, we have held many private meetings, but this is a matter that we learned from the public (social media). It happened almost two years ago and it was kept a secret. I am pretty close to my Deputy President (Mpuuga), and a matter of such a sum of money at least, I should have been communicated to or the party. But the fact that this was kept a secret, it was disturbing, and we only all came face to face about it when we met in the senior leaders’ meeting.”
DID MPUUGA HAVE NUP PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS?
Some Mpuuga supporters, especially from Masaka, have expressed their opinions that Mpuuga could have developed ambitions to challenge Bobi Wine for NUP Presidency, and hence to the move to “smear” him and kill his ambitions.
In response, Bobi Wine said, “nobody can claim to love Hon Mpuuga more than me. I am the one who appointed him Deputy President, I am the one who appointed him Leader of Opposition, I am the one who appointed him to the Parliamentary Commission a few months ago. Does that mean that I don’t like him? Or does that mean that I like him? It’s only unfortunate that even if it was my own Secretary General or my brother or my friend, we have to do what is right. This is a moral challenge for me. It is painful for me to have to do this. But I have to do what is right because this is what we promised the people. I cannot be seen to cover up for my senior leaders.”
He added: “The Right Honourable Mpuuga was given the opportunity to honorably resign. He has not resigned yet. I really hope he can look into his moral conscience and do the right thing. I am confident that Hon Mpuuga can be rehabilitated and our relationship can come back to normal because I treasure him, but I treasure the values more. I treasure Uganda more. And this is supposed to communicate to any other leader, to know that for us, we don’t believe in corruption, we don’t believe in impunity. And the only way countries have developed is by stamping out corruption.”
