Kampala, (UG):– Kira Municipality MP, Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda has offered to mediate in resolving the ‘bad blood’ brewing between National Unity Platform (NUP) party president Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine and his deputy for the Buganda region, Mathias Mpuuga over the sh500m ‘service award’.
“I will try to play a role and I hope I will get space because we can’t afford to have honourable Mpuuga and honourable Kyagulanyi continuing the battle because it divides people and enlists the intervention of NRM [National Resistance Movement] and its machinery,” said Hon Ssemujju, a known political ally of the Nyendo-Mukungwe legislator.
The former Opposition Chief Whip in Parliament was speaking to government-owned newspaper NewVision in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, March 6.
According to Mr Ssemujju, he is offering to make a plea for a de-escalation of the conflict that had degenerated into personal attacks and threatened to split up the young and main opposition party in Uganda.
“I am going to be pleading for de-escalation. I am trying to contact Honourable Kyagulanyi personally because I have been in touch with Honourable Mpuuga. I have not heard them attacking each other since the last one or two days and so that silence gives me courage that with our intervention, we can bring it to a close,” he said.
“In my view, even if people are going to separate, the separation can be amicably done. That is what I was preaching to my colleagues in FDC; unfortunately, it didn’t work,” Ssemujju added.
Mpuuga, formerly part of the DP Bloc which broke away to join the NUP when it formed in 2021 is said to have publicly rejected the call by his president Mr Kyagulanyi to resign as a parliamentary commissioner over allegations of corruption and abuse of office.
In a statement he released last week, Mpuuga argued that the calls were made based on spite, envy and deliberate misrepresentation. He defended the sh500m, saying it was legally allocated to him by the parliamentary commission in May 2022.
However, Kyagulanyi insisted that “this money-heist was illegal, immoral and wrong, and totally unexpected from a person we delegated to represent our values in Parliament and lead the charge against corruption and misuse of public resources.”
On Monday (March 4), the Clerk to Parliament, Adolf Mwesige, defended Mpuuga’s sh500m, terming it as ‘akasiimo’, meaning a token of appreciation.
“The payment, if made today or tomorrow, is legal and proper. It is also budgeted for because that budget which gives a service award is approved by Parliament and the Executive,” he said.
Additional reporting by: NewVision
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