Mao got ‘dirty’ cash for polls - DP bosses

Senior officials of the Opposition Democratic Party (DP) have claimed that their leader obtained cash from undisclosed suspect sources to bankroll his 2021 presidential bid.

Mr Norbert Mao yesterday, however, described the allegation made by three legislators elected on DP ticket and the party’s national treasurer as recycled, unfounded and “malicious”.

Buikwe South Member of Parliament, Dr Lulume Bayiga, without providing evidence, told this newspaper yesterday he believed the DP president general and confidants got Shs3 billion.

“It was very difficult for us to scrutinise where that money could have come from,” he noted, saying the alleged transaction found when most members were engaged in vote canvassing at different tiers.

Dr Bayiga, a member of the DP National Council, said Mr Mao has never disclosed the source of his campaign finances to them or members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) and provided no accountability since the poll.

 The DP president general, in his second shot at the presidency, garnered 57,682 votes to come fifth in a crowded 2021 presidential race won by incumbent Yoweri Museveni.

 In July 2022, Mr Mao signed a cooperation agreement with President Museveni in which he committed DP to work with the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.

Revelations about the pact sparked revolt within DP hierarchy, with the opponents, among them Dr Bayiga, failing in attempts to oust Mr Mao whom they accused of being a political sell-out.

Matters were not helped when President Museveni a month later named the latter as the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister.

Mr Mao, who represented Gulu Municipality in Parliament twice before switching to win and serve as the district’s chair for one term, has insisted that his agreement with the NRM was not for personal gain, but shaping a likely peaceful transition of power.

Within DP, critics such as MP Lulume and his Mityana South and Bukoto Central counterparts Richard Lumu and Richard Sebamala, respectively, alongside the party national treasurer Mary Kabanda, said Mr Mao had obligation to disclose the source of his 2021 presidential bid financing.

“We know that they procured vehicles, very brand new pick-ups similar to those we saw with the [opposition] Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party fellows, but our coffers didn’t have that money. So, Mao should explain [where] he could have gotten [the money from] …,” Dr Lulume said.

DP National Treasurer Kabanda in a separate interview yesterday said by the time of the campaigns for the 2021 general elections, they barely had money to bankroll members standing for parliamentary and local government slots.

This, she argued, raised question about where money to fund the party’s presidential flag bearer came from.

“For us on the account we had very little money and we were not even able to contribute to our party parliamentary candidates the Shs3 million [required for nomination] like we usually do on time,” she said, “We had used some money and the remaining money on the account could not be given out because it was not enough.”

 The treasurer said despite being a signatory to the party account, she never knew the sources, amount and whereabouts of DP presidential flag bearer’s campaign cash and when she inquired, Mr Mao told her that a friend overseas, whom he did not name, provided the finances.

She added: “We are just hearing now that things went wrong with FDC, that they got the money from the government. Now we are also going to investigate; did they [Mr Mao and team] get the money from the government because the money was not put on the [DP bank] account? I am a key signatory, there is no body who can withdraw money without my signature, but the money never went to the party account.”

 The FDC which, until the last election, was Uganda’s largest opposition political party, is reeling from the backlash of unproven claims by its former leader and four-time presidential candidate, Dr Kizza Besigye, that State House provided money for his successor Patrick Oboi Amuriat’s 2021 presidential campaigns through the party Secretary General Nandala Mafabi.

Mr Amuriat and Mr Mafabi rejected the claims, which has spread to infect and polarise the party’s top brass and its rank-and-file, including paralysing its planned grass-root leadership elections and preparations for its National Delegates’ Conference later this year.

 FDC National Chairman, Ambassador Wasswa Birigwa, and the party’s electoral commission chairman, have each issued conflicting dates for convening the party’s highest decision-making organ, prompting last-ditch overtures to reconcile the two camps and stem a further disintegration.

 DP’s quartet – MPs Lulume, Lumu and Sebamala alongside treasurer Kabanda – claims a similar dirty money likely went into funding Mr Mao’s campaigns despite providing no iota of evidence to substantiate the claim.

 They questioned how their party presidential flag bearer was able to purchase a fleet of new vehicles for his campaigns --- that they said he appeared to run without financial difficulty --- when DP could not raise even nomination fees for its parliamentary and local government candidates.

Defence

In a rejoinder, Mr Mao said the allegations are not new and bear no truth.

 “But they were saying it before, didn’t you hear them [claim] that I got Shs16 billion in 2020? So, it’s not a new thing. Once they said it, I told them that ‘I haven’t received the money; if they had received it, they should deliver it [to me]’,” he said.

 Mr Mao, drawing from his successful contest as Makerere University guild president, said he had been engaged in politics from his student days and knows how to muster resources for electoral politics.

 “You must understand why people make such allegations. They make it because they want to demonise the person, they want to character-assassinate. Those are just a bunch of liars, they are not happy that they have no policy issues to raise,” he said.

 He added that DP often borrowed money back-to-back to fund its activities, including Shs100 million it picked to organise the national delegates’ conference ahead of the last ballot.

 “… even for my campaigns we had to borrow money; so, really anybody who is talking about a lot of money for me surely is just mocking our party. It’s a big shame,” Mr Mao said.

 He declined to disclose the amount he spent on campaigns, raising only generic electioneering expenses: acquisition, fuelling and repairs of a fleet, nomination fees, payments to chauffeurs and spendings on inner campaign team, facilitation for meetings and transport for agents and task force members and publicity.

DP, the president general said, budgeted Shs5 billion for the campaigns, but they expended less than Shs1b, most of it loans. 

 Asked why he had not given accountability to the party leaders, Mr Mao said none had asked him.

 “If the party members are interested, we can share [the accountability] with them because some of them in future will have to contest for president. So, they need to know [how to] raise money to contest for president,” he said.

 The claim raised against the DP leader, coming in the wake of implosions in FDC on similar grounds, spotlight the internal mistrust within opposition parties and the power of money in uniting or polarising politicians.

 The more assured funding sources for political parties in Uganda include an allocation from the Consolidated Fund under the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD), computed on the basis of each individual party’s representation in Parliament, and monthly remittances by MPs to their parties.

Parties also muster resources through drives from friends, businesses and organisations – both in-country and abroad.

The parties usually do not disclose the contributors in order to clothe them against possible state reprisal.

In some instances, as the FDC case shows, cash mobilised from well-wishers is not passed through the party bank account so that no digital footprint is left and information about it is shared among honchos on “must-know, need-to-know” basis, explaining the rising suspicions and accusations.  

DP Secretary General Siranda, seen internally by critics as Mr Mao’s acolyte, in a WhatsApp response to our inquiries, without disclosing source of the impugned financing, yesterday described the claims by the party’s ‘Gang of Four’ as “malicious” and demanded proof from the accusers.

“Ask them to produce evidence or go to the police. Otherwise, we don’t have time to respond to such malice because this has become a routine for our detractors,” he wrote.

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