Speaker Anita Among is not the problem

Once again Ugandans are throwing stones at the wrong person, the Speaker and Parliament. Even the most vocal MPs like Ssemujju Nganda haven’t been spared. No matter whether he is a bright student who has scored 80 percent, Ugandans are angry, they want 100 percent from him! 

They have set the bar so high, they want to see perfection in Parliament, one that cannot be found anywhere in this country, not even in the churches or mosques where they worship, companies they run, NGOs they operate, political parties they run, not even in relationships with their spouses! Nobody seems to understand that Parliament is a reflection of our society!

The Parliament expenditure on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a concern during the Parliament exhibition. But has this budget started with a person of Anita Among or has it been there before? If the President has a budget of 100 billion to donate, and a trillion of classified expenditure which nobody questions, does it surprise you that the Speaker (who is number three in hierarchy) has a billion or two for donating?

I have seen people blame MPs for earning too much, demanding money for cars etc. Me and you know that MPs have turned into ‘small governments’ in their constituencies; they have to construct roads, bridges, churches & mosques, schools, water sources, pay school fees, buy ambulances etc. This translates into a bigger budget for Parliament in the form of trips, fuel or CSR! By the time of his death, Jacob Oulanya was sponsoring over 100 children in school, Cecilia Ogwal was sponsoring over 120. I don’t know how many that Rt. Hon Anita Among or Mpuuga are sponsoring!

These demands to political leaders are not met by the ordinary people, they are made by elites. They organize church fundraising events and invite these politicians. The other day Hon Matembe brought to the Speaker a couple that had given birth to triplets and were unable to take care of them. The Speaker gave them 10 million, where did this money come from? Is there a Ministry that could have handled such? Would Speaker Among have sent away the couple empty handed? Was the Speaker or Matembe benefiting individually?

In 2006 MPs got Shs60m each to buy vehicles, we condemned them and in 2011, about 50 percent of them were voted out. Those we voted, got Shs103m each to buy cars, up from Shs60m received by their predecessors! We also condemned them and in 2016 elections voted 60 percent of them out. The ones we voted got Shs200m and in 2021, we got so angry and almost 75 percent of them were voted out and today we are blaming them! Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results!

From a systems theory perspective, Parliament is a small subsystem of a larger system. The larger system includes the political, social, economic, religious, cultural, geo-political etc. systems. These systems feed into one another to shape society.

If society expects MPs to offer social services instead of making policies, where the President buys vehicles for Bishops or bails out a national mosque that has been mortgaged by a Mufti, do you get surprised if the Speaker of Parliament contributes 50 million for the Namugongo martyr’s day celebrations or some money to a boda boda SACCO? 

An MP receives about 100 phone calls daily asking for financial support either for a community initiative or for a personal need. I come from a district which has a Minister and the biggest accusation against him is that he has not given jobs to people from his district in the Ministries where he has served, yet people know that it is not a role of a Minister to recruit staff.

So the elephant in the room is political culture. We need to sensitize our people on the roles of political leaders and to reduce unnecessary pressures on them. We need to overhaul or reform our political system! 

[email protected]