I was asked 5 per cent kickback to enhance my budget – UHRC boss

Ms Mariam Wangadya, Chairperson of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), has told court that three members of parliament who are currently battling charges of budget corruption asked her for a 5 per cent kickback in order to increase her budget.

Ms Wangadya is the first prosecution witness to testify in the case against MP Paul Akamba (Busiki County), Yusuf Mutembuli (Bunyole East) and Cissy Namujju Dionizza (Lwengo District Woman MP) before the Anti-Corruption Division of the High Court presided over by Justice Lawrence Gidudu.

Ms Wagandya identified Mutembuli as the former vice Chairperson of the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, Akamba as a member of the Budget Committee, and Namujju as a member of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament.

She narrated to the court that she got to know Mutembuli through  MP Fox Odoi as the person who would help her enhance her budget in May last year when she had gone to present the policy statement of the UHRC.

“I informed the committee about the financial challenges faced by the Commission whose estimated budget was Shs58b but had received less for the past financial years which led to the closing of some of our up-country offices,” Ms Wangadya said.

She added: “I felt like I had failed the organisation I was leading to the extent of wanting to resign but Mutembuli told me that he had a solution for the Commission’s financial crisis and requested the presence of the UHRC's accounting officer.”

The court further heard that Ms Wagandya was informed by Mutembuli that government bodies would offer 5 per cent as part of their enhanced budgets to MPs before approval and that her Commission would also do the same.

She says she did not agree to the suggestion, thus reporting the matter to the president who advised her to work with police and not to quit her job.

“On May 13, 2024, I received a call from Mutembuli asking me to meet him with some of his colleagues at Hotel Africana in Kampala, but I first called Maj Betty Kagaba to inform the President before meeting him. She instead handed me a voice recorder in the form of a pen and taught me how to use it before I proceeded to Hotel Africana where I met Mutembuli, Akamba and Namujju,” Ms Wangadya narrated.

The presiding judge adjourned the case to August 5 for the ruling on whether the prosecution should play the audio recordings of the MPs seeking a bribe.

Its prosecution’s case that the trio on May 13 this year at Hotel African in Kampala City, solicited from Ms Wangadya an undue advantage of 20 per cent of the anticipated enhanced budget for UHRC for the financial year 2024/25.

Prosecution further contends that the MPs did this by asserting that they were able to exert improper influence over the decision-making of the Budget Committee of Parliament to increase the Commission's budget, in consideration of the said undue advantage.

All the accused MPs have since denied the charge that attracts a 10-year maximum jail term upon conviction or a fine of Shs4.8m or both.

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