Mr Phillip Karugaba. Photo/Courtesy
The infamous service awards by the Parliamentary Commission were back in the news this week following a court ruling by Justice Douglas Singiza that the awards were legal. There are several legal points of concern in the ruling, but for our interest in good governance, we will focus on the issue of the Leadership Code Act (Cap. 33).
The key facts
1. The meeting of the Parliamentary Commission of May 6, 2022, was attended by five members of the Commission, including Members of Parliament Mathias Mpuuga, Solomon Silwany, Prossy Mbabazi Akampurira and Esther Afoyochan (Mpuuga & co).
2. The meeting approved a service award to only Mpuuga & co, being just four out of the nine members of the Commission. The meeting also determined that Mpuuga be given one bodyguard upon his leaving office. The meeting also resolved that the said benefits take immediate effect.
3. The service awards and bodyguard were given on a person-to-holder basis, meaning the benefits were only for the persons of Mpuuga & co. and were not to any other member of the Commission. The award and bodyguard cannot, for instance, be claimed by Mr Joel Ssenyonyi who succeeded Mpuuga as Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.
4. The above decisions were implemented by inclusion in the Budget for the Financial Year 2023/2024.
The key issue
Whether it was lawful for Mpuuga & co. to participate in a meeting which made decisions in their personal interests?
The Leadership Code Act deals with conflict of interest. It prohibits a leader from participating in a meeting in which he has a personal interest. Such leader is required to declare his interest and refrain from further participation in the meeting. Violation of this provision is an offence triable before the Leadership Code Tribunal and punishable by removal from office, among others.
Mpuuga & co violated the Leadership Code Act on conflict of interest when they participated in a meeting to award themselves Shs1.7 billion. As the only beneficiaries of the award, Mpuuga & co. were required to declare their interests and refrain from further participation in the meeting. The available extracts of the minutes show a decision taken without any declaration of interest or withdrawal from participation of the meeting by Mpuuga & co.
It is immaterial that the award was subsequently approved in the budget of Parliament. The initial act creating the award was illegal and nothing can grow from an illegality. Unfortunately, while Justice Singiza refers to conflict of interest, he does not cite the Leadership Code Act and does not address its specific requirements.
Parliament to fix its remuneration
The Administration of Parliament Act (AOPA) empowers the Commission to pay allowances to its members. However, the meeting of May 6, 2022, did not grant allowances to all the members of the Commission, but rather only to Mpuuga & co.
Justice Singiza himself makes a finding that the service awards were not allowances of the nature envisaged under the AOPA and that “there was no room to grant an additional financial benefit hidden under the guise of prize money, in the name of exercising discretion”. Having made this finding, it is surprising how Justice Singiza blesses the service awards as legal under the AOPA.
What happens next?
Offences under the Leadership Code Act are prosecutable by the Inspector General of Government (IGG) before the Leadership Code Tribunal. Despite the public records of this debacle, and the public admissions by Mpuuga & co. of their acts, the IGG has been chasing her tail looking for evidence. Perhaps the IGG can now rely on the findings of fact of Justice Singiza to take the actions the country dearly needs.
