The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Anita Among has insisted that Parliament is not corrupt, denying allegations levied against Parliament.
“Parliament is not corrupt, and even when we have a few members under arrest, they are innocent until proven guilty,” Among said.
She said this on July 2, 2024, as she presided over a recess session at parliament, following orders from President Museveni to reconvene and discuss the recently approved budget.
According to the Speaker, some of the presidential reasons for returning the budget to parliament were allocating money to non-priority areas and tampering with the budget without authority from the executive.
MPs present asked if appropriating the budget is their role and, if so, was the president in order to write to parliament asking them not to tamper with the budget without authority from the Executive?
In response to the MPs, the Speaker said it is their role as Parliament to appropriate, and no one will take that away from them,” Among added.
MPs blamed the budget committee for the reallocation of funds, saying that out of the Ugx 72 trillion budget passed, they reallocated Ugx 750 billion to other non-priority areas that had not been funded by the government.
In their defence, they asked the Minister of Finance to explain to the House if the passed budget is the one that was shared with the president or if the one given to him had altered figures.
