By Akampa Rugaba Tanbull
Well, the whole of this week, what started on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) as #ParlaimentExhibition by different activists like my friends, Agather, Toko and Spire has taken over even the mainstream media and now it is the talk of the nation.
Whereas it is a constitutional right for citizens to demand and seek accountability of their leaders, this should objectively be done devoid of emotions but rather reasoning.
Me, like any other concerned citizen of this country, must demand accountability from our leaders or even institutions in a fair and just manner that does not only aim at image and character assassination.
If you follow the hashtag #ParliamentExhibition, you see how typical Ugandans have focused on majoring in minors and minoring in the major, pivotal or fundamental questions.
The entire focus of the #ParlaimentExhibition has turned into a character assassination for the Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Anita Among, her husband Hon Magogo, Clerk to Parliament and staff of the Speaker’s office, probably because by names, they seem to be hailing from Bukedea District or Teso sub-region.
Nobody is even calling for the review of the Parliamentary budget, but simply calling for the head of the speaker. To me, this is unfair, and it is done not in a good spirit of real accountability.
It is important to note that the Speaker, Among to be specific, does not sit and solely decide on how much should go to her office.
The budget of Parliament is equally scrutinized by the executive and comments are appended before being approved as part of the National Budget within the framework of Government.
Like any other arm of Government, they go through budgeting processes, and the budget of Parliament is legally part of the National Budget for every Financial Year.
The funds allocated to the Speaker’s Office, are budgeted for and Government it is the Government that funds this entire budget of Parliament, therefore the focus of rightful thinking citizens should be on putting pressure on Members of Parliament and the Government to review/reduce how much monies are allocated to Speaker’s office to spend on donations and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities.
This would make more sense than calling on Speaker Anita Among to resign and which she won’t do anyway, because all the expenditures from her office are legally backed.
Therefore, the focus of #ParliamentExhibition has been hinged on postmortem than the real disease.
Making noise that #SpeakerAmongMustResign won’t solve the challenge at hand.
In the next edition, I will give you facts about why the staff of Parliament receive money on their individual accounts and whether this has a legal backup or not.
The writer Akampa Tanbull is a political analyst/national coordinator- Citizens for A Better Uganda (C4BU). akampabi@gmail.com.
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