Don't Fear Being Arrested, Parliament Will Stand By You - Speaker Tayebwa Pleads To MPs

The Deputy Speaker of Parliament Rt Hon Thomas Tayebwa has asked the Legislators not to hide from attending the reading of the 2024/25 budget, due to fear of arrest, saying Parliament will stand by all its people including the three MPs arrested over corruption until they are pronounced guilty.

The Speaker however clarified that, this decision should not be viewed as Parliament condoning corruption in Parliament and the country at large.

He made the remarks while officiating the handover ceremony of the new leadership of the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Youth Affairs (UPFYA) at Parliament, where he assured MPs that President Museveni is happy about the performance of the 11th Parliament, and that reports about rackets of corruption have been swirling around since the 9thand 10th Parliament and urged all MPs to support the cleansing exercise.

This followed public anticipation that many legislators are likely to miss today's budget reading at Kololo due to fear of arrests .

“We are working very closely with the President and we hope that we can continue cleaning up. Only that, the message that has been put out, it is as if Parliament is rotten, Parliament is finished, most of you are hiding your heads in the sand. Please, come out and speak for the good things you are doing for this country because there are so many good things. And personally, I am proud of you and as a leadership, we are proud of you, you are achieving a lot," added Thomas Tayebwa.

The Deputy Speaker also disagreed with assertion by the Ministry of Finance that MPs have been involved in tampering with the budget, which borders to corruption, saying all the reallocations that the 11th Parliament has been making were within the 1% range, and these are intended to improve service delivery for Ugandans, thus can’t be categorized as corruption.

 “At the reallocations in the budget with these things going on, you will find that we have tremendously reduced on how much money Parliament reallocates during appropriations. We don’t exceed 1% of the national budget and most of it is reallocated because MPs want schools, health centers, tractors in their areas, to me, that isn’t corruption. But the problem if you are making an omelet of 1000 eggs and you have one spoiled egg the whole omelet will be late.”.He said.

Buburo East member of parliament Hon John Musira noted that some MPs are indeed in great fear of arrest by police at kololo but said that others are still in their respective constituencies since parliament is still in recess.

The Deputy Speakers remarks followed the arrest and remanding of the three NRM Legislators over corruption scandal.