Bobi Wine: ‘NUP getting IPOD money’ a state-sponsored propaganda
The National Unity Platform (NUP) principle, Robert Kyagulanyi alias Bobi Wine has denied that his party has ever received funding from Inter-Party Organisation Dialogue (IPOD).
On Thursday, Democratic Party president Norbert Mao accused NUP of receiving over Shs3.1 billion from IPOD arrangement yet pretend like they have never.
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In a statement issued on Friday, February 18, Bobi Wine refuted claims of benefiting from the IPOD arrangement.
“The National Unity Platform would like to reiterate once again that it is not part of the IPOD arrangement and has never received any funding or support from that platform,” Bobi Wine said.
He maintained that his party is only funded by its elected Members of Parliament, donations and disbursements allocated by Parliament to all political parties with representation in the Parliament.
Quoting Section 14A of the political parties and organisations Act, the NUP principal further clarified that the funds allocated by the Parliament are disbursed from consolidated fund and duly accounted for and that this is not Museveni’s money.
He accused the government of clustering this funding as IPOD’s money in a bid to trade the regime’s ‘propaganda’.
“Like we said recently, it has been hijacked by Museveni to enforce his despotic will. We deliberately decided to forego all the opportunities and resources it extends to its members, for the sake of our principles and the values we represent,” Bobi Wine said.
It should be remembered that last week, while meeting secretary generals of different political parties, President Museveni called for scrapping of NUP from beneficiaries of the platform.
Museveni stressed that although IPOD brings together all political parties represented in parliament, some do not want to cooperate with others and suggested that these shouldn’t be getting government funding under IPOD arrangement.
“It should even be put in the law that those who don’t want to be part of the forum, should not share that money, ” Museveni said last week.
According to Bobi Wine, the president’s move is another way of frustrating NUP from prospering in its activities.
“Museveni stated that the law should be amended so that political parties which are in IPOD should be entitled to public funds. In other words, only those parties which accepted to talk and hobnob with him,”
Like the party has previously declined from joining IPOD, Bobi Wine reiterates that the party’s stance won’t change until the ruling government stops increasing torture claims, abductions and other forms of repression.
