CID orders VIP cells prepped up as MPs face arrest

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CID orders VIP cells prepped up as MPs face arrest
A man who turned up for recruitment with forged documents was taken into custody

President Museveni is understood to have ordered CID to interrogate several legislators over corruption

The Criminal Investigations Department has directed Kira Police Station to "clean up cells for VIPs" as legislators and Parliament staff face arrest in corruption charges.

CID director Tom Magambo told a meeting of his detectives in Kibuli at the weekend that suspects from Parliament were to be processed for detention.

Mr Magambo is said to have acted on the orders of President Museveni to record statements from the suspects whose identities he did not reveal in the meeting.

"That is what the director communicated in today's meeting," a source told the Nile Post on Friday. "He told the CID Kira to clean up his cells for VIPs next week."

However, sources in Parliament say at least two MPs and three other individuals recorded statements on Friday over allegations of drawing irregularly funds from the public coffers.

More MPs and officials from Parliament and Finance ministry are understood to be facing CID starting today.

Parliament has been at the centre of allegations of gross corruption and abuse of the taxpayer's sweat after revelations by social media activists that billions of shillings was being irregularly doled out in corporate social responsibility and per diem.

The corruption allegations got more damning with revelations that four backbench Parliamentary Commissioners shared Shs1.7 billion among themselves under the so-called service award that they negotiated.

Nyendo-Mukungwe MP Mathias Mpuuga, who was then Leader of the Opposition, in March 2022 attended a meeting that award him Shs500 million as a one-off person to holder gratuity.

The others in the meeting were NRM legislators Solomon Silwany (Bukooli Central), Esther Afoyochan (Zombo Woman), and Prossy Mbabazi (Rubanda Woman) - who pocketed Shs400 million each.

For Mpuuga, the money was the poisoned chalice that spilled the frothing bad relations he was having with his parent party, the National Unity Platform and the fallout has yet to show any signs of repair.

At Parliament, the four legislators are facing censure after the ruling party legislators led by Lwemiyaga County's Theodore Ssekikubo and Tororo Woman MP Sarah Opendi decided to drag them down legally.

Mr Ssekikubo said at the weekend that he would close the collection of member signatures for the censure motion today.

The censure motion has drawn mixed reactions from the ruling party but deputy secretary general Rosemary Namayanja has condemned the actions service award.

While MPs appeared to have been waiting to know what side of the swing President Museveni stood before committing themselves, the head of state appeared to have given more than just hints during his State of the Nation Address last Thursday.

Mr Museveni said he was in possession of evidence incriminating of corruption, to which legislators responded by demanding the President grabs them by the neck.

“I didn’t believe but now I have proof. So, therefore, really the corrupt are like foreigners... some of these foreigners do not know Uganda. I am very sorry for them because they do not know what they are doing. I pity those people who support them - they don’t know how strong we are.”

He promised to spill blood of “dishonest” individuals but said some ended up on the wrong side by "mistake" and needed to be helped to get back on track.

“If you punish every mistake, who will you work with?” he said.

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