As talk of corruption and abuse of office continues to dominate the media, fueled by a social media exhibition on parliament that has singled out individuals as being corrupt, Walter Lubega Mukaaku, a former member of the National Unity Platform (NUP), has called for a lifestyle audit of all opposition politicians, especially Members of Parliament, in order to determine the real extent of corruption.
Mukaaku, who was speaking on a televised political talk show on Saturday, March 16, 2024, argued that opposition politicians who are finger-pointing others for being corrupt are allegedly the most dishonest, and once a lifestyle audit is done on them, it will clearly expose how corrupt they are.
He pointed out the Leader of Opposition (LOP) in parliament, Joel Ssenyonyi, who has called on Mathias Mpuuga to resign from the parliamentary commissioner post for allegedly involving himself in corruption when he accepted UGX 500 million as a service award during the end of his LOP tenure. Mukaaku alleged that Ssenyonyi, who had almost nothing, amassed a chunk of assets in the shortest time possible through shady dealings while he was heading the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Makaaku said that it is not coincidental that most reports about public entities investigated by PAC during Ssenyonyi’s reign did not come out, instead, the public saw him dubiously acquiring apartments in Ntida and Nakawa with money whose source cannot be established.
He also lashed out at NUP for having no accountability for the billions they receive quarterly from the government through the electoral commission, let alone members’s contributions and donations.
He argued that singling out Mpuuga as the only corrupt leader is a mere witch hunt, which does not depict NUP as a corruption-intolerant party, and therefore suggested that a lifestyle audit be done on all NUP and other opposition parliamentarians to determine the extent of corruption and come up with a collective punishment for all the culprits.