By Elisha Kaweesa
I am here to give sense to the ill conceived people who call themselves the Intel Team who attacked and circulated malicious stories against the Rt. Hon Speaker of Parliament Hon Anita Annet Among.
The article by these opportunists was meant to spread cheap propaganda, confusion and malice against the the Speaker of Parliament.
As a concerned Ugandan who has seen Rt Hon Anita Among toil her from nothing to something I am forced to address some of these unsubstantiated allegations flying on social media as follows;
The speaker joined Parliament when she had money, with various businesses running,so she entirely does not depend on Parliament allowances and Salary.
Based on credible information available, the Speaker’s residence in MacKinnon Suites Nakasero was paid for by herself from Karim Hirji.
The Parliament budget committee has a chair and vice who steer their activities not the Speaker. She only gets involved if some matters as directed to her for purposes of consultation so it cannot be true that
the speaker wanted to force the budget committee to appropriate billions of taxpayers’ money for her personal use.
The so called Intel Team also need to understand that the speaker is a political head of Parliament and there is a Clerk to Parliament who is the accounting officer and not the Speaker as they are spreading lies to the public.
The authors of a false allegations also attempted to create unfounded animosity between the office of the speaker and Director Corporate and Public Affairs which is not the case because Mr Chris Obore works
well with the Rt Hon speaker and there is no fight between the two as alleged by the haters.
The allegations of Ghost Staff in Parliament are total lies meant to hoodwink the public. Parliament has a fully-fledged Human resource directorate which manages staffs those alleging should do more investigations.
The claim of money lending business the authors claim the speaker is using to hold the legislators at ransom is lie. Actually the speaker had it way back in 2006/2015 which closed so there is nothing like
money lending going on in parliament by the speaker apart from the Parliamentary Sacco.
They also lied to the public that the Manager of Mama Bukedea radio station is paid shs 8m monthly through parliament, which is a blatant lie. It is public information that Bukedea based radio station is a stand alone business under Anita Foundation and it’s not funded by Parliament as being alleged.
Last but not least, the so called bribe to State house anti-corruption team alleged by the author is another beautiful lie which needs more scrutiny because it seems the perpetrators lacked what to write.
All the allegations of the air conditioner, CCTV for speaker’s residences in Bukedea is another lie. Parliament does not fund private property for the Speaker. The Speaker pays her bills through her salary just like any other government employee.
I must remind the naysayers that from 1998 until 2006, Ms Among worked at Centenary Bank, one of the large commercial banks in the country.
At the time she left in 2006, she had risen to the rank of branch manager. For the ten years prior to her election to parliament, she served as an accountant lecturer at Kampala International University. Because of her financial discipline, she managed to accumulate what you celebrate today.
In a nutshell, the author(s)’ allegations can be translated as political blackmailing to the speaker.
