Nairobi News

Uganda’s Parliament Speaker, Anita Among and her husband, Ms Moses Magogo, the Member of Parliament for Budiope East in Buyende District, are on the spot for pocketing UGX 600 million (Sh 20,468,491) for a holiday in Nairobi Kenya.

The monies were disbursed to both their accounts with Speaker Among pocketing Sh499 million and Sh 49 million to Ms Magogo. The per diems were requested as Speaker Among proceeded on her official paid leave and opted to have her husband accompany her.

According to the Ugandan media, Ms Among told her critics that travelling with her husband was her entitlement and anyone complaining about it was a hater. The haters’ remark was made in response to critics who claimed that the holidaying couple pocketed the money but did not travel to Nairobi. An online social butterfly, Ms Among is yet to post any photos of her Nairobi trip on her active social media pages.

Ms Among is entitled to 60 days of official paid leave and her office has a budget of UGX 13.1 billion (Sh 446,895,394) for the financial year 2024-2025. She enjoys a daily per diem of $4,000 (Sh 530,000) and a fuel budget of UGX 800 million (Sh 27,291,321) per year. For internal travelling, she enjoys a budget of UGX 1.34 billion (Sh 45,712,964) while she has an international travel budget of UGX 5.3 billion (Sh 180,805,006).

Speaker Among and her husband are widely known to enjoy life’s excesses. They gift each other lavish gifts including vehicles worth more than Sh 20 million a unit and hosting lavish parties in large, flamboyant homes. In the same breath, she has also been linked to multimillion shilling scandals including the theft of iron roofing sheets that were meant for the poor.

The criticism over the hefty sum for her travel also comes after President Yoweri Museveni ordered a stop to foreign travel by government officials in March 2023 to put an end to wastage of public funds.

By this travel ban, Ugandan opposition allied politician, Joel Ssenyonyi, the Member of Parliament of Nakawa West revealed he had to refund per diems deposited in his accounts after he was funded for five days’ travel to Nairobi when he had only asked for one day. According to the Daily Monitor, Mr Ssenyonyi had been in Nairobi to visit the ailing Kawempe Noth Member of Parliament, Mr Ssegirinya Muhammad, who was admitted at Aga Khan Hospital.

“A couple of days later, I saw a reflection on my account, they had processed money for five days as opposed to one day, which I was and which I had indicated that I was going for but I was told they were processing for several others, and it was done collectively. I was there for one night, so I shouldn’t have been paid for five days but that process delayed and so the money wasn’t deducted from the March 2024 emolument I was told it would be deducted off the April 2024 emoluments but I could not wait so I withdrew money for my account for the 4 days and deposited it with the accountability committee,” said Mr Ssenyoni.

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