20% budget bribe: How Museveni ‘trapped’ MPs with pen recorder

The chairperson of the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) Mariam Wangadya has testified in the Anti-Corruption court about how MPs solicited a 20 per cent bribe from UHRC’s total budget.  

Wangadya on Friday appeared before Justice Lawrence Gidudu during the trial of three members of parliament facing corruption charges. Wangadya narrated that in March this year, she appeared before a parliamentary committee chaired by Robina Gureme Rwakoojo and her vice chairperson Yusuf Mutembuli. Wangadya said the meeting was attended by other members of parliament whom she doesn’t remember.

She alleges that after the meeting, Mutembuli approached her and promised to lead her to someone who would help resolve the commission’s financial problems. She noted that West Budama North MP Fox Odoi-Oywelowo also approached her, offering to assist with the commission’s budget problems, though she couldn’t remember if he attended the committee meeting. Odoi had previously worked in the President’s Office.

Odoi previously worked in the President’s Office. Wangadya testified that Mutembuli proposed that the UHRC should offer a 5 per cent bribe from its total budget allocation to the MPs. She claims she refused the offer, but Mutembuli suggested involving the commission’s accounting officer, Margaret Ejang, who might understand the situation better.  Mutembuli allegedly warned that without the bribe, UHRC’s budget would not be increased. Wangadya and Ejang both refused the proposition, with Ejang stating she would rather resign than pay a bribe. To date, the UHRC’s budget remains at a mere Shs 15 billion.

Later, Mutembuli called Wangadya, promising to introduce her to a colleague who could help with the financial issues. Wangadya discovered that the person was Mudimi Wamakuyu, the Elgon County MP, who is currently on remand at Luzira prison for allegedly stealing funds meant to compensate cooperatives.  

Wangadya said donors had threatened to stop funding the commission and some offices of UHRC had already been closed.  She said she wanted to resign because she felt the government had put her in an office that it never wanted to fund and feared being branded a failure.      
Wangadya said she met President Museveni in April 2024 and narrated the problems she had encountered since her appointment in September 2021. She reportedly told the president that she had been humiliated enough, and asked for the president’s intervention to resuscitate the commission by funding it.   

According to Wangadya, when she left the State House, the president called her and advised her not to resign, saying he was very disgusted, and annoyed and promised to act against any MP who was involved in the solicitation. Wangadya said she later got a phone call from Mutembuli, asking her to meet him and his colleagues at Hotel Africana.

The court further heard that Mutembuli called Wangadya at least three times on May 13, 2024, while she was at the Housing Finance Bank. Wangadya told the court that she called Museveni’s ADC, Maj Betty Agaba who told her that the president had already laid a trap to catch the MPs involved in corruption. 

Agaba reportedly asked Wangadya not to move anywhere but to wait for her at Housing Finance Bank. She said about an hour later, Agaba arrived with a recording device disguised as a pen and with instructions from the president to use it. Wangadya said Agaba showed her how to use the pen recorder, and thereafter she left to meet Mutembuli and his colleagues.    

Wangadya narrated that she found Mutembuli and Paul Akamba already at Hotel Africana and Cissy Namujju, the Lwengo Woman MP who arrived moments later. Mutembuli reportedly told Wangadya that Namujju is a very vital person in the budget allocations. During the court hearing on Friday, Wangadya was able to identify Cissy Namujju who was in the dock as the same person she met at Africana.     

In the meeting at Africana, Wangadya said she was told that the MPs expect compliance and Namujju asked her how much she was willing to surrender off UHRC’s budget. In response, Wangadya told them they had previously asked for 5 per cent. But Mutembuli said if he were in Wangadya’s situation, he would even offer a bribe as high as 20 per cent of the commission’s budget.   

At this point, the three MPs analyzed UHRC’s budget and activities. According to Wangadya, the MPs analyzed the budget and started looking for activities to scrap off, basically, the ones that could be easily accounted for.   

Wangadya recounted that Namujju threatened her in Luganda, indicating serious consequences if the bribe was not paid, especially with campaign periods approaching. Namujju allegedly boasted of her connections, including access to the president.

She said moments later after Namujju left, Mutembuli and Akamba categorically told her that Namujju was very powerful and has access to everyone in the country including the president. Court heard that after the Africana meeting, she handed over the recording device to Agaba. 

She testified that a few days later, she received a call from Museveni who said he was very incensed with what he heard from the recordings, and said he would seek legal advice from the directorate of public prosecutions (DPP) to see if a crime was committed through the recorded conversation.   

The recordings were handed over to the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) for further analysis. However, the suspects’ lawyers contested the playing of the recorded voices in court, arguing that Wangadya was not an expert in voice identification.