20% budget bribe: How Museveni 'trapped' MPs with pen recorder
Frank Semata 
Story by: URN
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.
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.
