President Museveni Wants to Hijack Parliament’s Appropriation Powers – MP Ssemujju

Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda has lashed out at President Museveni for orchestrating a move to hijack Parliament’s budgetary powers.

Ssemujju, who doubles as the Shadow Finance Minister, made the revelations as he spoke to journalists at Parliament on Monday afternoon.

He was responding to President Museveni’s rejection of the Appropriation Bill 2024.The Appropriation Bill is the law that authorizes the expenditure of government funds. Parliament passed the bill on 16th May, authorizing the expenditure of shs 72 trillion for the financial year 2024/2025.

However, President Museveni has since sent it back to the House, highlighting discrepancies.

The President accused the MPs of tampering with the bill without consulting the executive. President Museveni called for a re-examination of the allocation of shs 750 billion by the Budget Committee.

However, according to Ssemujju, the President is just trying to attack Parliament at its weakest point. Since the start of the year, Parliament has been under pressure from the public over corruption allegations. This has seen upto five MPs remanded to Prison on corruption related charges.

The FDC rebel MP wondered why President Museveni would sit on the bill for more than a month. The law allows the President to return the bill within 30 days, which wasn’t the case. Ssemujju says that since the President returned the Bill outside the stipulated legal provisions, MPs have the liberty to reject his proposals.

“The real reason why the President is returning the bill isn’t because so much damage has been done to the budget. It is because he wants to take away the power of appropriation from MPs. He thinks MPs must have no say.” said Ibrahim Ssemujju.

Ssemujju also tasked the leadership at Parliament to publish the President’s letter in the gazette.

On 27 June, Adolf Mwesige, Clerk to Parliament, recalled MPs from recess. This is to reconsider the President’s concerns raised in the letter accompanying the returned Appropriation Bill 2024.