FACT CHECK: Accused of Corruption, Top Ugandan Lawmaker Misleads on US Travel Ban | VOA News
In an online protest campaign, Ugandans accused Anita Among, speaker of Uganda’s National Assembly, of embezzling millions in public funds.
Protest organizers shared documents leaked to journalists and human rights activists by members of parliament. The leak incudes official documents from the internal financial intelligence agency and expose the rot in parliament and other government institutions in Uganda, the activists say.
One of the campaign organizers, Jimmy Ssentongo, said in a post on X that Among used private bank accounts to divert enormous amounts of government funds between April 2023 and January 2024.
On March 15, lawmakers at the Ugandan parliament put other house businesses aside to discuss the online protest.
Representative Theodore Ssekikubo told Among: “…this house has been engulfed in unprecedented abuse, honorable speaker. You say we debate other things on papers when the credibility of this house is under challenge.
‘’We are having a major problem,” Ssekikubo added. “We cannot sit here as if nothing wrong has happened.”
Among dismissed allegations as rumors and used derogatory language to claim the accusations against her came in retaliation for her opposition to homosexuality.
On March 12, during the opening of the 86th executive committee meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Entebbe, Uganda, Among said Western sanctions imposed against her are in retaliation for her opposition to homosexuality.
“I am among the first speakers to be banned from traveling to the Western countries because I do not believe in homosexuality,” she said.
That is misleading.
The Ugandan government’s anti-homosexuality law, ratified May 2, 2023, and arguably the harshest in the world, allows the death penalty as punishment for certain same-sex acts.
Calling the law “wrong,” President Joe Biden implored Ugandan lawmakers to repeal it “immediately.”
“No one should have to live in constant fear for their life or being subjected to violence and discrimination,” Biden said in a statement on May 29, 2023.
Speaker Among was one of the lawmakers who championed the legislation.
On May 30, 2023, the U.S. and the U.K. canceled Among’s visas.
But Among is not the only member of the Ugandan political establishment to be denied entry by the United States and Britain. #factcheck #voanews
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