Embattled former leader of the opposition (LoP) Mathias Mpuuga has resigned as parliamentary commissioner after he was particularly fingered for having directly and personally received Shs 500 million cash.

Mpuuga who was recently sacked by his National Unity Platform (NUP) party as LoP became the centre of attention in an ongoing social media protest under the hashtag #UgandaParliamentExhibition after leaked documentation revealed that Mpuuga together with other three parliamentary commissioners irregularly awarded themselves taxpayers’ money christened as “Service Award.” Mpuuga was personally allocated 500 million.

Now in a statement, NUP says Mpuuga in a meeting convened on Wednesday admitted to the money heist and has since apologised and “was strongly advised that the moral thing to do in the circumstances is to step down from his role as parliamentary commissioner with immediate effect.”

According to NUP, the meeting was attended by senior leaders including all deputy presidents and some senior legislators. Mpuuga’s corruption and abuse of office according to NUP are contrary to the values of integrity, discipline, reliability, inclusiveness, integrity, patriotism and service.

It remains to be seen if the #UgandaParliamentExhibition which aims to expose corruption, and abuse of office in parliament will claim more opposition figures as several others have been exposed as practising glaring nepotism in their offices, a common vice that they accuse President Museveni of.

For instance, the chief opposition whip also deputy NUP president (eastern region) and MP for Manjiya Constituency, John Baptist Nambeshe had to defend his decision to employ his two sons in parliament. In his defence, Nambeshe said this was done for safety purposes in a country where the poisoning of political figures still runs rife.

It should be noted that there has been brewing tension between the NUP leadership and Mpuuga for some time over his alleged closeness to the speaker of parliament Anita Among, who, equally has been accused of siphoning public funds at will.