I’m victimised for unearthing rot in NSSF — Amongi

Gender minister Betty Amongi has said she is being victimised for unearthing corruption and mismanagement of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).

“I am being victimised, yet I am the whistleblower [in the ongoing NSSF saga],” she told the House chaired by Speaker Anita Among on Thursday, March 9, 2023.

The minister was presenting her personal statement on the allegations levelled against her in the report of the select committee that probed the alleged mismanagement of the shillings 17 trillion Fund.

The committee recommended that Amongi resigns in public interest with immediate effect on account of abuse of office, following her shillings six billion request from NSSF for alleged expansion of the Fund.

However, Amongi told the media that she would not heed the committee’s advice to resign. 

“I will not resign. How can I resign when I unearthed the rot at NSSF? The work the committee has done confirms what I have all along been saying: There has been mismanagement at NSSF for 10 years," she said.

Amongi recently accused former NSSF managing director Richard Byarugaba of failure to provide shillings six billion for her ministry’s activities to implement the NSSF Amendment Act, 2021 claiming she wanted it for her ministry to ‘eat’.

In Thursday's afternoon plenary session, she contended: “I don't have the power to budget and approve budgets for my ministry. Should I have allowed the purchase of land at inflated costs and for such investments to continue so that we end up with property that cannot be purchased like in Lubowa?”

At Lubowa, off Entebbe Road, NSSF has Solana Lifestyle and Residences, a housing project worth sh1.4 trillion.

Byarugaba’s critics say there have been strategic errors in NSSF investing in real estate that have been costly and not provided a reasonable return to members.

His critics also say the pricing strategy for the 300 homes at Lubowa in Wakiso district is not attractive to middle-income Ugandans, noting that by the time President Yoweri Museveni launched these homes in September, no home had been sold and a month later, only three were on contract.

By the time of filing this story, Parliament's debate on the committee report had not yet ended.