Earlier this year, Uganda’s parliamentary speaker and deputy speaker, a former opposition leader and several parliamentary commissioners were embroiled in a corruption scandal over financial irregularities amounting to millions of dollars.
Rather than promising to crack down on corruption in the highest ranks of government, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni used a June 2024 State of the Nation address to condemn the investigative journalists who exposed the issue.
Museveni accused the media of working “for foreign interests” and “diverting our people through the media to the interests of foreign parasites”. The Agora Center for Research (ACR), a public accountability campaign platform and self-styled ‘digital public square’ that uncovered the financial irregularities within Museveni’s government, is funded by the United States Agency for International Development.
