🔴 Claim
Former Aruu County MP Odonga Otto told NextRadio that the Speaker of Parliament earns shs500m a month. He called his claim “my wild guess”. But thousands of Ugandans have listened to his audio and shared it avidly on social media.
Even though Mr Otto qualified his statement, it is still fact-checkable because he is a public figure. What is more, he has some good experience and knowledge of Parliament. There is a reason why he said shs500m and not shs50m.
I can tell you with authority that the Speaker’s salary the MPs also don’t know. The people who determine the Speaker’s salary are the parliamentary commissioners and are approved by the Speaker. Because if the Speaker does not approve you to be a parliamentary commissioner, you cannot make it. You saw what happened to [Francis] Zaake. They said the moment we allow Zaake in the house, he is going to spill the beans. But my wild guess, my wild guess, me as Otto, the Speaker’s monthly earning is shs500m.
🔴 Background
The former MP appeared on Next Radio with other panellists to discuss the race for the Speaker of Parliament and said the speakership is a high-stakes role involving large sums of money and that the Speaker decides how it is spent. He said furniture allowance alone runs into no less than shs600m.
🔴 What OJ-UGANDA checked
- Whether Mr Otto could confirm his claim and disclose its source
- Whether Parliament’s communications office could verify the claim
🔴 What we found
- Mr Otto walked back his claim. “I don’t know,” he told OJ-UGANDA by telephone. He later said he was referring to other sums of money. But in the audio above, he appears to be speaking specifically about the Speaker’s monthly salary.
- Parliament’s director of communications and public affairs, Chris Obore, said: “You’re as outlandish in your reporting as Odongo [sic] Otto’s claims, so there is no need to bother giving you any information because all you need is to feed your fat ego.”
🔴 Verdict
- Mr Otto did not provide evidence to support his claim and later said he did not know the Speaker’s actual monthly pay.
- If true, a monthly salary of shs500m would mean the government spends shs6bn on one person a year. That would place the Speaker’s pay at approximately 82 times greater than the shs6.1m each MP is paid.
- There is no reliable publicly available information supporting the claim that the Speaker earns shs500m a month.
🔴 Conclusion
- Mr Otto’s claim is not supported by evidence. He later said he did not know the Speaker’s actual monthly pay, and OJ-UGANDA could not independently verify that the Speaker earns shs500m a month.
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