Where does the buck stop is the question critics are asking after President Museveni last week cleared his name over accusations of shady transactions that cost tax payers millions of dollars.

Instead, he blamed his Ministers and mafias in state house for acting behind his back. He appeared before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee to shed light over transactions and other war debt settlements. “Has Museveni ever accepted any responsibility? He is always finding a scapegoat. He is corrupt with his entire team. He should be embarrassed and say yes I am sorry I have failed to control myself and my team and resign with his entire team,” said Ms. Miria Matembe former Ethics and Integrity Minister.

Previously, the ministers who appeared before Public Accounts Committee (PAC) implicated Museveni for issuing written directives to pay huge amounts to businessmen in compensation following cancellation of their contracts. One such transaction involved an award of $72 million to Haba group owned by tycoon Hassan Basajjabalaba.

Incidentally, Basajjabalaba is the only businessman known to enjoy government bailouts whenever he gets into financial trouble. In 2004 for example, government bailed him out with $11.5 million to revamp his business empire apparently with the help of Museveni.

The goal posts seem to be changing as Museveni now says Basajjabalaba and other businessmen have  mafias in state house and the Attorney General’s chambers are collaborating to defraud tax payers. What seems to have angered Museveni more, was information that Basajjabalaba used the proceeds to build schools in Dodoma, Tanzania.

Uganda participated in the war that brought President Paul Kagame to power in Rwanda in 1994, fighting alongside Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF). In 1997, the country also took part in the war that ousted the late Mobutu Sese Seko in the DR Congo. This is the second time Museveni is publicly acknowledging errant officers in his government. While in Rwanda recently, Museveni said he has thieves in his government, but remained shy on taking firm action against them.

In what is becoming a common practice, having appeared before PAC in April 2010 over the Chogm scandal where tax payers lost $250 million, Museveni returned to the hot seat last week and reportedly said, “even if I were walking while asleep and made such directives, no minister should have accepted an order when he/she knew it was unlawful.”

Last week PAC proposed a two months corruption amnesty for the Ministers to resign or face censorship but Museveni said that it can only be done after adequate evidence is tabled and not by propagandists.  

Former Attorney General Kiddu Makubuya and former Finance Minister Syda Bumba now find themselves in an awkward position over their roles in the payment. “We want the Ministers to start believing that even if the President misled them, they will be responsible for their actions in future,” said Mr. Vincent Kyamadidi, a member of PAC.

Going by the current trend in which Ministers are being asked to resign from their positions over allegations of corruption and bribery in various sectors, it is unlikely that the two will escape censorship once parliament resumes work in February even after Museveni asked PAC to act with restraint because he will “handle” them.

Museveni also acknowledged directing that $14 million in war debt be paid to Burundi through Picfare Industries, a company that manufactures stationery. That payment is also a subject of PACs investigation as it emerges that only $3.5 million has reached Burundi since the transaction was done in April 2010. Burundi ostensibly supported Museveni’s guerrilla outfit, the National Resistant Army between 1981 and 1986.