By KT Reporter
Faridah Sempala is one of the NUP councillors in Mpigi district. In 2026, she wants to upgrade to become the mayor for Mpigi town council.
She applied to Kavule to become the NUP flag bearer replacing the sitting mayor Mutebi David Mutex. Mutebi wanted to become the MP for Mawokota north and didn’t seek re-election.
A messenger from the NUP Mpigi branch office approached Faridah Sempala saying that her bosses the party registrars for Mpigi wanted 10m to work with some big people at Kavule to give her the ticket.
Faridah took a loan and gave away the 10m and was assured that the ticket was going to be hers. She gave the money in bits and kept recording the people she gave it to, making it clear it was for some big persons at Kavule.
When the list of flag bearers came out, her name was missing and the ticket had at first been given to someone else. Nyenya Miti Hassan Kiggundu was her other competitor for the position of Mpigi mayor.
Faridah stormed Kavule crying and threatened to address reporters and share with them the audio recordings of the people who claimed to have delivered the money to Kavule.
The volunteers who work at Kavule learnt about it and informed the NUP electoral commission chairperson Harriet Chemutai. She feared that Faridah’s utterances would discredit the party’s candidates selection exercise. Chemutai called her to office and realized she had a lot of evidence, upon speaking with her.
Chemutai consulted Kyagulanyi who was a way but quickly arranged a conference call via telephone. Kyagulanyi got convinced this was going to be very bad for NUP. He apologized to Faridah and ordered Chemutai, who supervises all NUP registrars, to act very quickly.
Chemutai sent for the registrars from Mpigi and other area party officials involved in the scandal. She sat them in her office and told them this was criminal and assured them the party was going to open a criminal case against them at police.
They owned up and asked for forgiveness. Chemutai forced them to refund Faridah’s 10m there and then. They made phone calls and raised the money from friendly land brokers operating in Mpigi. After that she was made Faridah Sempala the NUP flag bearer for Mpigi and the registrars and party staff under Mpigi were all fired.
Moses Masembe was made the new NUP registrar for Mpigi, replacing the two Sheikhs who Chemutai was cleared by Kyagulanyi to fire.
The two Sheikhs tried to use Muwanga Kivumbi’s name claiming that they are not thieves and that the Butambala MP is their witness but Chemutai wouldn’t have any of that.
She assured Kyagulanyi she would resign if the party secretariat listened to Mpigi LC5 chairman Martin Sejjemba who was pleading to forgive them on grounds that their knifing would disrupt NUP party kunga activities in greater Mpigi districts of Mpigi, Butambala and Gomba.
The tough action that was taken by Chemutai excited Sejjemba’s political enemies like Aisha Nakirija, the Kayabwe town council councilor, who is the vice chairperson for Mpigi district local government council.
