Ugandan leader Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday condemned people stealing from the taxpayers during the country's anti-corruption walk in Kampala.
Museveni termed corrupt people as parasites, adding that the vice, which is rampant in Uganda, is 'a spiritual vice'.
Despite accusations that he's one of those who have been involved in corruption, Museveni insisted that he has never stolen from taxpayers.
"People are parasites because they feed on what they have not worked for. They should know that corruption is a spiritual problem. The deputy speaker has just challenged you that let he who has never stolen throw the first stone. I will throw the first stone, I have never stolen and I am rich," he said.
Museveni, 75, took over power in 1986 following a military coup. Since then, he has frequently faced accusations of violating rights and freedoms of his critics.
More often than not, Museveni is seen grazing his cattle in expansive ranches across Uganda. Recently, a section of social media users accused him of tarmacking roads to his ranches.
In his speech, Museveni also lauded the Daily Monitor newspaper for unearthing corruption cases in the country.
"I sometimes read useless papers like the Monitor, by the way, Monitor is a bad paper. I rarely read papers but once in a while when I read them and I see something, I follow it up," he said.
"So there was a story I read and I tasked my monitoring unit to follow up and indeed they uncovered a lot of corruption. One of the things failing us in this war against corruption is poor supervision," he said