A few days ago, the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga vowed to deal with attacks from the executive and the judiciary head on after President Yoweri Museveni telling Ugandans he had warned her against the illegality of allocating Shs10bn for MPs’ Covid-19 efforts.
While Museveni and Kadaga seemed to have agreed on how the scandal should be dealt with so that it doesn’t affect the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party and its performance in the 2021 elections, the head of state irked the Speaker when he rebuked Parliament for taking away from public coffers when Ugandans were struggling to find what to eat as the Covid19 lockdown continued to bite.
“That Shs20m is bad planning because we had already planned in a certain way. It is morally reprehensible for MPs to give themselves money for personal use when the country is in such a crisis; and totally unacceptable to me and to the NRM,” the President said on Tuesday.
On Thursday, Kadaga called the media for an emergency presser. The issues on table were: the President’s speech, the media insistence on covering the Shs10bn scandal and the public ridicule of the institution of Parliament over the controversial allocation. She warned stern action against the executive.
“We are concerned that we are being attacked by the Executive and we are going to take appropriate action on that issue as well,” Kadaga warned. “We are three arms of government, we all have responsibilities under the Constitution and we are carrying out responsibilities. So there should be no interference in our work as long as we follow the Constitution.”
But hours before she sounded this warning, Kadaga seemed to have started on her plan to send a clear message to the President and his executive arm of government that they would not embarrass her before the nation and easily get away with it: they would have to pay for their sins (of publicly embarrassing her) that she fears might soil her public image as the country’s number three, make her Kamuli District voters shun her or even make it difficult for her to be re-elected speaker of Parliament for another term.
As head of Parliamentary business, Kadaga seems to have coached heads and members of key committees on how to conduct business in a manner that would convey a clear signal to the President. The first committee that has started protesting Museveni’s rebuke through its work is the Budget Committee (the one which had sneaked through the Shs10bn while passing a Shs304bn supplementary).
Gabriel Ajedra, the Minister of State for Finance in charge of General Duties, presented a supplementary request of Shs15.8bn – Shs10bn for the operationalization of the Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI) training centre at Namanve; Shs3.9bn for the privatisation unit’s salary obligations; and Shs1.9bn to clear outstanding energy bills for Fine Spinners and Nyanza textiles.
However, with the anger from the Museveni address still fresh, Committee Chairperson Amos Lugolobi (Ntenjeru North MP) led fellow members in throwing out the request tasking Minister Ajedra to justify the urgency of the supplementary barely two months to the end of the financial year.
As they rejected the request, the MPs could not even hide their anger at the President and their support of Kadaga in showing Museveni fire. For example, Lugolobi said the request was “morally questionable” while West Budama’s Richard Othieno Okoth wondered whether Museveni’s cabinet had “moral grounds to start asking tax payers to foot bills for private companies that are already enjoying benefits when Ugandans are suffering.” (Remember Museveni had said the Shs10bn was morally reprehensible at a time when Ugandans were battling a pandemic).
And some MPs did not even labour to veil their attacks on the President. For example, Ruhinda North’s Thomas Tayebwa openly submitted: “Considering the behaviour of our President, we should not even read this.”
Parliament is responsible for approving all allocations to all government institutions. As the Speaker moves to strike back at the Presidency, Kadaga is likely to use (or rather misuse) the power of the legislature to drive her point home.
But with the 2020/2021 budget already passed, Museveni might not be hugely affected by the reprisal from this role of Parliament, and for the Speaker to effect vengeance, she might need to look elsewhere and strike fast because she, MPs and the president have an election only a few months away.
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