The Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga has said the uncoordinated communication flow between Parliament and the Executive on issue of Nyege-Nyege ended up advertising the festival on a full and large scale.
While on Capital FM during a political talk ‘Capital Gang’ on Saturday, the Nyendo – Mukungwe lawmaker revealed that it was a terrible mistake for Members of Parliament to lure their Speaker Anita Among into discussions of Nyege-Nyege which in the end led to a clash between Parliament and the general public.
He added that since it was a matter that the public had given an interest, every MP wanted to talk for the sake of showing his/her voters that they’re active and the Speaker could not handle them,therefore in the end it worked as an advertisement for the organizers.
“It’s very regretful of the fact that my leader Speaker ended up inadvertently promoting Nyege-Nyege festival as opposed to diminishing its popularity. I’m praying that some conspiracy theorists don’t claim that the debate at Parliament was deliberately aimed at creating additional publicity for the festival,” Mpuuga said.
He added the way the matter attracted the attention of the public disclosed a need to again guide some members of Parliament on how such matters can be dealt with without hurting any side.
On Tuesday, Parliament ordered the cancellation of Nyege-Nyege, a controversial festival over numerous concerns about the promotion of immorality and issues to do with homosexuality.
The issue was raised by the district Woman MP for Tororo, Sarah Opendi who said that the event which goes on both day and night for three days breeds immorality including recruitment and promotion of homosexuality.
“What is the government’s position on this growing immorality in this country, and it is going to attract all kinds of people all over the world, bringing all kinds of activities that are non-African, non-Ugandan into our communities?” Opendi questioned.
Speaker Among together with some members of Parliament agreed that the festival must be stopped as a way of curbing escalating levels of immorality in the country.
However, their decision caused a backlash towards the Parliament by the public which even prompted the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja together with the Minister of ICT and National guidance Chris Balyomunsi to hold a meeting with the organizers in which strict guidelines were issued for the event to happen.
On Thursday, Speaker Among again expressed her disappointment towards the executive for allowing the festival to go ahead yet Parliament had stopped it.
According to Mpuuga, also the uncoordinated flow of information between the Executive arm and the Parliament left a lot of questions in the public since everything was in the media nevertheless to the side of the organizer, it was an advert too.
The festival is scheduled for Thursday, 15 September 2022 for three days at the Source of the Nile in Jinja district.
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