{UAH} Mbabazi: Kadaga is in opposition
Same party, big differences: Speaker Kadaga (L) and Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi
Questions are now being asked in cabinet about the political loyalty of their own, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga. Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi used Wednesday's cabinet meeting to label Kadaga an opposition sympathiser.
The premier accused the speaker of ganging up with the opposition on Tuesday, in an attempt to defeat the bill, criticised as a government tool to curtail freedoms of assembly and effectively gag the opposition.
According to insider sources, Mbabazi told ministers that the Speaker 'secretly' met with a group of opposition politicians, who convinced her to strike the POMB off the Order Paper on Tuesday.
"Speaker (Kadaga) has become an opposition member; she had sided with them [opposition] to exclude the Public Order Management Bill from the order paper without the involvement of the government chief whip," a source quoted Mbabazi as saying.
"She was not even the one who was supposed to preside over the House given the fact that she was out of the country by the time the deputy speaker adjourned the House on the same matter," he added.
"That is why we went to her office to persuade her to reinstate the Public Order Management Bill on the order paper and subsequently leave the sitting to Oulanyah, who had handled the matter."
The first attempt to muscle the bill through last week met very stiff opposition resistance. What began as a peaceful and warm session of Parliament on Thursday last week, turned chaotic as MPs fought to block passage of the bill. MPs grabbed the list of names, which deputy Speaker Oulanyah was using for the voting exercise, and tore it.
Oulanyah, in response, singled out three opposition MPs who he suspended from Parliament for three sittings: Ibrahim Semujju Nganda (Kyadondo East), Theodore Ssekikubo (Lwemiyaga) and Odonga Otto (Aruu).
On Tuesday, a group of opposition MPs, led by Gulu Woman MP Betty Aol, approached the speaker in the morning, and agreed that the bill should be deferred until such a time when tempers in the House had cooled down.
"We went to the Speaker's office in the morning and we asked her not to include this bill on the order paper until tempers in the house had cooled and indeed she considered our plea but I'm surprised that the NRM forced this bill through," said Aol.
The leader of Opposition in Parliament, Nathan Nandala-Mafabi, told The Observer that they had not wanted to debate this bill at that time, because MPs were not in the mood for it. Nandala added that the way deputy Speaker Oulanyah suspended their colleagues had raised some questions.
But the opposition's deal with Kadaga was overturned when a group of ministers, led by Mbabazi, stormed the speaker's office. Others present were John Nasasira, Rose Namayanja, Moses Ali, Justine Kasule Lumumba and deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah.
Speaker for all
Contacted for a comment, Parliament's Public Relations Manager Helen Kawesa said Kadaga was free to meet and talk to all MPs.
"Kadaga is a Speaker of Parliament, which is composed of NRM and opposition MPs; so she is free to meet with every MP who needs her guidance at any time," said Kawesa.
Suspension not enough
A source told The Observer that Mbabazi sounded tough in the Wednesday meeting, in which he condemned the conduct of opposition MPs after the passage of the bill.
"I am condemning the Opposition's demeanor in the strongest terms possible. They behaved in a wild manner while inside the Parliamentary chambers yet we had many people including the children in the gallery following the debate," he reportedly said, adding: "They acted outside our rules of procedure when they decided to stand up throughout the session chanting songs, which were demeaning the Speaker," the source quoted Mbabazi, as saying.
The Observer was also reliably informed that cabinet is considering an amendment to the rules of procedure, the official guidelines on the conduct of MPs while in Parliament, to introduce stricter punishments.
"This business of suspending MPs for just three sittings is such a small punishment to MPs who have misbehaved; so we must make amendments in our rules of procedure to introduce some strong punishments to them, than just handing them a mere suspension of such a short period," one minister reportedly said.
Our source told us that a section of ministers led by John Nasasira, asked the prime minister to set some funds aside, to facilitate a self defence training course for all members of government in Parliament, largely to prepare them for any physical encounter with opposition MPs.
"We want to be trained in self defense because the opposition should not be left to act alone. It is as if they are planning to engage us in a fight; how would we defend ourselves against them without equipping ourselves with the needed tactics?" was quoted as having said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment