{UAH} Mbabazi, Kadaga meet: details out
|
10:52 AM |
No comments |
Cold war: Kadaga and Amama Mbabazi are "in a game of unanswered phonecalls & letters"
In the presence of both Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi and Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, Parliamentary commissioners asked the two principals in an August 22 meeting to speak out on their public fall out.
A behind-the-scenes sneak peek into their first face-to-face meeting last Thursday uncovers an interesting exchange.
The Parliamentary Commission meeting was attended by Mbabazi, Kadaga, Nandala Mafabi (leader of Opposition in Parliament) and commissioners Chris Baryomunsi (Kinkizi East), Elijah Okupa (Kasilo County), Emmanuel Dombo (Bunyole East) and Jalia Bintu (Masindi Woman).
The meeting took place just after Kadaga accused Mbabazi, in Parliament, of trying to undermine multiparty democracy by accusing her in cabinet of siding with the opposition. But it was not meant to discuss this feud. According to Dombo, it only came to the fore because the two principals were present.
"We asked them what the problem was, but we realised that there was a problem of a broken chain of communication, which we wanted them to improve [upon]," Dombo told us.
Other sources that attended the meeting added that it took a little prodding by Nandala Mafabi to get Kadaga and Mbabazi talking. Nandala reportedly asked the two to substantiate media reports that Mbabazi had branded Kadaga an opposition apologist and that the premier had also mobilised ministers not to attend the plenary.
In response, Mbabazi said he had tried several times to reach the Speaker by phone, but in vain. She neither picked nor returned my calls, Mbabazi said.
The Speaker, on the other hand, accused the Prime Minister of not replying the four letters she wrote seeking clarification on what had transpired in cabinet vis-a-vis what had appeared in The Observer of August 8.
It is understood that Mbabazi insisted on referring his colleagues to the cabinet statement earlier issued by the minister without Portfolio and acting Information Minister, Richard Todwong, denying The Observer story.
Mbabazi also told the commission that he had no personal problem with the speaker of Parliament. He reminded them of the time when he seconded Kadaga for the position she is holding at the beginning of the 9th Parliament.
Mbabazi also insisted that he had called Kadaga several times on her mobile phone as well as her office but got no response. But Kadaga told the meeting that she had not received any call from Mbabazi and, to prove it, summoned her secretaries to the meeting to confirm whether indeed the prime minister had contacted her office.
Kadaga's secretaries said they had not received any calls from the prime minister. When Baryomunsi asked the prime minister to clarify on The Observer story, Mbabazi retorted that the newspaper "reported their own things", adding that cabinet had never debated the speaker's conduct.
However, Kadaga and the commissioners insisted that what transpired in cabinet was public knowledge and that the speaker had authenticated the newspaper reports. Kadaga also presented her unanswered letters to Mbabazi.
But Mbabazi, sources told us, vehemently denied receiving the said letters in what one commissioner described as "a game of unanswered telephone calls and letters."
Nandala Mafabi told The Observer in an interview today that he carried to the meeting photo-copies of Kadaga's letters with Mbabazi's office stamp, confirming that they had been received.
"I tabled the letters before the commission, and with this evidence, he (Mbabazi) stopped his denials but maintained that he never made the statements," Mafabi said.
"I told him that he needs to appreciate the dynamics of multiparty democracy and stop those games they are playing because the Speaker is not here to serve their (NRM) interests. This is how they [with Museveni] go to the various constituencies and start campaigning against MPs because of a bad road which they know is not within the mandate of an MP," Nandala charged.
Baryomunsi today confirmed that the meeting took place, and that some of the issues raised in this story were debated, but declined to go into details.
UAH forum is devoted to matters of interest to Ugandans and Africans in general. Individuals are responsible for whatever they post on this forum.To unsubscribe from this group, send email to: ugandans-at-heart+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com or Abbey Semuwemba at: abbeysemuwemba@gmail.com.
0 comments:
Post a Comment