MPs go into the Christmas break this week, the second since their inauguration in May, with little work done in the seven months they have been in the House.
Before MPs went on recess for the first time last October, the executive hadn’t tabled any of the 16 bills that were expected. However, the government chief whip, Ruth Nankabirwa, blames the failure on a ‘gap in the speaker’s guidance.’
“We didn’t know that there was a requirement to retable the bills we had saved [tabled before the ninth parliament]; there was a gap on what should be done when a bill is saved, and when the speaker [Rebecca Kadaga] guided that we needed to table them again, we discovered that the old MPs had gone with copies of the bills; so, the ministries had to print new copies [for the 10th parliament],” she told The Observer on December 15.
Nankabirwa also said that government should not be blamed so much for the little work done since a lot of time was wasted on orientation and induction of new MPs in addition to other issues such as looking for office space for the 431 MPs, the biggest number of lawmakers in parliament’s history.
But even when they resumed in November, there wasn’t much draft legislations coming from the executive, leading to MPs such as Robert Kafeero Ssekitooleko, Betty Nambooze Bakireke, Waira Kiwalabye Majegere, and Mbwatekamwa Gafa, to initiate private member’s bills.
“The majority of bills come from cabinet, but even without bills, parliament has been functioning through the committees and a number of reports from the committee are due to be tabled before the House,” Chris Obore, the director of Communications and Public Affairs at Parliament, told The Observer in a recent interview.
With little government business from the executive, MPs heaped the blame on Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda, who is also leader of government business in Parliament.
“Rugunda is killing business in parliament, he is never in the House, he only comes for the prime minister’s question time and leaves the rest of the business to Gen Moses Ali [first deputy prime minister] who does not know most of the things. This wasn’t the case when Amama Mbabazi was prime minister,” Kalungu West MP Joseph Gonzaga Ssewungu said.
In an interview last Thursday, Rugunda urged MPs to appreciate his heavy schedule. “When Moses Ali is there, it means that I am also there…the critical point is, is there adequate representation of the government? The answer is yes. It doesn’t have to be the person of the prime minister,” Rugunda said.
sadabkk@observer.ug