Nantaba: You are in bed with land grabbers!
Namuganza: You are mad, you are fake!
A cabinet war of words raged last week, sucking in three ministers and, in the words of one of them, tarnishing government’s image.
With President Museveni having declared kisanja hakuna mchezo’ (term for no fooling around) these ‘palace fights’ will be disconcerting for the head of state.
At the center of the bitter exchange are junior ministers Persis Namuganza (lands) and Aidah Nantaba (ICT). Nantaba has also dragged in her senior minister for ICT and National Guidance, Frank Tumwebaze – although he appeared keen to keep himself above the fray.
Namuganza, the MP for Bukono in Namutumba district, has not been seeing eye-to-eye with Nantaba, who she replaced as junior lands minister in June. However, the latest cause of friction followed Namuganza’s Thursday trip to Kayunga district, reportedly to investigate land disputes. Nantaba, the Kayunga Woman MP, was angered that Namuganza went to her district without her consent.
Speaking to CBS radio on Friday, Nantaba accused Namuganza of aiding land grabbers.
“It seems Namuganza was brought to the ministry of lands to quicken the work of land grabbers. She has come with a known land grabber to Kayunga at Nkokonejru village, where she even promised to bring more army officers,” Nantaba said.
DIFFERENT INTERESTS
Nantaba appeared to be referring to Moses Karangwa, who defeated her in 2015, to become the district NRM chairperson. Nantaba has clashed with Karangwa several times, accusing him of grabbing people’s land.
“I am warning [Namuganza] that she will not play with Kayunga land. I have protected the land of my people; if the minister is bringing to us people who we have been fighting with; we warn her it won’t happen,” Nantaba said.
“My interest and those of Namuganza are different. I used that office to mainly protect people’s land but she is using that office to give people’s land to those calling themselves investors. She [should know that she] is not the first person to be used to grab people’s land; whoever has been used to grab people’s land also ends up [buried] in the same land.”
When The Observer spoke to Namuganza about these accusations, she did not hide her contempt for her fellow minister.
“She is mad; she is fake; I used to respect her thinking that she understands, but I think she has a mental problem. At a level of a minister when you make such allegations which are false and baseless what does that mean?” Namuganza said, Friday – sounding rather angry.
She said she was sent to Kayunga by speaker Rebecca Kadaga, after Bbaale county MP Kumama Nsamba petitioned parliament over some 20,000 people facing imminent eviction from their land.
“Madhvani, under his Kayunga Sugar Works, had been given that land to grow sugarcanes but it had so many squatters on it; he couldn’t afford to compensate all of them so, he lost interest in the land,” Namuganza said, adding that the speaker asked her to report to parliament before Christmas.
“Nantaba came to my office and told me I shouldn’t go there, arguing that there are no land disputes in Kayunga,” Namuganza said.
She claimed that when she insisted on going to Kayunga, Nantaba used money to mobilize people not to attend the meeting.
“To her shock, people came in very big numbers because they were yearning to know the status of their land,” Namuganza said.
She added that as the meeting was about to end, Karangwa and other LC chairpersons joined but they were not given an opportunity to speak. Namuganza claimed that people told her that Nantaba was behind the threats of eviction, because she wanted to turn around and claim to be fighting those threatening to evict the same people.
“I got shocked when the people started revealing that she is the source of the threats, which is why she never wanted me to go to Kayunga. She doesn’t want this issue to end because she is benefiting from it politically,” Namuganza says.
DO YOUR WORK
Namuganza advised Nantaba to concentrate on her ministry of ICT and leave land matters to the minister of lands.
“Her only program is spreading lies and causing discomfort which is tarnishing the image of government. Am I the one who chased her from the ministry of lands? What I know is that she has become irrelevant as far as land issues are concerned,” Namuganza said.
She claimed that President Museveni appointed her to lands docket because she is the one with “brains to dig deeper” into land matters: “Let her go to the appointing authority and tell him that she does not like the ministry where she was deployed or let her resign.”
FREE INTERNET
On CBS radio, Nantaba also blamed her senior minister, Frank Tumwebaze, for launching free WiFi internet for the public in selected areas of Kampala and Entebbe yet, in her view, the government can’t afford it. This followed complaints by some people that the free internet was not working.
“I don’t know why Frank [Tumwebaze] launched a program when he knew that government has no money to give people free internet. As a country we haven’t reached the status of giving people free internet,” Nantaba said.
Efforts to speak to Frank Tumwebaze were futile, as he neither answered nor returned our numerous phone calls and messages. However, in an interview with The Observer, a senior government official said the government was not spending any money on the free internet. Mr James Saaka, the executive director of National Information Technology Authority-Uganda (NITA-U), said free public internet is only available at night and on weekends – because then, government offices are closed and the already-paid for internet is redundant.
“We are creating more WiFi sites so that citizens can access this internet which is already paid for.”
QUARRELS NORMAL
President Museveni’s senior press secretary, Don Wanyama, rejected claims that the government image was being tarnished by such quarrels.
“It’s OK for people to have different views on a matter. It’s you trying to show that there is animosity in cabinet; but all the ministers are working amicably under the supervision of the prime minister,” Wanyama said.
For some observers, however, public disagreements between ministers not only reflect lack of cohesion, they also have potential to confuse users of government services. Recently, finance minister Matia Kasaija and junior minister Evelyn Anite each appointed a separate chair for the board of the Uganda Electricity Generation Company.
Anite said she would not withdraw her nomination unless Kasaija explained to her in writing why she should do so. Kasaija eventually withdrew his appointee.
Earlier, when Nantaba was junior lands minister, she was reported to be at loggerheads with her senior minister, Daudi Migereko. At one point Nantaba also clashed with police chief Kale Kayihura over land issues in Kayunga. Some of her critics speculated that she would be fired, but the president knew better.
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