Secretary general reveals party source of cash
Two years ago today, December 23, JUSTINE KASULE LUMUMBA became the first appointed secretary general of the ruling NRM after her predecessor Amama Mbabazi was sacked.
Her ascendency to the third highest office in the ruling party followed a delegates’ conference at Namboole stadium that, among other changes to the NRM constitution, allowed the party’s chairman, Yoweri Museveni, to appoint the hitherto elected secretary general after his political fallout with Mbabazi.
Two years into the job, Lumumba in a Tuesday interview with Sadab Kitatta Kaaya discussed her not-so-smooth tenure as head of the NRM secretariat.
Below are excerpts:
How do you assess your tenure so far at the NRM secretariat?
We started by first of all taking over office. By then, the [secretariat] used not to pay staff salaries and rent. We started paying staff salaries and rent.
Secondly, we went on to register members and generated a register in four months. We went into constituting the leadership in the party. We organised both the elections of party structures and the primaries, and we held the national conference, which elected national leaders and the presidential candidate.
We presented flag bearers for nomination for all elective positions at presidential, parliamentary and local councils, and we presented flag bearers for all posts unlike our competitors; the other political parties and individuals.
We went into elections and won at all levels from presidential to local councils. At the presidential level; the mandate was renewed at a sweeping 60.62 percent while at the parliamentary level, NRM fielded candidates for all available parliamentary seats and we got 12 unopposed NRM MPs and the total outcome was an overwhelming majority in parliament, standing at 70.43 percent, with 298 representatives in the august House, out of 431 seats.
We were able through the NRM principle of harmonious approach, to win the post of speakership and deputy speakership of the 10th Parliament. At the local government level, a total of 15 NRM district LC-V chairpersons were unopposed, and NRM in total got 83 district chairpersons elected out of 112 districts in Uganda.
We had [election] petitions. We won the presidential election petition by an unprecedented 9:0 decision. There were Parliamentary and local council [elections] petitions. Some have been concluded, some are still going on but we have so far won the majority, [about] 70 percent of the parliamentary petitions [although] some have [been] appealed [against].
We have had a retreat for NRM MPs to tell them what we expect of them as a party; we constituted government, [and] had a retreat for the ministers, permanent secretaries and the central executive committee of the party [CEC] at Kyankwanzi [National Leadership Institute].
We went for elections in the new districts and we are preparing for elections in the new municipalities and LC-I. We have done quite a lot in this short time as a team, and we thank everybody who has made it possible.
What do you consider to be your biggest challenge so far?
Our biggest challenge is indiscipline in the party, followed by little resources vis-a-vis the high expectation of the members. Most of the NRM members instead of thinking about contributing to the party, they think it should be the party to give, which is uncommon for political parties.
My biggest challenge is to change that attitude.
You just talked about indiscipline yet at the same time, your name has been mentioned in many fights at the secretariat.
I don’t have any fight with anybody; it is you in the media that are making it a fight because I have never had any exchange with anybody as secretary general. I just read [about] it in the newspapers. You have never heard that Lumumba and so and so have had an exchange.
Secondly, when somebody decided not to respect authority, the problem is not me, the problem is the person who doesn’t respect authority. Everywhere in whatever community, even a malwa group, there is protocol. So, if somebody doesn’t know that the word protocol exists, I don’t think it is my role to educate that person about protocol.
If somebody doesn’t know that in administration, there are guidelines and administrative structures that are followed, it’s not my work because these are guidelines that we developed as a team and are in black and white and understandable. It is not my work to bring that person to order.
But what I would want to say, these are all manifestations of poor parenting; it is a long holiday, I would really request parents to have time with your children so that when they go to work in the communities, they can work with everybody.
Are you one of the people that need to be sat down by their parents because at least there are two letters by the chairperson of the NRM Electoral Commission accusing you of promoting divisions and favouritism in the party?
When top management sits and takes a decision, anybody who wants to challenge that decision should write to the secretary general. Instead of writing to the secretary general, one writes to the media. I don’t think we shall run the party activities, especially administrative issues, in the media.
When Dr Tanga Odoi wrote those letters, we took the administrative action as top management of the party and invited him for a meeting to discuss with him as chairman of the [NRM] electoral commission. He said, he cannot meet the top management.
I don’t want to say that he defied but I took the initiative to say let’s invite [him] to a meeting, and he wrote back like we had written, stating that he cannot meet the top management.
Once the top management has taken a decision, it does not require us to go seek permission from the Central Executive Committee as the policy- making body. If it is to do with finances, the people in the finance [department] take action, [and] they took action [in regard to the salaries.]
Sometime last year, the party had a fundraising at which you raised Shs 16bn for the construction of the NRM house whose construction was to commence in September last year. Surprisingly, one year on, everyone in the party is silent about it. What went wrong?
We had a fundraising and people pledged Shs 16bn; as we talk now, we have been able to gather Shs 5bn. We already have the plot [of land] on Nile avenue next to Crested towers; we have the land title, which confirms that it is a property of the party.
We have been working to make sure that we mobilise more funds so that construction can commence. We want to construct a tower for commercial purposes and another for the party’s administrative offices. It will have different components; I can’t go into details because the Central Executive Committee has not yet approved our proposals.
Do you want to mean that the NRM donors have defaulted on their pledges thus slowing the project?
No, the people who made pledges are paying slowly; pledging did not mean that they were supposed to pay within a day or two. They’ll pay at their own convenience, it is voluntary, and we don’t push it.
The party’s big plans and heavy expenditures beg a question: what is the source of your finances? Where does NRM get the money to do and pay for all its activities?
When we were given responsibility to do the work of the party, you may recall that we have the Political Parties and Organisations Act under which government has to fund political parties based on their numerical strength in Parliament. As parties, we went and sat with government and agreed that government starts funding political parties.
In the financial year 2014/15, government gave political parties Shs 10bn and out of that, NRM got Shs 7bn. In 2015/16, political parties were given Shs 15bn, out which NRM got Shs 12bn. For this financial year, political parties were not included in the budget but we went and discussed with the minister of finance and the political parties were considered for supplementary funding. So, this financial year, the parties will be given Shs 10bn.
Political parties did not get money in the first quarter, we got Shs 3bn in the second quarter, and out of the Shs 3bn, NRM got Shs 2.5bn. So, that is one source of funding – it is in the legal framework.
The second source is through donations. As a party, we follow the law, and we fall within the amounts stipulated within the law to get donations from outside the country.
You recall that we also had a fundraising when we had just come into office and people pledged Shs 16bn, and more and more members are still contributing.
So, if you observe, the fundraising we had, it majorly attracted people from Kampala. We want to go out and mobilise resources and get whatever contribution any member can contribute to the party.
I am complaining about party members looking to the party to give then money. Quite a number of our cadres think that they should be getting from the party instead of them contributing to it. It is our responsibility [the secretariat] to make sure that we change that attitude.
Many NRM members are already gearing up for next year’s East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) elections against a backdrop of fears that the party leadership is likely to deny its members the right to choose their representatives to the regional Parliament.
We already have set guidelines and rules that have to be followed. According to the rules of procedure of the NRM parliamentary caucus, time will be declared, people will express interest in writing and then the names of whoever will have expressed interest will be forwarded to the Central Executive Committee, which will take a decision and communicate to the individuals and the caucus to take the next step.
As a party, it is not yet time to handle issues of the EALA elections; when the time comes, we shall communicate, and all the guidelines will be set out and even the place where they will have to take their letters expressing interest will be communicated to them in time.
Details emerging from a State House meeting held last week with your party MPs indicate that the government is moving to gag the media. Why?
The issue about the media is, as of now, government has little say about the print media because they sit and regulate themselves but government must have an input. We currently have a weak law.
Secondly, if somebody originates false information, which may even cause insecurity to the country or which can cause problems to business in government, affecting the economy, the existing law does not address how courts should handle that particular individual. This was not addressed in the laws concerning IT.
We want that to be brought up because if somebody originates wrong information, he/she should be held responsible for his or her own words.
Does this target only journalists or even social media users?
Internet and the [print] media are the same.
sadabkk@observer.ug