Last Thursday was not good for some MPs on the Public Service and Local Government committee.
Trouble started when MPs waited in vain for MPs who were supposed to brief them on the upcoming local council elections.
Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze kicked up a storm when she proposed that the committee should instead meet with President Museveni and beg him to tell Ugandans whether there will be LC1 elections. She said it was a waste of tax payers’ money for the committee to pretend to sit over LC1 issues yet nothing positive will come of the sitting.
“If we are to elect, it’s Museveni to decide,” Nambooze said.
“Even to decide which village will get water, it is him but we are here saying ministers have not come. Do you think even the ministers have anything to decide? They are there to occupy offices. Not even his bed-mate Janet can decide on anything. Didn’t you see [President Museveni] decide on closure of Makerere?”
The utterances, however, annoyed ‘yellow girl’ Rehema Watongola, the Kamuli Municipality MP, who is battling an election petition by FDC strong woman Salaamu Musumba. Said Watongola: “It’s not true that the president is the only one who decides. For us as a committee we report to the speaker, not the president.
So if the ministers do not come, we shall report them to the speaker. Why do you say we should go and request the president to tell us if the elections will be there?”
To this, Nambooze replied: “It’s Musumba [Salaamu] causing all this. She is delaying to throw you out of parliament; we would not be hearing what you are saying now. Do you have any powers to censure ministers? Do you have? Tell us! Oooooh.”
The women would have continued having a go at each other had Raphael Magyezi (Igara west) not called for order.
Mutonyi tells men not to demand too much
As parliament broke off for holidays last month, Bubulo west MP Rose Mutonyi Masaaba wished Ugandans the best of the season but asked of Ugandan men and women different things.
To couples she discouraged spending too much on just one day. To the women, she advised against getting annoyed incase their husbands didn’t buy them new clothes. And to the men? Well, she advised them not to demand too much from their women.
Although she did not exactly mention what too much, some journalist continued asking her: “honorable you said the men should not demand too much from their women, too much what…..?”
Mutonyi said: “You know there is a tendency of some women fighting their husbands for not buying gomesis. Then some men also, when they return from their leisure, they demand a lot from their women.
Nzoghu scared to be Kasesean
William Nzoghu is the MP for Busongora North in Kasese and a member of the parliamentary committee probing Uganda Telecom (Utl). What we did not know is that lately, the MP is no longer proud of his constituency – what with all the trouble there and a whole Rwenzururu king being jailed!
During a recent committee sitting, Nzoghu simply introduced himself as ‘a member of this select committee’. Unlike other MPs on the committee, Nzoghu did not mention the constituency.
The seven-member committee, chaired by Chwa West MP Phillip Okin Ojara, was meeting officials from the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) led by Godfrey Mutabazi.
When time for asking questions came, Nzoghu was the first to fire six questions, but as he moved to respond, Mutabazi was stuck because he did not know who he was responding to.
“Thank you Mr Chairman. The honorable MP from ….., is it Kasese? is it…, am I right honourable?”
It was at this moment that Nzoghu retorted “something like that” and before he could add anything, Ruhinda North MP Thomas Tayebwa added: “Do you think it is safe for him to give details? He fears to be arrested.
Haven’t you heard that they are arresting people from Kasese? And now you want him to say that he is from there and they arrest him? Just respond to him as honorable.” Tayebwa’s statement about Nzoghu sent everyone into uncontrollable laughter.
MP Dulu loves chairman title not honorable
While some people would sell their valuable assets to earn the ‘honorable’ title and others love that title more than their names, Adjumani East MP Angel Mark Dulu is different. He stunned his colleagues at the South wing parking lot the other day, when he said that he preferred to be called Angel, Mark or chairman.
Dulu is a former district chairman for Adjumani.
“I don’t like this business of honorable, honorable every where all the time. It has become too cheap nowadays. I don’t like it and I prefer my name Angel or Mark. I also like it when someone calls me chairman. Whenever I hear chairman, I turn around very fast to see who they are calling because I also have to be careful not to respond for the committee chairperson,” Dulu said, sending colleagues into laughter.
Then Honourable Fred Angella (Moroto municipality), a former Nakapiripirit RDC, added: “Yeah, yes, yes. In fact I have also told some of my colleagues on the Local Government Accounts committee that they should not call me honorable especially where we are many because I will not easily know that they are referring to me. They thought I was joking but the truth is that when somebody says RDC, I feel very happy. I prefer RDC even if I am no longer RDC.”
Some of the MPs in that group who have not been RDC or chairpersons looked on in shock. Clearly, some people love the ‘honourable’ title.