Uganda is now reaping the fruits of ignoring Nsibambi!
May 17, 2007
DURING the Reformation period in Church history Martin Luther wrote extensively about the sermons on catechism and appealed to the ruling class, especially leaders, to be fair, balanced and frank, which the Roman Catholic Church opposed.
The selfish struggle over cars and pay rise are still fresh in our minds
DURING the Reformation period in Church history Martin Luther wrote extensively about the sermons on catechism and appealed to the ruling class, especially leaders, to be fair, balanced and frank, which the Roman Catholic Church opposed.
In our case, during debates in the Constituent Assembly (CA) nominated delegate Prof. Apolo Nsibambi said that Uganda had lived under executive ‘tyranny’ and warned: “we should avoid in this constitution turning to legislative tyranny.â€
President Yoweri Museveni has cautioned against this trend over and over again without much response from some leaders. The CA delegates never agreed with Nsibambi’s well-measured caution at the time because understandably they wanted to balance all the centres of state power so that none could act with impunity.
Unfortunately, since many of the delegates also intended to run for the subsequent parliament they made constitutional provisions which turned the legislature into an over-bearing institution with no one easily able to check its excesses.
As such, since the Sixth parliament in July 1996, Uganda has been slowly and steadily reaping the consequences of the failure to listen to Nsibambi’s advice, and parliament could easily turn into a self-serving, anti-democratic and anti-people institution.
The selfish struggles over MPs’ pay rise, daily sitting allowance, mileage and transport claims, health insurance and personal vehicle scheme, and the now scrapped constituency development funds are all fresh in our minds.
Although fairly well-paid compared to other equally important public sector employees, parliament has been so short in setting priorities and it is becoming more difficult for MPs to justify their political legitimacy.
So, last week’s decision by the parliamentary committee on defence and internal affairs to block the request by police for money to rent headquarter premises may look as genuine as it is selfish because only a month ago parliament began renting offices in Baumann House at over sh1.2bn annually allegedly to have a conducive working environment for MPs.
According to this self-serving pretence, which must be exposed, MPs want to ‘save’ public resources from wasteful expenditure, yet it is actually parliament that chased away the police from parliament building claiming MPs needed ‘adequate’ space, which they have failed to put to any meaningful and serious use as reflected from the low levels of debate and reports.
Just what makes MPs believe that they and not the police deserve a decent, spacious and conducive working environment is puzzling, when police handles the most odious task of keeping law and order for all Ugandans!
The right approach would have been for the MPs to place a moratorium across the board for government not to rent for non-core departments, and compel it to construct government offices.
In any case, there are private businesses that occupy small spaces but make huge profits, and MPs should demand for government office master plans instead of populism and parochial selectivity.
MPs have even taken on the role of ‘field supervisors’ often traversing the country on false claims that they go to inspect and carry out ‘value for money’ audit even where it is known they do not possess any technical competence or ability to conduct evaluation.
In fact many of these field visits like the one to Hoima where petroleum prospecting is going on merely serve to line up the MPs’ pockets with per diem, and ought to be checked if not stopped altogether.
The pretence by the MPs reminds scholars about the behaviours of the old Romanists who, during the Papacy supremacy, cleverly surrounded themselves with walls which protected their privileges in a way that no one could reform them. As a result, the whole of Christendom has suffered corruption and arbitrariness.
Firstly, when under threats of secular force they stood firm and declared that secularism had no jurisdiction over them because they were superior.
Second, when the Holy Scriptures were used to reprove them, they responded that no one except themselves was competent to expound on the scriptures as MPs are now doing with their parliamentary rules of procedure.
And third, when popular censure was demanded they pretended that no one except the Pope could summon a council, and in this way they adroitly nullified all corrective measures and remained within the secure walls to practise the villainy and wickedness that we see today.
Surely, it can only be a devil to propound that canon law which declares that even if the Pope were so wicked that he leads men in multitudes to wrong, nevertheless he cannot be censured or deposed.
I believe that to build democracy and accountability, parliament must be held in check as we have been doing with the executive or else Uganda regresses.
Yes, collectively parliament as an institution enjoys immunity from the vagaries of the outside world of politics, but individual MPs cannot claim the same because they inevitably return to society and ought to be a little more conscious when handling contradictions in society.
Let the MPs remember that Samuel anointed and crowned Saul and King David, as prophet Nathan anointed King Solomon but they never became superior to them. and so, although MPs enact laws, they ought to remain not within the law but be fair as well.
DURING the Reformation period in Church history Martin Luther wrote extensively about the sermons on catechism and appealed to the ruling class, especially leaders, to be fair, balanced and frank, which the Roman Catholic Church opposed.
In our case, during debates in the Constituent Assembly (CA) nominated delegate Prof. Apolo Nsibambi said that Uganda had lived under executive ‘tyranny’ and warned: “we should avoid in this constitution turning to legislative tyranny.â€
President Yoweri Museveni has cautioned against this trend over and over again without much response from some leaders. The CA delegates never agreed with Nsibambi’s well-measured caution at the time because understandably they wanted to balance all the centres of state power so that none could act with impunity.
Unfortunately, since many of the delegates also intended to run for the subsequent parliament they made constitutional provisions which turned the legislature into an over-bearing institution with no one easily able to check its excesses.
As such, since the Sixth parliament in July 1996, Uganda has been slowly and steadily reaping the consequences of the failure to listen to Nsibambi’s advice, and parliament could easily turn into a self-serving, anti-democratic and anti-people institution.
The selfish struggles over MPs’ pay rise, daily sitting allowance, mileage and transport claims, health insurance and personal vehicle scheme, and the now scrapped constituency development funds are all fresh in our minds.
Although fairly well-paid compared to other equally important public sector employees, parliament has been so short in setting priorities and it is becoming more difficult for MPs to justify their political legitimacy.
So, last week’s decision by the parliamentary committee on defence and internal affairs to block the request by police for money to rent headquarter premises may look as genuine as it is selfish because only a month ago parliament began renting offices in Baumann House at over sh1.2bn annually allegedly to have a conducive working environment for MPs.
According to this self-serving pretence, which must be exposed, MPs want to ‘save’ public resources from wasteful expenditure, yet it is actually parliament that chased away the police from parliament building claiming MPs needed ‘adequate’ space, which they have failed to put to any meaningful and serious use as reflected from the low levels of debate and reports.
Just what makes MPs believe that they and not the police deserve a decent, spacious and conducive working environment is puzzling, when police handles the most odious task of keeping law and order for all Ugandans!
The right approach would have been for the MPs to place a moratorium across the board for government not to rent for non-core departments, and compel it to construct government offices.
In any case, there are private businesses that occupy small spaces but make huge profits, and MPs should demand for government office master plans instead of populism and parochial selectivity.
MPs have even taken on the role of ‘field supervisors’ often traversing the country on false claims that they go to inspect and carry out ‘value for money’ audit even where it is known they do not possess any technical competence or ability to conduct evaluation.
In fact many of these field visits like the one to Hoima where petroleum prospecting is going on merely serve to line up the MPs’ pockets with per diem, and ought to be checked if not stopped altogether.
The pretence by the MPs reminds scholars about the behaviours of the old Romanists who, during the Papacy supremacy, cleverly surrounded themselves with walls which protected their privileges in a way that no one could reform them. As a result, the whole of Christendom has suffered corruption and arbitrariness.
Firstly, when under threats of secular force they stood firm and declared that secularism had no jurisdiction over them because they were superior.
Second, when the Holy Scriptures were used to reprove them, they responded that no one except themselves was competent to expound on the scriptures as MPs are now doing with their parliamentary rules of procedure.
And third, when popular censure was demanded they pretended that no one except the Pope could summon a council, and in this way they adroitly nullified all corrective measures and remained within the secure walls to practise the villainy and wickedness that we see today.
Surely, it can only be a devil to propound that canon law which declares that even if the Pope were so wicked that he leads men in multitudes to wrong, nevertheless he cannot be censured or deposed.
I believe that to build democracy and accountability, parliament must be held in check as we have been doing with the executive or else Uganda regresses.
Yes, collectively parliament as an institution enjoys immunity from the vagaries of the outside world of politics, but individual MPs cannot claim the same because they inevitably return to society and ought to be a little more conscious when handling contradictions in society.
Let the MPs remember that Samuel anointed and crowned Saul and King David, as prophet Nathan anointed King Solomon but they never became superior to them. and so, although MPs enact laws, they ought to remain not within the law but be fair as well.