Oath of minister is very clear so no need to block Gen. Aronda

Jul 10, 2013

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013, the two appointees: General Aronda Nyakairima and Hon. Elioda Tumwesigye appeared before the Parliamentary Appointments Committee and the committee.

trueBy Eliab Naturinda

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013, the two appointees: General Aronda Nyakairima and Hon. Elioda Tumwesigye appeared before the Parliamentary Appointments Committee and the committee, among others, was supposed to approve the appointment of two persons for Minister of Internal Affairs and State Minister for Health respectively.

However due to some reasons which are well known to the committee, the vetting was postponed. But what the press was able to release was that, the vetting committee deferred these two appointees pending a meeting with the appointing authority who is the president.

Secondly, that General Aronda did not produce a discharge letter from the Army as a condition for his approval, which is a grave legal lacuna in Uganda’s legal jurisprudence.

Be that as it may, what is known is that there is no legal requirement that bars a serving soldier from being appointed a minister and in that regard, there being no legal requirement for him to retire from the army as a sine qua non (condition precedent) to be eligible to serve as a minister.

However, the contradiction being cited in our 9th Parliament perhaps is on the issue of whether one can occupy two public offices at ago.

 But it must be born in mind, that a minister does not receive a salary. And the most imperative and timely issue then arises, if the Members of Parliament (MPs) believe that holding two portfolios at ago deters one’s efficacy, then some parliamentarians are very unfair and in fact an amendment to this effect, may be, should be tabled by Gov’t.

Most if not all of them have more than one portfolio; if one is an MP, he or she may also double as a minister or leader of opposition (Nathan Mafabi).

A question then arises, whether the above do not constitute holding two public offices. Say for example, the speaker, does her being speaker make her a lesser representative of her constituency because to my understanding she also serves as a woman MP for Kamuli District.

If this question is answered in the affirmative, then we should also push for a constitutional petition challenging all MPs who are at the same time cabinet/state ministers and speaker respectively for a prospective Uganda to suffice.

The Constitution duly provides that a Member of Parliament or any person qualified to be a Member of Parliament may be appointed a minister.

It does not expressly state that the MP must not be an army officer. Why then would the MPs interpret this law to suit their own interests? If this issue was before the Court of Appeal sitting as a Constitutional Court, it would be proper because it is mandated to interpret questions regarding the Constitution of Uganda. General Aronda, as an MP of the Army, has a duty to represent his constituents just as a minister of Kampala, Teso, and Bunyoro does. 

In the same spirit, it must be made alive that the law does not provide for a deputy leader of government business. A question would then arise, should the government business come to an end because the law does provide for certain details. I think this would create a wrong practice if recourse is taken in this line of thinking.

Having raised the above legal issues, it is also prudent to look at the unknown and that is whether a serving soldier can conveniently serve as a Minister in gov’t?

 In politics, a partisan is a committed member of a political party. In multi-party systems, the term is widely understood to carry a negative connotation referring to those who wholly support their party's policies and are perhaps even reluctant to acknowledge correctness on the part of their political opponents in almost any situation.

Partisanship can be affected by many factors including current events, figureheads (presidents), decisions, and even location. For example, in Commonwealth realms, the monarch is seen as being distinctly non-partisan and thus is vested with certain powers to form or dissolve governments when there is a democratic impasse.

This is in contrast to professional politicians who are expected to push for their party's interests.

In the United States, the meaning of the term has changed dramatically over the last 50 years. Before the American National Election Study (described in Angus Campbell, et al., in The American Voter) began in 1952, an individual's partisan tendencies were typically determined from their voting behaviour.

Since then, "partisan" has come to refer to an individual with a psychological identification with one or the other of the major parties.

Having understood the efficacy of partisan, it is now imperative to be alive as to what amounts to being Non-Partisan and/ or can a technocrat or a non-partisan person serve as a minister that implements a manifesto of a ruling gov’t?

One, In political science, nonpartisan denotes an election, event, organisation or person in which there is no formally declared association with a political party affiliation.

The Merrian-Webster dictionary's definition of "nonpartisan" is: "Not partisan; free from party affiliation, bias, or designation” In our present case, the person of General Aronda is not at all affiliated to any political party in Uganda.

Two, a technocrat is a human whose abilities are based on knowledge and skill. Technocrats acquire strength and power to create from knowledge and skills acting together.

A technocrat is not a person with experience only or the person with knowledge only, he or she has them both in a specific domain and knows the reason for things that has to be done in that domain. In other words, a technocrat is a skilled expert in a specific domain who strives to improve the human condition by creating new things or modifying.

Technically then, what would amount to a technocratic minister, it seems to mean that these are minister(s) who  are not career politicians; in fact, in some cases they may not even be members of political parties at all.

They are instead supposed to be "experts" in the fields of their respective ministries. So the classic example is that the finance minister would be someone with an academic background in economics who had worked for years at the IMF, but has not previously run for elective office or been heavily involved in election campaigns.

It must also be alluded to the fact that technocrats normally are normally part of government where decision-makers are chosen for a governing office based on their technical expertise and background

Also a recent case analysis of Myanmar would work for us. On the March 30, 2011, a new government was born in Myanmar. Out of the 33 cabinet ministers, 24 were members of the People’s Assembly, two were members of National Assembly, three were military officers nominated by the Commander-in-chief of Defence Services and four were civilians.

In our present case, General Aronda was also appointed by President Y.K Museveni by invoking his Constitutional powers as an appointing authority.

 What is known is that General Aronda is a service soldier who has an expertise in security related issues and this automatically affirms why the President thought it wise to appoint a security expert as a minister of Internal Affairs to deal with home affair challenges that are at the helm of the current situation.

Secondly, this means that Aronda is going to offer his technocracy (rule by knowledge and skill) in the ministry of Internal Affairs who will serve the people of Uganda not an NRM Government.

In order to adopt a holistic approach to this view, a close reference should be made to the Oath of minister as provided for under the fourth schedule of the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda to see whether a minister is sworn in to serve Ugandans or political party ideologies.

 

OATH OF MINISTER

                        “I ……………………………….……., being appointed a Minister of Uganda swear in the name of the Almighty God/solemnly     afirm that I will at all times well and truly serve the Republic of Uganda in  the office of a Minister; and that I will support and uphold the Constitution of the Republic of  Uganda as by law established; and that I will to the best of my judgment at all times when  required, freely give my counsel and advice to the President of Uganda and his/her successors in  office as by law established for the good management of the public affairs of the Republic of Uganda; and that I will not directly or indirectly reveal any matters as shall come to my knowledge in the discharge of my duties and committed to my secrecy. [So help me God]”.

Definitely, as herein above stated, the relevance of the Oath affirms that a minister serves the Republic of Uganda. I henceforth state that, the cheap politicking of whether the minister will serve the interests of Ugandans at the expense of a political party is academically uncalled for in the 21st century because the Oath of a minister is very clear.

The writer is a lawyer and Associate at EN Legal Consultants

 

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