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The leader of opposition in Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga, has hit back at the speaker of Parliament Anita Among saying her directive banning opposition MPs currently boycotting parliamentary sittings, from Parliamentary business and activities, is diversionary.

Among recently issued a tough warning to opposition MPs who consistently boycott plenary sittings over pending issues of human rights violations and missing opposition supporters.

Chairing the House, last week, Among said if MPs miss 15 consecutive sittings of Parliament without her permission, they will face the Parliamentary rules of procedure which may result into loss of their parliamentary seats.

The speaker asked the boycotting MPs to write to her individually, seeking permission to stay out of parliamentary sittings.

On Wednesday, Among issued more tough sanctions asking the clerk to Parliament to stop the boycotting MPs from participating in committee meetings as well as travel inland and abroad.

Among also directed that boycotting MPs should be deleted from the list of players for the East African games set to be held in Kigali Rwanda.

However, responding to the sanctions, Mpuuga who was in company of fellow opposition legislators on Thursday scoffed at the speaker’s directive saying no legislator was sent to parliament on account of being a good athlete, but rather representation.

“All those threats are a diversion, fortunately for us we are very clear headed in what we are doing there is no constituency that elected an MP on account of being an athlete or footballer so those small diversions as political leaders in parliament, we understand them but we cannot be diverted,” Mpuuga said on Thursday.

Mpuuga implored the speaker to be neutral enough by causing the executive to respond to their demands as promised by the government.

According to Mpuuga the government gave the opposition 30 days within which to respond to their demands, which deadline has since passed without any response to their demands.

“we expect our presiding officer the neutral arbiter in these matters to be making demands from the other side as a neutral actor otherwise our demands remain the same demands and we shall wait at a time when these ministers return,” Mpuuga said.

Last week, Among told Parliament that the line ministers that are supposed to respond to the opposition demands are out of the country and implored the boycotting MPs to return to parliament or else they face expulsion on account of missing 15 consecutive sittings of Parliament.

Recently, the opposition legislators resolved to boycott plenary sittings unless the government apologizes and explains what they described as constant human rights violations.

Mpuuga said the shadow Cabinet had notified the office of the Speaker of the emerging concerns, adding that if the government fails to respond to their demands, they would extend the boycott until the issues at hand are appropriately responded to by the government.

Without giving a specific timeframe, Mpuuga told journalists at parliament that their boycott would continue as long as their demands remain unattended to by the executive.

“There is no amount of compulsion one can make of is it the allowances one get out of travel, per diem, with the lives of the people am afraid we are not going into that digression because the matters for which we are making demands are extremely pertinent in fact they are not even partisan,” Mpuuga said.