Museveni to new MPs: mean business

Members of Parliament should dispose of business before them instead of wasting time on non-issues, President Yoweri Museveni has said.

He was addressing the first sitting of the 10^th Parliament after the election of Speaker Rebecca Kadaga and Deputy Jacob Oulanyah.

Museveni, who congratulated MPs upon passing the test of supporting the Constitution and not Oulanyah, reminded them that they were not the first to legislate in Uganda.

"I came with the picture (displays picture) of the first parliament. If you see these people, they are all young just like you here. Milton Obote was the old one.  However, in no time as if there was a witchdoctor bewitching Uganda, the whole system collapsed—parliament and government collapsed," Museveni emphatically said.

He said he was therefore very much pleased that the MPs had passed the test.

"I congratulate NRM party. I was saying, ‘This party, what will happen to it?' A political issue comes to you here; people talk about someone's family issue. …You fail to run a constituency and then you go into bedroom matters of other people. What sort of politics is this?" the visibly disturbed Museveni asked.

He also said he had congratulated the MPs upon concentrating on public affairs that needed their attention.

"You are very lucky. I am a very lucky man. We are leading Uganda which now collects sh33b in taxes and not the one of 1996 which collected sh5b," he reminded the now attentive House.

He, however, caused laughter when he first said Oulanyah had someone (wife) before he said he didn't know that the Deputy Speaker-elect was alone.

Museveni said he had been leading fighters and political activists for the last 50 years but said they had never raised any complaint about receiving no salary or receiving low-salary.

The President said Uganda was on the verge of becoming a middle-income country but noted that there were still two problems that needed to be solved.

"We are going to fight corruption the way we fought other problems. Just wait and see," he implored the legislators.

He also appealed to lawmakers not to allow corruption to come to parliament. "Now you hear these people say that I gave NRM people sh5m… I must rescue my own MPs," he said to applause.