Why the public must be mad with the MPs and not the executive

May 01, 2020

The public has always supported Parliament and piled pressure on the executives whenever Parliament makes investigations into the mismanagement of public funds. In fact, there were (attempted) demonstrations whenever for example COSASE held inquiries.

COVID-19 | LEGISLATURE | EXECUTIVE

By Rama Omonya

There is a section of the public which is up in arms against the MPs and Parliament in general for allocating themselves sh10b that was passed as part of the Supplementary Appropriation Act No2.

At the same time, there is a section who think the public is gullible and should be chasing the sh600b or so that went to the State House, Classified Expenditures, and Security (unclassified portion). Incidentally, the Speaker of Parliament and the members of parliament are the ones leading this argument with some members of the public.

This line of argument is faulty and is in total discord or shows a lack of understanding of the premise of our constitutional systems of checks and balance. The citizens have every right to lynch (figuratively) their members of Parliament for the following reasons.

First, the members of parliament are elected by the people under universal adult suffrage and or special interest groups. Under the principle of participatory democracy, an elected representative takes the position of the one he or she represents.

The philosophical debate of whether representation means acting in place or consulting before acting is fused in most modern representative systems. In Uganda, like in many constitutional republics, the representative has latitude to act on behalf of the electorates as well as consult before acting. For the purpose of this article, this fusion will be apparent in discerning the role of the representative. Although the constitution is not explicit on representation, the premise of Article 1(4) and Article 78.

Secondly, Parliament plays three other fundamental roles besides representations. These are; oversight, appropriation, and legislation. Coincidentally, the sh10b saga brings to the spotlight all the 4 roles of Parliament under one transaction.

The oversight is cast throughout the constitution. For example, Parliament has the power to approve the national budget under Article 155. The Auditor-General carries out audits of public expenditures and submits the report to Parliament who has the powers to examine and debate the report and issue recommendations on remedial measures under Article 163.

Under article 164, the Parliament has powers to monitor expenditure of all public funds. For this reason, parliament is clothed with powers of the High Court in summoning and examining witnesses on oath under article 90 (4) (c). They have powers to order the production of documents and can even examine witnesses abroad.

Our constitution does not provide the citizens with such profound powers over the executive. The social accountability mechanisms for citizens to hold the Executive accountable only come in a general election after every five years or a referendum.

Even so, the citizens do not have the latitude to examine the details of the performance of the head of the executives save for tangible results which can be seen or felt. Moreover, the citizens cannot recall their Members of Parliament under the current constitutional set up. On the other hand, the parliament can censure the president and his or her ministers.

The citizens can only pile pressure on the executive where parliament has broken grounds but its roles are limited (save for popular uprising such as the Arab Spring which is arguably unconstitutional, in theory, in Uganda under article 3 of the Constitution).

Besides the above issues, the manner in which parliament exercised its appropriation powers in passing the sh10b is all questionable. I understand the matter is in court to determine the appropriateness of the process. As an officer of the court, I refrain from discussing the merits of this issue which is in substance before the court.

As we wait for the Courts pronouncements on the legitimacy of this particular appropriation, one fact which is already in the public domain is how the report of the committee of Parliament on Budgets is silent on the sh10b. We should be mindful that the Public Finance Management Act, 2015 under section 12 (2) enjoins Parliament to ensure that public resources are held and utilized in a transparent, accountable, efficient, effective, and sustainable manner. This is a law they enacted themselves. Let's keep waiting for the court's pronouncements on this matter.

To demand that the citizens should follow the "other trillion" shillings which the executives are "mismanaging" and yet appropriated by themselves is a vote of no confidence in themselves and they should all resign.

This could be taken to be an admission that they have not been playing their roles of oversight. Perhaps, the Chairperson of the Finance and Economic Planning Committee, Mr. Henry Musasizi, MP, summed it well when he was captured on the NBS TV news of April 30, 2020, at 9:pm and I quote him (near verbatim) that "…dodon't you think it is the right time Parliament starts to play its oversight role and start scrutinizing all the budgets item by item?" If this is not a confession of abdication of roles, then what is it?

The justification for needing the sh20m to provide food for their electorate in this unprecedented time only goes as a testament to their failure to exercise their powers. Parliament appropriated shs59billion to the Office of the Prime Minister under Disaster Preparedness. The sole aim of this money was for buying food for those affected.

On April 3, 2020, Parliament debated the Supplementary budget.
They rightfully, in my view, questioned why the government wants to distribute only in and around Kampala, and yet their electorates were starving as well. If anybody who doubts the debating skills of our MPs had watched them deliberating that day, you would be shocked. It was a stellar performance. It culminated in the House resolving to halt the food distribution until the OPM comes up with a nationwide plan.

However, the government in its usual belligerent manner ignored their strong resolve and went ahead with food distribution two days later. In that same sitting, they deferred passing the sh285b Supplementary budget. But they passed the budget later.

From the above episode in parliament and defiant actions of the Executive, perhaps, parliament hatched a plan to allocate themselves some money to help their electorates with food in these hard times. Mr. Ssemuju Nganda, MP for Kirra Municipality is the leading advocate for this approach. Parliament needs to be reminded that they had powers to ask the government to add on the sh59b so as to cover the entire country. If they feel they were defied, they have recourse under the constitution and their Rules of Procedures to move a censure motion on such a defiant Minister. They failed flat on their roles. I will tackle how they have lost their groove in another article.

In summary, the citizens have every iota of rights to the bay for the blood of the MPs over the sh10b and it is for the MPs to the bay for the blood for members of the executives who are mismanaging the "other" trillions as our laws dictate.

The public has always supported Parliament and piled pressure on the executives whenever Parliament makes investigations into the mismanagement of public funds. In fact, there were (attempted) demonstrations whenever for example COSASE held inquiries.

So, we love you so much our MPs. We only want you to stand up for your roles as we are standing up for ours now or else you can exit the house and join us in the chorus.

The writer is an Advocate with ABNO Advocates and a Policy Analyst at ramaomonya@gmail.com

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