Nsibambi hails vote

The Prime Minister has said he is very happy with the outcome of the Onapito motion in Parliament, writes Vision Reporters. "It is a win-win situation," Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi said yesterday. "Honourable Onapito has done us a favour to raise a number of important issues such as the overload of ministers and other problems." But Nsibambi said he welcomed the defeat of the motion that ministers should not be MPs. "The prescription in the Bill that ministers should not be MPs was not acceptable," he said. "First, It denies the capacity of executives and MPs to capture the mood and tone of each other. When both are in Parliament, we bargain accordingly and reach the right legislative equilibirium." "Second, if the two branches of government were to be divorced from each other, the legislature would suffer from in-breeding, but in the present legilsature, we cross-pollinate with each other," he said. "Finally, when you have a mixture of ex-officio and elected members in Cabinet, they enrich each other. The elected members have their finger on the popular pulse whereas the ex-officio members have less electoral pressures and can attend to technocratic matters," Nsibambi said.