What is driving rationalisation debate; defiance or inducements?

During the course of last month, Speaker Anita Among directed Parliament’s legal team to sue The Observer newspaper.

The directive was precipitated by the publication on April 24 of the story, ‘MPs bribed to save government agencies’, which alleged that legislators had taken bribes in order to save some of the agencies that had been lined up for mainstreaming back to their parent ministries under the planned rationalisation of government agencies and departments.

Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), National Information and Technology Authority (NITA), Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and Cotton Development Organisation were among the agencies and departments cited in the bribery allegations during the ongoing debate on the Rationalisation of Government Agencies and Public Expenditure (RAPEX) Bills.

“These allegations of saying MPs were bribed must stop. Nobody was bribed, people did legislation on their own. How can you bribe the whole House, who are willing to even put up their hands to vote? I am going to ask our legal officer to take up this case because you can’t tarnish the integrity of my members,” Ms Among said.

Trail of ‘bribes’
Ms Among says it is impossible to bribe “the whole House”.

However, Dr Frank Nabwiso is surprised that Ms Among thinks so. 

The former National Resistance Movement (NRM) ideologue who has since turned into one of its most virulent critic says the NRM has used bribes to facilitate, among other, things abrogation of the Constitution.

“In the 1995 Constitution, we had presidential term limits. We also had the presidential age limits. Now what have we been doing? We have been abrogating the Constitution piecemeal, not violently like [former presidents Milton] Obote did, and [Idi] Amin, but under the NRM we have even had money to bribe MPs to change those important Articles of the Constitution,” Dr Nabwiso says.

In 2005, lawmakers in the 7th Parliament were each given Shs5m for “consultation” ahead of the constitutional amendment on presidential term limits.

Then in February 2011, days before the general election, MPs received Shs20 million apiece, including 48 Opposition lawmakers. The money was handed out after the ruling NRM forced through a controversial supplementary budget of Shs602 billion.

“It was not a monitoring fund, it was a bribe because it came at a time when President Museveni was asking for Shs602 billion in supplementary funding. This money was given during campaigns and nothing was monitored. Some MPs even lost the polls, so what monitoring could they do?” then Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Mr Nandala Mafabi, said.

In October 2017, MPs were handed Shs29 million apiece to carry out consultations ahead of debate which culminated in the December 20, 2017, vote in Parliament that saw Article 102(b) expunged from the Constitution and presidential age limit scrapped. Six Opposition MPs rejected and returned the money.

Given such a trail of ‘facilitations’, some lawmakers believe they are bribes intended at enticing MPs to support government positions.

However, Mr Godfrey Kabyanga, the State Minister for Information Communication Technology and National Guidance is quick to defend the NRM government saying it is not facilitating or fuelling corruption at Parliament.

“How can NRM, which is fighting corruption, facilitate corruption? Not every money that is given to MPs is a bribe,” Mr Kabyanga says, adding that the public should opt for private prosecution if they have evidence of corruption.

“If anybody has evidence of corruption let them come out and expose it and then the perpetrators are brought to book. Individuals can take someone to court if you think there are any corruption tendencies in what they are doing,” the minister says.

Duty and interests 
That Ms Among has a duty to defend the institution she heads is not in doubt. There is little doubt that she is well intentioned as she goes about defending Parliament and the legislators.

The problem though is that these allegations touch on the integrity and image of an institution that has been taking a beating. 

The effects of the recent exposure from the exhibition on X, formerly Twitter, are still reverberating.

Whereas the Speaker declared that, “no member was bribed to fail any RAPEX Bill”, critics say it is improbable that she is 100 percent sure that legislators did not take any sweeteners or that there was no conflict of interest at play during the course of debate on the Bills.

Precedence
The best course of action, Mr Marlon Agaba of the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda says, would have been for the Speaker to refer the matter to a relevant committee of Parliament to investigate. 

An investigation to establish the veracity of allegations of a similar nature would not be new.

Early in November 2002, then Speaker Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi informed Parliament that Mukwano Industries had filed a complaint, accusing Budadiri East MP Nandala Mafabi, who was the chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on the National Economy, and Ibanda North MP Guma Gumisiriza, of attempting to extort the company. 

Managers of the company claimed that the MPs had demanded the money in order not to make public details on how they were allegedly evading taxes.

“When I received it, as I have said during the recess, I used the established organs of Parliament to deal with it. And the organs shall deal with that complaint,” Mr Ssekandi said.

The matter was referred to the Committee on Rules, Privileges and Discipline chaired by Mr Ben Wacha, which found no merit in the accusations.

Against such a background, it would have been simpler to refer the matter to either a relevant committee of Parliament, police or Inspectorate of Government (IGG) to investigate, but that, according to Mr Agaba, can only happen under normal circumstances and times.

“Prior to that (bribery allegations) we had the exhibition (on X, formerly Twitter), where a lot of information came out with evidence of corruption at Parliament and she (Ms Among) used all means necessary to block any form of debate on the exhibition which was touching on the integrity of Parliament. So Parliament headed by the Speaker cannot investigate themselves. In a way that behaviour was expected,” Mr Agaba argues.

Mr Kabyanga is, however, quick to defend the Speaker, saying it was up to her discretion.

“Probably in her judgement she thought there was no case to investigate. Not everything that comes to your desk should be investigated. If in your own judgement you think there is no case to investigate, why should it be investigated?” Mr Kabyanga argues.

On the weighing scale
Ms Among’s defence of Parliament and the way debate on some of the agencies panned out was that legislators had placed the interests of the people they represent ahead of their own.

“And I want to tell the Executive and whoever is alleging this, MPs legislated for their people. Like yesterday UNRA, it was a consensus, we even had the minister concede, even the minister of Public Service, Muruli Mukasa, conceded. So why should we be blamed for what we are doing? We are here to legislate for our people,” Ms Among says.

But Dr Nabwiso insists that most Parliaments under NRM have not served the interests of ordinary Ugandans.

“I have no regrets and as far as I am concerned, Parliament has betrayed Ugandans. The NRM parliaments in particular because they have stayed longer. There are 11 parliaments in our history. Four – the first, second, the National Consultative Council and the Obote II parliaments – made some mistakes, but those parliaments were around for a short time,” Dr Nabwiso argues.

He says it is only the Sixth Parliament which stood out.

“These, who are supposed to be more enlightened out of the seven parliaments, it is only the Sixth Parliament which tried to be independent. It censured ministers, even when the Executive was opposed to those moves. These ones, even if they tried, they cannot make any headway because the other one himself is in charge of Parliament. Parliament is not independent,” he concludes.

In January 2023, at least 348 out of 356 MPs present voted to censure the State minister for Lands, Ms Persis Namuganza, for misconduct and contempt of Parliament. 

Ms Namuganza, however, never resigned and remains a minister. 

Ms Namuganza was also not affected in March this year when Mr Museveni reorganised his Cabinet, dropping, among others, Mr Vincent Ssempijja, Ms Maria Gorretti Kitutu, Ms Harriet Ntabaazi, Ms Agnes Nandutu, and Ms Grace Kwiyucwiny.

Defying Museveni?
The second aspect of Ms Among’s defence of Parliament would suggest that MPs had for the first time chosen to vote against the wishes of the NRM party chairman, Mr Museveni.

Mr Museveni met members of the NRM parliamentary caucus on February 2, and urged them to support the RAPEX Bills, saying it was a strategic matter than required correct answers. 

He also told them that rationalisation of agencies would help government save up to Shs1 trillion a year.

“When we talk of rationalisation, we are talking of, first of all, doing things which are rational and save money,” Mr Museveni said.

Mr Agaba thinks that if it is true that the NRM MPs defied Mr Museveni and voted against his wishes, it must be because there was some kind of inducement.

“It was a Cabinet decision, but the NRM caucus also sat at State House Entebbe and they agreed to rationalise government agencies. The list was clear. What then is the rationale that when it comes to Parliament a few agencies have been cleared and others have been rationalised? As somebody who has been following the behaviour and knowing how Members of Parliament vote after the caucus, I can only believe what is being said,” Mr Agaba says.

Mr Kabyanga insists that the decision reached by MPs was not because they had either been bribed or that they were defying the party chairman.

“If you followed the proceedings in Parliament, they (MPs) raised some issues which have to be looked at by the government. There are some Bills on which they (MPs) wanted more information. When the information is availed the Bills will be reintroduced and the Bills will be passed,” Mr Kabyanga says.

Ms Among echoed similar sentiments as she presided over proceedings on Tuesday. 

She expressed a willingness on the part of Parliament to revisit the RAPEX Bills, but where has the handling of the initial debate left Parliament in the eyes of the public? 

The jury is not yet in.