Buganda Parliamentary Caucus legislators led by their chairman Muwanga Kivumbi (centre) address the media at Parliament yesterday. PHOTO | DAVID LUBOWA
Butambala Member of Parliament Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi has said he resisted intimidation by President Museveni during their phone call last Thursday over the controversial National Coffee (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
Mr Kivumbi, who is also the chairperson of the Buganda Parliamentary Caucus, told journalists at the National Unity Platform (NUP) headquarters in Kampala on Monday that the President tried to intimidate him over the Bill but he stood his ground.
“The President started off the conversation by throwing accusations against me; ‘You have for a long time been a terrorist, I was looking for you, you people are spreading hate,’” he said.
The call followed an earlier Thursday morning meeting between Buganda caucus MPs and the Speaker, Ms Anita Among.
The purpose of the meeting, he said, was for the Buganda legislators to plead with Ms Among to drop the controversial National Coffee (Amendment) Bill, 2024, before its tabling for second reading.
“The Speaker told us that she had personally understood our cries, but insisted that ‘the issue is for the President. He is the one who sent me, so I can’t decide anything’. In an unclear way, she got her phone during the meeting and called the President and they spoke, which conversation we were privy to. I just saw her saying even the chairperson of Buganda Parliamentary Caucus is here to speak to him,” he said.
Ms Among’s trick, he narrated, was to call the President and pass on the phone to him (Kivumbi) and allegedly frame him as having betrayed Ugandans.
“And because of that, I picked up the phone since I am man enough,” Mr Kivumbi said.
He said the President’s accusations did not deter him from standing by his word of opposing the Bill that seeks to dissolve the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) and have its roles reverted to the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.
“I later explained to him what I had told the Speaker and asked him to leave coffee alone because it is the last hope for the local people,” he said.
He added: “I even explained to him the difference between oil and coffee, that this oil where he has established agencies such as the Uganda National Oil Company, we shall only get $22b the 25 years we shall exploit it. But coffee, last year alone got us $1.4b and when we finally get 20 million bags, we shall have got $3b per year and in the 25 years, the coffee will have fetched $75b, concluding that the coffee deal is better than oil.”
The deputy presidential press secretary, Mr Faruk Kirunda, promised to get to us but had not done so by press time.
On his part, Parliament’s Director of Communications Chris Obore said the Speaker did not trick the legislators as claimed.
“How can an MP be tricked to speak to the President? The President is the head of State and in charge of the wellbeing of all citizens, including those who oppose him, therefore; speaking with the President is not out of the norm,” he said.
