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Namirembe probe committee grills Bishop nomination team
The Namirembe Cathedral in Kampala. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- This followed a petition by the elders at Namirembe Diocese, who questioned the integrity of the nomination process and cited corruption, conflict of interest and unfairness.
A five-member committee set up by the House of Bishops of the Church of Uganda to probe the differed Namirembe Diocese Bishop election, yesterday spent more than 12 hours at the provincial’s office in Kampala, grilling members of the nominations committee over what sources called “serious lapses” in the process.
The committee chaired by Rev Johnson Gakumba, Northern Uganda Bishop Emeritus, is inquiring into the glitches in the nomination process in line with the Provincial Canon 3.7.30 to guide the next course of action by the House of Bishops for the differed election.
Early this month, the House of Bishops didn’t consider the candidates who had been nominated to replace retiring Namirembe Bishop Wilberforce Kityo Luwalira on grounds that the nomination process was conducted contrary to the provincial constitution.
There was a petition from the elders at Namirembe Diocese, who questioned the integrity of the nomination process and cited corruption, conflict of interest and unfairness.
By press time (8pm), the meeting that started at 8:30am was still on-going as the investigation committee was holed up in Namirembe Provincial Boardroom to identify the cause of the problems and possibly find an agreeable solution to the standoff.
The investigators summoned the 13 members of the Nominations Committee, who had on September 30, nominated names of candidates and forwarded them to the House of Bishops for consideration, and grilled one by one.
The Nominations Committee is chaired by the chancellor of Namirembe Diocese, Rev Can Fredrick Mpanga. Each of the members was interrogated for over an hour, asking them questions regarding the integrity of the process and who did what. Even after interrogating the members, they all stayed indoors for fear of being interviewed by journalists, who had camped at the premises as early as 8:00am.
It was after a guard manning the provincial offices ordered journalists to leave the premises, that some of the committee members gathered courage to get out of the premises.
It remains unclear why the nomination committee members, who have been accused of unfairness and bias, didn’t want to face the media or even explain themselves on what exactly happened. The first member came out of the interrogation room at around 3:00pm and drove towards Namirembe Police Post. As they stepped out of the building, most of the members were tight-lipped on what transpired. By 7pm, about three more members were yet to be interrogated.
Rev Can William Ongeng, the provincial secretary, who left the venue at 5:46pm, could not comment on the matter but instead asked journalists to be patient, saying the interrogation process was not about to end.
“Learn what we call patience. The meeting is not yet ending now. It is still on. Go home,” Rev Can Ongeng said and immediately left the venue.
One of the committee members, who was interrogated at around 5pm and had earlier on said he was willing to be quoted, later changed his mind due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Church response
Sadiiki Adams, the communications officer of Church of Uganda told this publication recently that the two candidates are not immune to being dropped, if investigations into alleged fraudulent nomination process confirm that there were irregularities in the process.
