Independent MPs Push Reconciliation committee with party

STATE HOUSE, ENTEBBE: President Yoweri Museveni is on a war path in his renewed fight against corruption warning whoever is involved is going to ‘face my full force’. 

The tough talking Museveni said corruption was failing the country’s development agenda and asked the newly elected Members of Parliament to support the fight against corruption in government.

“Am told there is corruption even in parliament. How can this be?  I am going to going to crash corruption and whoever is involved in corruption is going to face my full force,” President Museveni warned.

The President was speaking during a meeting he held with the 59 newly elected Independent National Resistance Movement leaning Members of parliament at State House Entebbe on Friday. Majority of them became independent after losing in the National Resistance Movement party primaries.

The tough talking Museveni previously defended governments’ slow response to corruption cases saying the vice had become complex with educated people in public offices making it almost impossible to pin them without evidence.

Mr. Museveni also appealed to the newly elected Members of Parliament to support government and put an end to the rampant land evictions by implementing the recommendations of the Catharine Bamugemereire Land Commission noting that the land evictions had made the NRM very unpopular especially in Buganda region.

“We can’t continue like that where citizens are turned into surfs in their own homeland” he said.

President Yoweri Museveni urged the MPs to work towards finding solutions to the problems of the electorate rather than concentrating on political populism, warning that failure to do that, the political class would be a great disappointment to the masses and risked being punished by the electorate.

President Museveni called on them to focus more on how to transform majority of Ugandans from subsistence agriculture to commercial and profit oriented agriculture so as to better their incomes.

He said that to do this, MPs needed to be model farmers themselves and also support government to have a bigger budget for wealth creation and poverty eradication programs. He said that once production is boosted the MPs should support the integration of East Africa and African markets since the local market is not enough.

The President further appealed to the MPs to support the implementation of UPE and USE programs noting that “Free education for the children of the poor should free” in public schools.

He called on them to work with government to prioritise budgeting for key infrastructures of the economy such as the roads, railway, electricity and clean water supply. He said parliament needs to correctly budget for the maintenance of feeder roads to ease the transportation of goods and services to the market.  

He further asked them to support enhanced budgeting for the defense and security sector because peace is the backbone of development. 

“You can see that Uganda has 2.5 million refugees this is because all of them are running away from insecurity in their own countries and we can’t risk that,” he said.

In their memorandum that was presented by the Rushenyi Member of Parliament Hon. Naome Kabasharira, the Independent NRM leaning Members of Parliament decried the corruption and mismanagement of election that was exhibited during the NRM party primaries that forced most of the party cadres to stand as independents.

They requested the President as party chairman to institute a reconciliation committee to reconcile the many members of the party that conflicted during the elections. 

The independent MPs pledged to work with National Resistance Movement and the President in line with the party manifesto so as to develop the country.

The meeting was also attended by the NRM Secretary General Justine Kasule Lumumba and the Party treasurer Rose Namayanja among others.

ENDS….