In a surprising turn of events, a local politician, MP Ssemujju Nganda of Kira Municipality, has attacked colleagues, pushing the censorship motion to impeach four commissioners.
The four commissioners are accused of paying themselves a service award cash amounting to sShs1.7billion without the approval of Parliament.
MP Ssemujju blamed the legislators who have appended their signatures in support of the motion.
According to Ssemujju, his colleagues signing the censure motion are ignorant and do not read the laws passed on the floor of parliament and understand them fully.
While appearing on a local television station, MP Ssemujju, without mincing words, said the legislators supporting the censure are simply uninformed, and he believes they are acting out of ignorance.
“The MPs signing the censure motion are ignorant; I did include all that in my minority report; parliament passed it, so the MPs are actually censuring themselves because we don’t read and pay attention to this money that was passed by parliament. The money was put in the parliamentary committee and passed by parliament,” said Ssemujju.
He went on to say that the motion to pass a budget is always moved by the government with the full involvement of parliament, and it was passed by Parliament.
“I want you to invite them here one day and ask them to explain to you the parliamentary commission budget for the next financial year, what it is going to fund, and since the majority are ignorant, they need to go and read the budget,” Ssemujju added.
Ssemujju further stated that he is not going to participate in a mob of people who are ignorant; he advised that the MPs should go and read the budget to understand the implications because they are all now censuring themselves.
Basalirwa Asuman, Member of Parliament Bugiri Municipality, said that he will not sign the censure motion of the four commissioners because he will be representing two of them as their lawyer, former leader of the opposition Mathias Mpuuga and Solomon Silwany, Member of Parliament Bukooli County Central.
“So I will be one of their lawyers at the hearing of the case. So I can’t be the lawyer and, at the same time, sign the petition. That is like scoring your own goal,” Basalirwa said.
As the situation continues to unfold, citizens are watching closely to see how their elected officials handle the apparent rift within parliament.
