We are proud of our crimes, MPs say

Determined. After the NRM expelled four MPs (Theodore Ssekikubo, Barnabas Tinkasimire, Wilfred Niwagaba and Muhammad Nsereko) from the party over alleged indiscipline, the legislators are re-organising themselves into another political plan. Sunday Monitor’s Sheila Naturinda caught up with their legal counsel, Mr Niwagaba, to explain their next move.

1. What went wrong?
In my view, the genesis of all this can be traced to the oil debate. When the Attorney General came for a supplementary budget for the Heritage arbitration in London before our committee [Legal &Parliamentary Affairs], it raised more questions than answers. We continued to probe why we were in court with Heritage, and from there things started changing.

By that time I must confess very few Ugandans, including some ministers, whom I will not name, did not know what was happening in the oil sector. I personally drafted the motion that recalled Parliament and we had to push from scores of ministers who confessed that had they not been in Cabinet, they would also sign the recall petition.

Government was caught unawares when during the debate we proved to have documentary evidence from the Auditor General’s reports on recoverable costs which showed what poor bargaining standards we had as a country and what losses we were exposed to.

A few days to the recall, the President called me personally on telephone, persuading me to pull out the motion. He in fact suggested that I meet [Allen] Kagina to get an explanation on all our issues so that we later revert to the Speaker and withdraw the motion so she does not recall Parliament.

I did not buy into his argument and to me that was the genesis of everything when I refused because before then, I had never been referred to as indisciplined in the party.
The second of the troubles came during the Budget debate when we debated in favour of the health sector. I know this was used as an excuse because they were looking for another crime but the bitterness is all from the oil debate. That is where they say we formed cliques using the platform of Parliament Forum on Oil and Gas.

2. So what exactly are your crimes?
The biggest crime we committed was to educate and sensitise the masses and the Parliament about the country’s oil transactions, that’s all. And we shall repeat this, that we don’t have any regrets whatsoever because since the debate, we have made gains.

We have passed two laws although Clause 9 was a disappointment but the provisions on the environment and access to information is to our credit. On recoverable costs, I have information that the idle rigs we used to pay for $50,000 (about Shs128.8m) per day have since gone to the DR Congo and South Sudan. Some of the expatriates one a driver earning Shs50m and another caterer earning Shs34m have since had their contracts terminated and returned to their homes, and Ugandans are getting jobs in the oil industry slowly.

The petroleum department was before then only processing work permits but now they insist on being given the three-year plan of their work after which a replacement with a Ugandan.
We are proud of our “crimes” because we take them as achievements in the oil sector and the fact that there was public interest in the sector.

3. Why then are you insisting to belong to a party you demonise?
None of us has insisted on belonging to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party because there is nowhere any of us has applied to rejoin or to make amends with the party. Nobody will go before the Chief Whip for intercession as she says. She should rest assured that nobody will ever do that, simply because we believe we are all equal members with equal rights in the party.

We do not believe there are those in the party who must be worshipped to intercede for us and as a Catholic, only the saints do intercede for me, because I worship only one God.

4. But you said your dismissal is illegal?
What we are saying is that the dismissal is based on vindictiveness; it is not justified both in law and in fact. As far as we are concerned, we hold it in contempt.

Now, other than being a member of the NRM Parliamentary caucus, which caucus does not get me any special benefits other than eating roasted meat in Kyankwanzi and occasionally spending long hours in State House, what material benefit does it offer us? After all we are the ones who pay the caucus not the other way round.

But I must clear this- that as of now it’s coming to a week since they made announcements but we haven’t received any written communication of their dismissal. We are only reacting to what we saw on television – the Prime Minister making public a communique of the party.

5. What is your group’s next plan after Parliament, in the eventuality that court rules in favour of the party?
First of all, even before we speculate what Court might decide, my life as Wilfred has not been engrossed in Parliament although naturally I have been a political activist; and I don’t see myself getting out of it now. I actually see myself with my colleagues who aren’t few by the way, getting more actively involved this time in order to realise our goals.

Ours is to have aspects of good governance practiced; particularly a leadership that is pro-people and pro-poor - not this one of self-aggrandisement. Secondly, we have a goal of fighting for the strict observance of the rule of law which includes an independent Judiciary, Parliament, free press and a citizenry that enjoys its rights to the fullest.

6. You sound like you want to form another political party- right?
The truth of the matter is we have not thought about forming a political party, neither are we planning it now but you cannot rule out anything in the future or even a possibility of joining whichever other vehicle believes in what we believe in.

Until our expulsion, we were actually planning to compete for leadership of the party from the position of chairmanship downwards. Maybe this is one of the reasons they felt uncomfortable. And I still have a belief that there is an individual who will gather the necessary courage to challenge the status quo.

7. There is information that you already have a lineup of candidates for the 2016 general polls, who are these?
The fact is even if I had remained in NRM, the candidate we intended to bring was going to defeat President Museveni hands down in the delegate’s conference. It will now depend on those we have left inside the party- how they will reorganise themselves and master the courage we pushed for.
If the person we had identified can be supported, then the possibility of us putting our weight behind him or her will remain very high even when we are outside the party. And the beauty with this person is that he or she remains in Parliament, safe and sound and what is needed now is for him or her to gain the courage.