Museveni shifts tactics to win Mabira Forest give-away game

Kampala

President Museveni has resorted to holding quiet meetings with selected MPs in a change of strategy which critics suspect is intended to break opposition to his Mabira Forest give-away project.

The first meeting was held yesterday at his country home in Rwakitura. Twenty, mainly first-term MPs, received SMS text messages inviting them to this meeting which was still ongoing by press time last night.

An MP, who is privy to the SMS and is among others lined up to attend one of the scheduled meetings, said the President feels that “small groups are easier to manage and convince”. Sources within the National Resistance Movement told Daily Monitor that these meetings are being organised by Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, who is also the party secretary general. A number of such meetings mainly targeting NRM’s young Turks and MPs that are deemed to be the President’s ‘yes’ men are expected in coming days.

The Prime Minister never answered his phone when efforts were made to reach him for comment about these meetings on a subject which has provoked countrywide outrage and protest.
NRM caucus chairman and government Chief Whip John Nasasira, however, confirmed the meeting. Eng. Nasasira said the MPs are meeting the President over “different matters and not about Mabira”. “Not at all,” he said when asked if Mabira was on the agenda. “Mabira is cool now. They are going on a different thing,” he said.

Sources say the first batch of MPs to Rwakitura were led by Ntoroko County MP Martin Mugarura, an Independent, who is said to have also been in charge of organising “logistics” for the 20 MPs.

Lwemiyaga County legislator Theodore Ssekikubo (NRM) yesterday condemned the President’s actions, calling it an attempt to divide the House which has generally sided with the rest of the country, environmentalists and the donor community in opposing Mr Museveni’s wish to parcel out more than 7,000 hectares of the forest to Mehta Group for sugarcane growing.

Move interpreted
“There has been an effort to divide this Parliament. The ones he is meeting are young MPs whom he thinks he should bring closer to himself so that they start toeing his line in whatever he says,” he said. “Museveni thinks dividing Parliament is the best thing he can do to have his desires go through but I do not think any good leader should derive pride from dividing Parliament,” the MP added.

It also emerged yesterday that NRM legislators opposed to the President’s proposed are planning to expose what they consider to be the underhand attempts by Prime Minister Mbabazi and the President to undermine efforts to save Mabira, a key water catchment and bio-diversity resource for both Uganda and the region.

“We are going to name all the MPs who have been attending these meetings because we cannot allow the efforts of people who wish good for this country to be frustrated by selfish and egocentric legislators,” said an MP opposed to the move.