Museveni vows to defy MPs over oil

Legal questions. The President says freezing ongoing oil agreements would be a disaster to the country and attract law suits on breach of contract.

President Museveni has written to Speaker Rebecca Kadaga objecting to three of the 10 resolutions recently passed by Parliament, including one which called for stopping execution of all oil agreements until relevant laws are enacted.

In a November 4 reply to Ms Kadaga’s October 13 communication on the House resolutions, President Museveni said the resolution on the stabilisation clause demanded by oil companies was unnecessary because he had already rejected it, and that he will not allow the resolution that called for the stepping aside of three ministers accused of allegedly pocketing bribes.

“Resolution number one, putting a moratorium on executing oil contracts is alright when we are dealing with future contracts. However, reneging on the old agreements or freezing the on-going agreements would be a disaster for Uganda,” President Museveni wrote.
The President said resolution one would undermine the credibility of the government in future negotiations and could lead to costly litigations for breach of contracts.

“Therefore, we (Cabinet and NRM MPs) agreed that the resolution should be interpreted to excluding old and ongoing contracts. Fortunately Rt. Hon. Speaker you told me the same during our telephone discussion,” the President pointed out in the letter.

Legal minds have, however, warned that it would be irregular for the party or President Museveni to attempt to reverse Parliamentary resolutions as it would erode the independence of Parliament. House rules also do not allow the changing of resolutions after adoption.

Last night, Ms Kadaga said: “Yes, I got the letter. But I haven’t discussed with the President about revoking the decision of the House. For me I wrote to him about our discussion and we wanted him to act.”

The telephone conversation the President referred to, Ms Kadaga said, “was in relation to what I had proposed in the House and was rejected, and not what we were going to do.”

The Speaker told Daily Monitor she had proposed during the special oil debate session that “we introduce the word ‘new’ between the words executing and oil contracts but the MPs debated that on the floor of the House and they rejected it. That one is even on the Hansard.”

The Speaker said: “They have to bring their proposal before the House, I have no problem with that,” she said.

Whereas ruling party MPs during their Kyankwanzi retreat held last month explored alternatives to the resolutions, former chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission Frederick Ssempebwa and other senior constitutional lawyers said attempts to interfere with House independence through twisting its resolutions was “unconstitutional”.

Speaker Kadaga also rejected the party position, indicating that Parliament resolutions cannot be altered.
NRM MPs had also felt that ministers being investigated for alleged oil graft remain in office, and that a moratorium placed on execution of oil agreements should not affect ongoing transactions such as the $2.9 billion Total-CNOOC farm-out deal with Tullow Oil.

President Museveni said in the letter that it was not necessary for the ministers to step aside.

“As far as resolution number nine is concerned, we had no problem with the setting up of ad hoc committee. However, both the Cabinet and the NRM Caucus did not accept the resolutions that required the ministers named in the allegations to ‘step aside’,” said the President.

Outlining why the ministers will not step aside, President Museveni said:
“The UK police and the police of Malta confirmed that no money had been paid on the alleged accounts. Moreover, they confirmed that those accounts do not even exist. The police had not concluded with Dubai. However, since the Dubai story depended on money coming from Malta, the fact that Malta rubbished this information most probably there is no substance to the story of Dubai,” he said.

Defending Mr Mbabazi, the President said he was mentioned in the Wikileaks “that is famous for distortions”.
“It is not correct that these leaders step aside on account of such unverified information,”