Report pins Namuganza over row with Kadaga
Speaker Kadaga (L) and the State Minister for Lands, Ms Persis Namuganza
PARLIAMENT- A draft report by Parliament’s Committee on Rules, Discipline and Privileges has found State Minister for Lands Persis Namuganza guilty of making “false, offensive and derogatory statements” against Speaker Rebecca Kadaga. The report recommends that the minister either apologises or is suspended from Parliament.
Ms Namuganza’s troubles started in March when she launched a withering attack against Speaker Kadaga, accusing her of interfering in cultural matters of Bukono after the Speaker had presided over the installation
of a chief in Bukono County, Namutumba District.
Angered by the Speaker’s role in installing the Nkono chief, Ms Namuganza accused the Speaker of being personally responsible for underdevelopment in the Busoga sub-region and also claimed that the Speaker had threatened to harm or kill her.
Ms Namuganza’s public spat with Ms Kadaga prompted the Deputy Speaker, Mr Jacob Oulanyah, to direct Parliament’s Committee on Discipline to investigate why the minister and the Speaker were squabbling and recommend a way forward.
When quizzed during the Committee’s hearings, Ms Kadaga flatly denied the allegations that she was planning to either harm or kill Ms Namuganza and insisted that she did not err in her attendance of the ceremony on February 26 in Bukono County.
“The statements turned Ms Kadaga into a curious subject of interest, particularly through the media, as members of the public begun to debate her character, competence and professionalism. The false, offensive and derogatory statements made against Ms Kadaga were indeed defamatory as they had the effect of interfering with her right to her good name and injuring her image,” notes the report.
The report concluded that Ms Namuganza’s utterances constituted an affront on the office of the Speaker and that the minister acted in breach of public trust contrary to Paragraph 5 of Appendix F of the Code of Conduct.
Ms Namuganza was unavailable for a comment as her known mobile phone numbers were switched off by press time.
Parliament will handle the report when it comes back from recess on November 6.
