Museveni wants NRM to control budget

The National Resistance Movement party parliamentary caucus has ended its one-week retreat with a call from the party leadership to tighten control over the national budget so that the party’s plans can be implemented.

President Museveni, also NRM’s national chairman, said as a party in power and with majority seats in Parliament, there is no need to struggle in passing budgets by both the budget committee and the whole House since NRM is in power. He said the delays curtail the implementation of the party manifesto.

“The major solution we got out of this caucus retreat is that NRM should lead the budget committee. The electorate chose NRM to lead and they have done this from 1996. I think part of the confusion is that we have been operating in different centres,” Mr Museveni said on Friday while closing the retreat.

Parliament last year refused to pass the budget unless more money was availed to the health sector for recruitment of nurses and salary increment. The stalemate was broken by a meeting of the NRM caucus chaired by Mr Museveni.

Warns media
Meanwhile, the President has vowed never to entertain indiscipline in the party, saying such conduct derails the party. “On my part as party chairman, I will not accept indiscipline at all. We must not accept indiscipline in the country and that is why we have had this poison talk.

The radios, newspapers must discipline themselves; they waste time on useless things. Since last elections I have done many things but nothing comes up in the newspapers,” he said. Mr Museveni’s discomfort with the media comes days after two of his Cabinet ministers warned that they would close media houses that continued to act unprofessionally.

Mr Frank Tumwebaze, the minister for Presidency, said the government wants to monitor media platforms. “We are not seeing debate but insults. The media should not be part-and-parcel of political fights. We are trying to sanitise the media, not to curtail it,” he added.