NRM has killed special interest groups - report

Kampala.

A new research report scores poorly the performance of youth and workers’ Members of Parliament and recommends that their positions be abolished.
The research titled ‘Performance of workers and youth Members of Parliament in Uganda 1995-2015’, states that the special interest groups, particularly the workers, performed only better from 1995 to 2005 under the Movement system because they did not have to bow to pressure from government.
The report says since the introduction of multiparty democracy in 2006, the workers’ representatives have fallen under the NRM patronage and exercise little or no independence to push for the rights and interests of the country’s workers.
“Workers’ MPs do not consult NOTU and COFTU organs. Instead they are continuously campaigning. Some MPs pay subscription for some unions and this in turn cripples the unions. Patronage is the order of the day as in NRM government. Workers’ MPs have killed trade unionism,” a senior trade unionist is quoted as saying by the report.
The research by Prof John Jean Barya, a law don at Makerere University, was sponsored by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and Kituo Cha Katiba, (The Eastern African Centre for Constitutional Development) in 2015. It covered seven districts of Kampala, Mbarara, Gulu, Masaka, Mbale, Jinja and Lira.
The report states that many trade union leaders are members of the ruling NRM party workers’ league and are always politicking to use their positions in the league to become NRM trade union flag bearers to enter Parliament to allegedly represent the workers.

Youth MPs less effective
The report says the youth MPs have been less effective than the Workers MPs in executing their mandates of advancing the rights and interests of their constituencies.
It says the youth MPs have no political incentive to account to their electorates since no youth MP attempts a second term. Instead they move to the mainstream elective politics and tend to concentrate their presence in areas where they come from.
The report also states that workers’ MPs have on occasions opposed motions or issues raised on the floor of Parliament that should have been in the interests of the workers.
It also cites industrial actions and disputes where the MPs are used to persuade workers on strike to compromise and abandon their struggle for better terms and conditions of work.
The report says both interest groups do not represent the views of their constituents but rather their own and that of government.
The report recommends that both workers’ and youths MPs are not necessary since none of them represents any interest groups, and says Article 78(2) should be invoked to abolish their representation in the Parliament.
The research report also recommends that in an event that they are retained, a specific mandate from their electorate should be defined for pragmatic and legislative agenda, agreed upon with their constituencies.