Dodging Plenary puts MPs’ integrity and moral authority to question

A cross section of the public has in the past complained about the over congested Parliament which with the 375 members, is difficult to ensure maximum participation and quality debates in the House.

The Daily Monitor of February 21 exposed a huge number of MPs including ministers who were found absent by an impromptu roll call summoned by the Speaker of Parliament due to lack of quorum for the plenary session to proceed.
The absentee MPs including some ministers signed the attendance register but less than 30 were present.
Such action is tantamount to theft of public funds through falsely claiming sitting allowances not due to them. As a taxpayer and citizen, this was very disheartening.

For a third world country like Uganda, still ranked among the world’s top 50 poorest countries (Global Financial Stability Report 2012), marred by a poor education system, a struggling health system characterised by high maternal and infant mortality rates, poor road infrastructure, ailing local populace, high poverty rates and more than 20 per cent dependency on foreign aid for support of our budget all believed to be largely caused by the rampant levels of corruption, it is absurd that this pandemic is also being propelled by our MPs who pretend to be the front runners in the fight against corruption.

For our leaders, most of who are parents, to stoop so low and subject their integrity to question by lying, providing false information and robbing taxpayers of their hard earned meager resources, is not only shameful, but also portrays the high level of moral decadence.
There have also been allegations of bribery of some MPs by some companies and individuals being investigated by Parliament so as to coerce them to take biased leanings during debates. With this kind of integrity rot, one wonders what kind of values such MPs inculcate into their children thereby raising the question of whether the situation will get any better in the future.

A cross section of the public has in the past complained about the over congested Parliament which with the 375 members, is difficult to ensure maximum participation and quality debates in the House.
The result of which is this continued and increasing absenteeism and non-participation during plenary sessions with majority of MPs only showing their presence in the house when it’s time to vote.

Participation in Plenary has been left to the Speaker and less than 50 vocal MPs who continually dominate the media. However, notwithstanding the non-participation of majority of our MPs, the question is whether these MPs have the moral authority to probe corruption cases given their questionable integrity. There is no difference between dishonest MPs and other people implicated in corruption scandals.

Many reports on corruption have pointed out the Judiciary and the Police as the most corrupt institutions in Uganda, Parliament seems to be following suit.

Taxpayers wait in earnest for the President, supporting institutions such as the IGG’s office, Auditor General’s office, DPP’s office, etc to reign in on the situation and wield the long arm of the law on the culprits.

Arnold Mujuni Bareba,