MPs who dodge Plenary sessions should be charged with corruption

I am dissatisfied by the 9th Parliament in regard to the article in the Daily Monitor of February 21 titled “100 MPs who signed, dodged, House listed”. The MPs’ role is to identify the needs of their people and pass the information to either the local government or central government.

MPs are mandated to mobilise their constituents for development and educate them on the policies of the government. According to Article 79 of the Constitution, Parliament has the power to make laws on any matter for the peace, order, development and good governance of Uganda.
MPs are also charged with the duty of protecting the Constitution and promoting the democratic governance of the country.

The Parliamentary Rules of Procedure state that MPs are given the mandate to pass laws for the good governance of Uganda, by giving legislative sanctions, taxation and acquisition of loans, the means of carrying out the work of the government.

MPs have a duty to scrutinise government policies and administration by pre-legislative scrutiny of Bills referred to the parliamentary committees by Parliament; scrutinising of the various objects of expenditure and the sums to be spent on each in the budget process.

MPs have the power to increase or decrease the funds allocated to a specific item in the national budget.
Another function of MPs, is to debate matters of topical interest usually highlighted in the President’s State of the Nation Address.

They are also charged with the duty of vetting the appointment of persons nominated by the President under the Constitution or any other enactment. MPs are supposed to ensure transparency and accountability in the application of public funds by carrying out monitoring of the implementation of Government programmes and projects.

They need to single out one major problem to be on the agenda in Parliament, more so corruption which is killing all sectors of our economy although the country has many other critical problems that need urgent and critical attention of our MPs .The absenteeism in the House is likely to bring about the increased cost of public administration, which cost is likely to be passed on to the taxpayer and the end result is continuous abject poverty of the voters

What these MPs are doing is corruption .The Inspector General of Government should charge the affected MPs with corruption for failure to abide by Parliament’s rules and procedures. These listed MPs should be forced by the IGG to resign so that they dedicate their entire time to do their private businesses.

Joseph Andrew Koluo,
Katakwi-Toroma