Key hurdles NUP must jump to recall Mpuuga

The National Unity Platform (NUP) party will have to overcome three major hurdles if it is to succeed in dislodging its member and former Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Mathias Mpuuga from his current seat as parliamentary commissioner.
The hurdles include convincing legislators, majority of whom are from the ruling NRM party, to vote in the Opposition party’s favour as they seek to evict Mr Mpuuga.

According to the House rules, 177 members must sign on the NUP notice, calling for debate on the matter, while 265 members must vote in favour of the motion.
Mr Mpuuga is the second Opposition member on the Parliamentary Commission, the top body governing the House, a position he has held since December last year after his party dropped him as LoP.
NRM has three backbench members on the Parliamentary Commission, which is chaired by the Speaker. The other Commission members are the Deputy Speaker, the Finance minister, the Leader of Government Business/Prime Minister, and LoP.

Mr Mpuuga’s woes started about three weeks ago after documents leaked on social media indicating that he took part in the May 2022 meeting that awarded him and the four parliamentary commissioners Shs1.7b as a service award.
His party asked him to return the “dirty” money, apologise to the country, and as well step down, demands he declined, escalating the tension.

NUP on Friday said its National Executive Committee (NEC) had resolved to recall the Nyendo-Mukungwe legislator and replace him with his Mityana Municipality counterpart Francis Zaake as a commissioner of Parliament.
This was after he reportedly snubbed a meeting of his party’s NEC, where he had been summoned to explain himself. The NUP leadership also described his defence on the matter as ‘unsatisfactory’.

Mr Mpuuga, according to the NUP statement, did not make any attempt to respond to the specific accusations leveled against him, which prompted the party’s top organ to recall him, “on account of corruption, dishonesty and abuse of office, and to notify Parliament of the same.”
The nomination of Mr Zaake, according to NUP, was informed by the fact that “he was illegally removed from that role in March 2022 to pave the way for the grand corrupt and questionable dealings of the Parliamentary Commission that have now come to light.”

Mr Zaake was removed from the same position following a vote by 155 legislators after he reportedly attacked the Speaker.
The Constitutional Court in September last year quashed Parliament’s decision and reinstated him although the House leadership refused to implement the ruling until his term expired and the party nominated Mr Mpuuga to replace him.

Unlike in 2022 when Speaker Anita Among easily mobilised the MPs, mostly from the ruling NRM, to remove Mr Zaake from the Commission, NUP will find it difficult, right from initiating the process.
Removing a commissioner is guided by Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure, an official document that guides the running of Parliament.

Writing motion
Other hurdles that NUP faces are; writing a motion with evidence to support the grounds of removal that will be accepted by the Clerk to Parliament, and convincing 265 MPs during the voting of the motion, two weeks after the initiation.

Sub-rule 2, Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure mandates the party intending to remove a commissioner to initiate the motion by writing to the clerk a notice that must be backed by not less than one-third of all the voting Members of Parliament.

In this case, NUP will require the signatures of about 177 MPs, yet all Opposition MPs combined are 110, of whom NUP has 57, followed by the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) with 32, the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) with 10, the Democratic Party (DP) has 9, while the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and Justice Forum have one member each.

This means NUP will have to convince all the Opposition members and 73 independents or those from the ruling NRM, who are 337 members, to support the motion.

Parliament’s Director for Corporate and Public Affairs Chris Obore yesterday said the Clerk had not received any notice yet. “To the best of my knowledge, the Clerk to Parliament has not received any notice intending to remove any commissioner. And as I said, Parliament has a way of handling every issue. Politics can be played anywhere but when it comes to work, Parliament handles carefully,” he said.

NUP party deputy spokesperson Waiswa Mufumbiro, when contacted yesterday, said the House will be notified about their intentions soon.
“What we are doing is within the legal framework and we can assure you that we will handle it,” he said.
 “On legalities, you are wrong because you are interpreting it that way; laws are not interpreted by that institution, we will handle,” Mr Mufumbiro said.

The second hard step that awaits NUP is convincing the Clerk to Parliament, Mr Adolf Mwesige, that indeed the former LoP abused his office.
Mr Mwesige was part of the May 6, 2022, 96th Parliamentary Commission meeting, which passed the decision of awarding Mr Mpuuga and his colleagues the said sum of money. Mr Obore has on several occasions said Mr Mpuuga did not break any rule.

Should NUP convince the Clerk to Parliament after securing the 177 signatures, he will then place the resolution on the Order Paper.

What NUP needs
Sub-rule 6 of Rule 110 states: “A commissioner shall be removed upon the vote of at least half of all voting Members of Parliament.”
This means that the NUP party will need the support of 265 members and yet when you combine the entire opposition and independent legislators, they are 183 MPs, meaning they will need 82 members from the ruling NRM to remove Mr Mpuuga.

“Removing Hon. Mpuuga as a Commissioner is a non-starter. It is VOID ABINITIO (invalid from the start),” Mr Obore posted on his official X-platform (formerly Twitter) on March 15.
“Let us watch how they convince the majority NRM party MPs and all Opposition MPs [as] it would be a good thing to witness,” he added.

When asked on the issue of numbers, Mr Mufumbiro said, “Numbers are a process of Parliament, we don’t need the process of Parliament, we are undertaking the process of the party,” he said.