The Kasambya County Member of Parliament has hit back at critics who have castigated him for failing the censure motion against Security Minister Elly Tumwiine.
Gaffa Mbwatekamwa told this website on Wednesday that he has no wrangle with Gen Tumwine that would require him to mobilise adults ‘who knew what to do’.
Last week, the Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze pinned Mbwatekamwa for betraying them in the move to censure Gen Tumwine. The motion had been started by Butambala County lawmaker Muwanga Kivumbi but later Mbwatekamwa hijacked it.
According to Nambooze, Mbwatekamwa back stabbed them when he pulled out of the move yet he had pledged to be the mover of the motion.
“I had signed on the motion on Tuesday as number 23, and in the next 12 hours 16 MPs had signed and the motion was moving on smoothly. As it intensified Mbwatekamwa disappeared from the team and even dodged the press conference that was held to brief journalists on the progress of the petition,” she said.
Shed added that Mbwatekamwa held a lone press conference, announcing the withdraw of the motion before contacting them to say he had already written to Speaker Rebecca Kadaga notifying her of the intention to withdraw the motion.
However, Mbwatekamwa alleges that most of the legislators had promised to sign but then developed cold feet, adding that Ugandans are going to see many such people in future.
“The law gives us 10 days. Me I signed on the paper together with others but on the ninth day, we have only 39 signatures out 150. In actual sense there was no way we would have gotten 111 signatures in just hours yet we had failed in 9 days. What amused me most that all parliamentarians who had brought the motion had not yet signed,” he said.
Mbwatekamwa cautioned Ugandans to go slow on members of the opposition who talk too much that some of them are double dealers.
“I wanted Ugandans to know that the 10th Parliament is the most selfish one. Let them not blame me. What wrangles do I have with Gen Tumwine that I should mobilise people who were willing to signs? Everyone had his or time since the first day up to last hour,” he said.
A section of MPs started the process of censuring Gen Tumwine for frustrating investigations into torture of Ugandans and also blocking Members of Parliament in the Human Rights Committee from doing their work.
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