Nyendo Mukungwe MP Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba, who also doubles as Uganda’s leader of opposition in the 11th parliament has today morning held discussions with Europen Union delegation members at the parliament conference hall.
During deliberations, the major focus was put on governance issues, human rights, opposition legislative strategy, rule of law and targets for the 11th parliament. Flanked by selected members of his shadow cabinet, Mpuuga told EU diplomats that as representatives of the people, the opposition in parliament has a duty to push for improvements in service delivery and accountability.
“The theme under which we operate in the 11th parliament is accountability and service delivery because we are alive to the fact that however much you want to deliver without bearing in mind the need to be accountable along the way, you lose so much. The absence of accountability compromises not just the quality but even the depth and the reach of service delivery,” said Mpuuga.
The EU delegation was led by the EU ambassador to Uganda, H.E Attilio Pacifici, in the company of other ambassadors, which included Dr Roswitha Kremser (Austria), H.E Veestraeten Rudi (Belgium), H.E Nicolaj Hejberg Petersen (Denmark), H.E Mathias Schauer (Germany), H.E Maria Hakansson (Sweden), Dr Janis Terenyi (Hungary), H.E Kevin Colgan (Ireland) and Anna Merrifield, the deputy EU head of mission.
Mpuuga took the diplomats through the opposition legislative agenda which he said, was drafted as a pathway that the opposition intends to follow in its push for reforms.
“We have to prioritise, we must pick out the issues that have backward and forward linkages to what we want to achieve….the legislative agenda houses the key issues that will guide the opposition program for the coming years, and key among them are constitutional and electoral reforms,” the Nyendo-Mukungwe MP told the ambassadors.
“We believe that if we fix some of these outstanding constitutional questions, electoral challenges, we can probably go a long way in shaping our young democracy,” he added.
He also asserted that the opposition intends to lobby the ruling NRM party, to agree to proposals to reforms intended to purge the gaps in Uganda’s electoral and political laws.
“We are planning on how to bring the ruling party to rethink the future of Uganda. We want legislators that will empower the electro commission, such that it does not remain a paper tiger, and fail to regulate and take care of its responsibilities before, during and after elections,” Mpuuga argued.
The opposition strong man also told his guests about the opposition’s quest to address challenges dogging the decentralisation system, which he says have led to the collapse of the service delivery chain.
“Our decentralisation system is fast crumbling and part of the reason is the absence of an entrenched constitutional obligation, that obliges the ruling party to devolve resources to the districts to be able to undertake particular duties,” he said.
He also empathized with the need by the president to participate in more developmental activities which are indispensable for the country’s progress.
“We have lately seen the president busy awarding contracts at press conferences, through circulars and leaflets. We believe that these are retrogressive developments. We need to have a discussion about this…if the president is scared of his surroundings and needs to be rescued, we need to develop a legal framework that can guarantee citizens to participate and allow the president to attend to other national obligations, other than award contracts for schools and roads.”
For his part, the head of the EU delegation, ambassador Attilio Pacifi said that the EU is committed to making engagements with various stakeholders despite the challenges.
“Having these exchanges gives our partners the opportunity to sometimes influence our thoughts and actions, that is why our discussions should always be very open and candid; we are very keen to meet everyone even though it may make someone unhappy,” Said Pacifi
Today’s opposition meeting with EU delegation members comes at a time where the Ugandan opposition is largely fragmented in terms of policy, strategy and plan.
National Unity Platform (NUP) led by Robert Kyagulanyi, which is the largest opposition party has declined to cooperate with others to hold the government accountable and this has increased disunity amongst the opposition, and led to poor service delivery.
On October 7th, NUP’s spokesperson Joel Ssenyonyi announced that his party would not join the Anti-Museveni opposition coalition, a 10 opposition party league formed by Dr Kizza Besigye to oust president Museveni.
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