Lawmakers on the Parliamentary Committee of Defence and Internal Affairs have vowed that they will not pass Ministry of Defence’s budget for the next Financial Year until the Defence minister Vincent Ssempijja and UPDF Commander of Defence Forces (CDF) Gen Wilson Mbadi appear before the committee.
Legislators led by Lwemiyaga Member of Parliament Theodore Ssekikubo on Friday vowed that until the CDF and the Minister go to Parliament and ask for official permission to take the national army to the Democratic Republic of Congo as the constitution demands they will not assign to the budget proposals of the Defence Ministry.
Their refusal follows the presentation of the budget framework of the Ministry by the state minister of Defence Jacob Oboth-Oboth for the coming Financial Year in which he requested the total sum of Shs6.7trn. Of which Shs493bn is for salary increments of the soldiers, Shs69bn salaries for the Local Defence Unit soldiers, Shs207bn for food, Shs123bn for fuel and Shs241bn for purchase of combats for soldiers.
He also stressed out that the Ministry will need over Shs90bn to cater for the Uganda Peoples’ Defence Forces (UPDF) soldiers who are fighting the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) terrorists in Eastern Congo.
However, MPs trashed the budget proposals and demanded a rightful explanation to Parliament why the government up now has refused to appear before Parliament and explain the deployment of UPDF soldiers in DRC as the constitution requires.
“We sent our army in Congo, we kept on requesting the government to come and explain to Parliament to meet the constitutional demand, they refused up now. So how are we then going to give them the taxpayers money to facilitate an operation that is not even known to the Parliament? We are not going to do it until the Minister and CDF come and explain to us,” said Ssekikubo.
He added that they need two people only Gen Mbadi and Minister Ssempijja because they are the people responsible for the day to day security operations in the country.
Sheema District Women lawmaker Rosemary Nyakikongoro who also doubles as the Chairperson of the Committee said Minister Oboth-Oboth and his team came unprepared to the committee and could not answer the queries of the committee members. She asked them to appear again before the committee next week on Monday.
Meanwhile, it’s now two months since UPDF and FARDC launched an offensive attack dubbed ‘Operation Shuja’ against the ADF rebels in DR Congo in a bid to neutralize and flush them out.
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