LOP Mpuuga calls for quality parliamentary deliberations, decries ignorance among MPs

The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament (LOP), Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba, has said that the quality of debate in Parliament can improve with investment in programmes designed to equip lawmakers with knowledge and information.

Speaking at the opening of a series of capacity building trainings for policy analysts in both the office of the Leader of Government Business in Parliament and that of the Leader of the Opposition, Mpuuga said that the main cause of laxity among MPs is lack of information.

“What sometimes makes MPs lax is lack of information; when Members lack information, they shy away or tend to be complacent or just give in to whatever is available,” Mpuuga said as he also announced a roll out of trainings for Opposition MPs on programme clusters.

“Government processes have changed, we used to budget through output based programmes and are now doing programme based [budgeting]. You are aware that Members of Parliament are finding it very hard to find their footing in this new paradigm shift; we are beginning training for the Opposition MPs… hopefully the NRM side will pick through because we don’t want to debate people without knowledge. People without knowledge make noise, yet with knowledge, people listen and participate,” Mpuuga said.

Under the programme clusters, Opposition MPs have been grouped into 20 sector-based clusters through which they will be supported by experts and researchers to enable them make knowledgeable contributions to debates in Parliament.

At the institutional level, MPs would have benefited from the services of Parliament’s research department but due to logistical challenges, the department remains understaffed and can’t therefore adequately serve all the 529 MPs.

This, Mpuuga said, is the reason why his, the Department of the Leader of the Opposition sought to build the capacity of its staff to be able to provide information that motivates MPs, to participate in the Committees and matters that come up on the floor of the House.

“Training will help our technical officers on the key insights that will deepen their understanding of our roles in this working environment. Our environment has a tendency of appearing to be partisan in nature but the technical officers don’t enjoy that luxury, they are at the service of Parliament, and owe it to the country,” the Nyendo – Mukungwe legislator said.

The Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa said that as Parliament counts the number of Bills it has passed into law, there is need for an assessment of the impact of the laws on the public.

“Duty should be on us as Parliament to do a post legislative policy scrutiny to assess the impact of the laws we pass… are we going to have a thousand laws? I have seen sometimes, everyone wants to come up with a law… can’t we improve on the existing laws? Do we need a law for each and everything in society?” Tayebwa wondered.

Instead of coming up with new Bills, Tayebwa argued, there is need for a dialogue intended to improve the quality of legislation.