We are told by impeccable sources in Statehouse that president Museveni is bitter with some of the statehouse officials who receive his letters and ‘sit’ on them. The problem came after a prominent lawyer in Town Mukasa Fred Denis Mbidde, who is also a member of the East African Community Legislative Assembly petitioned president Museveni over the death of MP Nebanda and the statehouse staff reportedly hid the petition.

Sources told us that Mbidde petitioned the president in December 2012 but the president learnt of his petition in February. The visibly bitter Museveni threatened to eliminate the services of the ‘undisciplined’ staff at statehouse of they continue with ill habits. Our sources at statehouse now bring you some of the details in Mbidde’s letter. The petition was on the Violation of Articles 6 (d) and 7 (2) of the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community Treaty. Mbidde expresses that he has the honour, to address the preside on the above captioned. His reference was of particulars regarding Museveni’s address to the press at Nakasero State Lodge on Monday 24^th /December /2012 on matters pertaining to the death of the former Butaleja Woman MP Cerinar Nebanda, and the subsequent police and other security agencies’ actions against members of the Parliament of the Republic of Uganda in the same regard.

Mbidde claims that the Contents of Museveni’s address, and the said actions constitute a violation of Art 6(d) of the Treaty for the establishment of the East African Community that states.

Mbidde further says that the parliament of Uganda is the legislative arm of government, and a substantive pillar of democracy that by law should be harnessed and accorded its separate power from the executive for it to function properly in a free and democratic society contemplated under the instant provision.

He says that Museveni’s address, the subject of this letter, put parliament in a position of disrepute and scorn and presented to the Ugandan Public and the world at large, members of Parliament as dishonorable in contravention of the provision sighted above.

Art 7 (2) of the Treaty enjoins all partners states to the East  African community to abide by the principles of good governance, democracy and the rule of law and it states as hereunder:-

“The Partner states undertake to abide by the Principles of good governance, including adherence to the Principles of democracy, the rule of law, Social Justice, and the Maintenance of Universally accepted standards of human Rights”.

Writing good laws and signing treaties does not constitute the rule of law, but just a promissory note.It is acting in accordance with provisions thereof that amounts to the rule of law, Mr President, youAND THE GOVERNMENT AT LARGE have defaulted on this promissory note.

Today, Members of Parliament Hon CHRIS BARYOMUNSI and HON NSEREKO MOHAMMED are being detained at Jinja Road Police Station and Special Investigation Unit Kireka respectively without charges beyond the constitutional 48 hours.

Your comments as against parliament and the Right Honourable Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga were improper. Parliament does not derive its powers from you or the executive in its entirety and accordingly its functions are not prescribed by your office.

Chapter six of the Constitution deals with the establishment, composition and functions of Parliament all of which are prescribed by the provisions of the same Constitution. Thus, Article 77(1) provides that “there shall be a Parliament of Uganda (2) The Composition and functions of Parliament shall be as prescribed by this Constitution”.

The contents of your address Mr President  should be regretted as occasioning a dire abuse of the authority of the Parliament of the Republic of Uganda as the Supreme Legislative Arm of Government; this position was further fortified by the Supreme Court Decision in the case of Brigadier Henry Tumukunde V Attorney General  Const Appeal No 2of 2006.

‘The Constitution of the Republic of Uganda, 1995, placed Parliament, the supreme representative body of the people, first, and ordained that henceforth the acts and decisions of the Executive including those of the President and Cabinet shall be subjected to the scrutiny and approval of Parliament.’

The contents of the subject address may be construed further, asintended to cause panic and construed as your intended attempts to unlawfully intermeddle in the direction of   the investigations especially where you stated :-

“People like MPs Theodore Ssekikubo, Chris Baryomunsi, and WilfredNiwagaba –who have now been joined by MPs Lyomoki and Emmanuel Dombo – who said in Parliament………….”,

Mr President these utterances have tended to unlawfully direct the course of investigations.  It should be noted Mr President, that all the MPs mentioned herein and others still at large are destined for detention. It is equally noteworthy that the acts of the state have not exhibited innocence as to the cause of death of Hon Cerinar Nebanda and to this end, investigations as on-going will continue to suffer for want of legitimacy.

Parliament is by law mandated to pay tribute to fallen comrades and those proceedings are privileged occasions under the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act Cap 258 Section 2 thereof provides that

‘No civil or criminal proceedings may be instituted against any member for words spoken before or written in any report during those proceedings’

The whole process until burial was parliamentary proceedings which are covered by that Act.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Hon Cerinar Nebanda have still remained enigmatic, debates and discoveries over the cause of her death are still important to us.

Your address, MrPresident, the above not withstanding appears to condone Wanton Killings.  This is contained in the statement where you said on account of Hon. Moses Ali’sfailed addressat Butaleja that;

‘…..Unfortunately our intelligence is poor- they were told, but they did not counter the hooligans. We were lucky that nobody was shot, but they can’t continue giving our country a bad name.’

Mr President, the law does not create any justification for wanton killings and this statement appears to have created a blanket permit for the same and is to this extent unlawful.

Finally Mr President, the Constitution of The Republic of Uganda, Art 8A and objective XXVIII is couched in Mandatory terms that the Foreign Policy of Uganda shall be based on the Principles of respect for International Law and treaty obligations.

The East African Community treaty and particularly the provisions sited herein have grossly been violated by the actions i have complained of.

The Treaty and all laws enacted thereunder are supranational thus above all national laws of Partner states whose continued violation makes it a logical impossibility for our continued membership to the community.

As the Chairman of the Summit of the Heads of State of the East African Community, it is within your interest to uphold the treaty establishing the community that you chair.

It is noteworthy that the recent East African Legislative Assembly report of the on-spot assessment of good governance in Partner states as at 1^st-5^th October 2012 placed Uganda at very low levels of accountability, the fight against corruption and democracy compared to Rwanda ,Tanzania and Kenya whose sub-committee i personally chaired.

Kenya, a country that has had challenges on corruption prevalence has excelled on the establishment of a robust legal base for the establishment of anti corruption institutions.

The above standard is only achievable for Uganda through Parliament as the only surviving institution championing an amendment of the constitution to establish a full chapter on the required standards of integrity for public officials, providing for further legislations on commissions and public reviews for all appointments and a restructuring and re-vetting of all public service jobs and other appointments.

Parliament, under Art 79 of the constitution of Uganda is the body mandated among others, to protect this constitution and promote democratic governance for Uganda and accordingly it should be accorded its due space for the achievement of the same.

Mr President, the world has now become a global village and as the President of the Republic of Uganda, your hands are tied and are not at liberty to take back this country towards un-constitutional rule.

I am mandated by the same treaty particularly Article 61 of the Treaty Establishing the East African Community, to put you to notice of the anomalies cited and as a Ugandan, by the Constitution to do so.

In the event of continuity of aforesaid illegal acts either by you or those on your behalf, we shall have no other remedy Mr President than to invoke all the necessary national and regional legal machinery for the enforcement of the same at the cost and constant embarrassment to our country.

Please, Mr President, accept the assurances of my highest regard to your good office. Mbidde signed the petition while indicating that he is an MP of

the East African Legislative Assembly. He copied his petition to the Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda.

Ends

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Prof. John Ddumba Sentamu, Vice Chancellor of Makerere University

The team led by Professor Francis Omaswa today appeared before the education committee of parliament and gave some highlights of their findings.

The team says that the tuition fees at Makerere are low compared to the actual unit cost of university education and other public universities.

The task force has also observed that the delay in remittance of tuition fees for the students sponsored by state house has also affected the operations of the University.

According to the findings state house now owes over 4 billion shillings to Makerere University.

Now the committee chairperson Sylvia Namabidde is asking that all the arrears owed to public universities be cleared immediately.

The task force was set up to see how staff remuneration could be improved after the staff complained of poor pay.

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The president of Uganda Peoples Congress Dr. Olara Otunu has advised supporters of the ruling political party in Uganda to stop mistreating people. He says that when the big thugs and politicians in government are out of Uganda and have fled to Burundi or Rwanda or US, the small people they have been using to persecute people will remain behind.

He says that when President Museveni and his family members will flee the country, the policemen and soldiers who are persecuting civilians will claim they were obeying orders of their masters from statehouse.
Otunnu says that the people reportedly committing atrocities in president Museveni’s government are adults with brains and they will be held criminally liable.

So Otunnu advises president Museveni’s cohorts, allies, and government officials to keep the diary of the events they do and those that have violated people’s rights to remember that the date and time of occurrence is at their door posts.

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Suspected hackers reportedly based in US have again pulled down Uganda statehouse website. This is not the first time hackers misuse Uganda government websites.

Recently they posted a picture of FDC leader Kizza Besigye seated on a stool in a rather pensive mood on the website of the ministry of works. And no so long ago the suspected hackers post a picture of Adolf Hitler on the statehouse website www.statehouse.go.ug.

A source at statehouse told one of our reporters on Wednesday that the hackers destroyed the system of state house website and it needs repair. When we loaded the statehouse website we found there the following information.

“The State House Uganda website is currently under construction. The website will be launched soon. Thank you.”

The Uganda government intelligence network has been following up suspected international hackers who collude with Ugandans to destroy government websites. Recently the hackers superimposed on the website of the works ministry the following message: “Welcome to Ministry of Hackers and Jobless Ugandans Republic of Uganda.”

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In what looks like a provocation, the planning committee of the Democratic Party has sent invitations to ministers in president Museveni’s government inviting them for a closed door meeting at City House.

The City House building onLuwum   Streethouses the headquarters of the Democratic Party. The details on the invitation cards tell the ministers that President Museveni’s days at statehouse her over and the ministers are needed at City House to plan next government.

The message in the cards further informs the ministers that the next government after Museveni’s NRM is going to be DP thus the necessity of next Monday’s meeting at City house.

Sources at DP head offices says that the invitations to NRM leaders and ministers are intended to help them to jump the NRM ship and find a better leadership in the Democratic Party to follow.

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I will personally prosecute them with evidence for using NRM contacts and support to destabilize the progress of DP. They have been given lawyers Akampurira and company advocates and Enos Tumusiime of Kampala Associates all paid for by the NRM treasury through MP Singh Katongole.

They also go through two NRM persons I will name before the committee. There is one general of UPDF and one top police officer. The contacts points are at State House are already with me and I have copies of their signs at the visitors’ book of statehouse all which I will lay before the DP disciplinary committee to take action.

By Fred Mukasa Mbidde

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The statehouse officials who have faced the axe include the head of the legal department, Joy Kabatsi and private secretaries to the president, Geoffrey Atwine, Juliet Kaliisa and Edward Muhoozi.

The said sacked state house officials were last month at the centre of the controversial 142 billion shillings compensation deal toKampalabusinessman, Hassan Basajjabalaba.

The police have also since last week been investigating Kabatsi and her colleagues to establish their role in the inflated Basajjabalaba claims. Recently two cabinet ministers, Syda Bbumba and Khiddu Makubuya resigned from cabinet over their role in the Basajjabalaba compensation deal. The governor Bank of Uganda, Tumusiime Mutebile is also being investigated over his role in the botched Basajjabalaba deal.

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Intelligence reports indicate that A4C is to spread anti government crusades in westernUgandain a bid to discredit Museveni’s government.

The A4C coordinator, Matthias Mpuuga confirms that they are preparing to storm western Uganda starting with Rwakitura and Mbararar sensitizing the masses there on the economic situation and their rights.

However we have been told by a source in government that statehouse has directed police to ensure that such rallies don’t take place in Mbarara.

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Museveni has reportedly summoned Nabeta after Nabeta announced yesterday to members of the press that he is quitting active politics such that he concentrates on his private businesses including NBS TV. Mwiru beat Nabeta with a margin of 1,701 votes. A source has told us that Museveni plans to meet Nabeta next Saturday.

We have been told that Museveni wants Nabeta to contest for Jinja East in the next polls because Museveni feels Nabeta is still the suitable NRM candidate for the post.

Nabeta lost his parliamentary seat last month after the High Court nullified his 2011 parliamentary election victory for lack of minimum academic qualifications.

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A source in statehouse Nakasero told us this morning that the president wonders how the statehouse website of www.statehouse.go.ug can spend seven months without having fresh information uploaded on it. We are told that the president summoned his press secretary Tamale Mirundi to brief him about the development and the motor mouthed press secretary was this time reportedly wordless.

The president, we are told, has given the members of his press team only one month to improve their service or else they lose their posts. Indeed we visited the statehouse website and what we found there was so amazing. The latest story we found there was published Monday July 2011.

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