Kadaga, MPs pose for a photo during the launch of the Institute in February 2021
Kilak North Member of Parliament Anthony Akol has been granted leave to present a private members bill that will reverse the autonomy of the Institute of Parliamentary Studies, recently named after the former Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga.
The institute will now revert to being a department under parliamentary service, with the same mandate of training Members of Parliament and staff. This means that it will now be audited together with other departments and be funded through the parliamentary commission, with no right to mobilize resources from outside Parliament.
The bill also seeks to ensure that the Deputy Speaker of Parliament becomes a Member of the Parliamentary Commission. Currently, the Deputy Speaker only attends sessions of the commission as and when invited by the Speaker of Parliament. According to Akol, the changes are envisaged to reduce government spending on autonomous bodies.
Although, the Institute of Parliamentary Studies was organized and administered as a directorate within the Parliamentary Service from its establishment in 2008 with backing from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, it was elevated in 2020, by an Act of Parliament as a semi-autonomous body.
Parliament also passed a resolution to name it the Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga Institute of Parliamentary Studies. Although now the Institute is called the Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga Institute, taking it back to become a department of Parliament would automatically drop the name.
Dokolo Woman MP Cecilia Ogwal who tabled the proposal to name the institute after Kadaga said she couldn’t comment on the matter because it is an administrative issue.
-URN
