State Minister for East African Affairs, Julius Maganda Wandera has argued that President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s warning that he can abolish Parliament should not cause public outrage, URN reports.
Wandera says there are laws through which the president can pull the trigger and lock down parliament. And if such laws and procedures are followed, he argued, then the president can legally abolish parliament.
Warning the parliament, he said is not anyway bad. “That is just a reminder from president to parliament to do its mandate,” Wandera argued.
He said parliamentarians should not be fighting or going to cause confusion in peaceful communities.
President Museveni reportedly issued a warning that he can abolish parliament last week while meeting the ruling party – National Resistance Movement – caucus at state house.
The president, Wandera said, is just trying to remind legislators to stick to the mandate of buttressing economic development of the country through enacting enabling legislations rather than political bickering.
Wandera made the remarks while responding to questions from civil society actors at the opening of the regional conference on advancing civic space and democratic accountability in shrinking environment in East Africa. The two day conference themed “civil society’s role in pushing back shrinking civic space in East Africa,” the two day conference kicked off on Thursday at Metropole Hotel, Kampala.
The conference has attracted representatives of CSOs from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan. Wandera officiated the conference opening as minister for East Africa affairs.
Civic space
He reiterated remarks made by Presidency Minister Esther Mbayo that government is investigating some NGOs for funding and organizing recent post Arua chaos protests. Wandera said at an appropriate time, government will give a report.
Wandera further stated that there should a clear way on how government should operate with NGOs.
Compared to other countries, Wandera said NGOs in Uganda were allowed to operate freely until they started engaged in sinister activities. He said Uganda has not been strict on NGOs and there funding. This laxity, he said has to certain extent been abused.
Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG) deputy Executive Director, Sarah Birete argued that suspicion on NGOs funding recent protests is outrageous.
She said there is no NGO with funding to finance spontaneous global protests as they occurred condemning and calling for release of MPs who were detained after Arua chaos.
