Speaker Anita Among
Parliament on Wednesday nearly passed a ghost bill on Kiswahili.
Parliament discovered the ‘error’ in the bill after Denis Oguzu (Maracha County) issued a verbal notice, threatening to drag Parliament to Court if it proceeds with the passing of the National Kiswahili Council Bill 2024, upon discovering that the Bill was tabled and later scrutunised by the Gender Committee, yet it had no signature from the Minister of Gender, Betty Amongi.
Speaker Anita Among asked Government to clarify if the National Kiswahili Council Bill 2024 that Parliament had processed up to final stages is authentic.
“There was also an aspect of someone sponsoring the Bill and sends it without a signature. How do we confirm whether the Bill is authentic, who owned it?” asked Among.
Among added: “Our chairs of the Committees also must exercise the procedural prudence to make sure the Bill has all the ingredients that require it to be processed.”
David Bahati, Minister of State for Industries apologized on behalf of Government for the mishap noting, “On that one, I would like to apologize that that was an error, every Bill that comes to the House, a signature should be appended to it.”
Some MPs however want the Bill to be overseen by the Ministry of Education on grounds that Kiswahili is Uganda’s second official language that should be examinable in schools.
“There was a legal question which these two parties should have gone out to settle, before they return here with this Bill. Ideally, the Minister should move to withdraw this Bill so that it is introduced in a proper way. Otherwise, if we proceed with this Bill, you must brace yourself for a legal challenge and this is a notice to Parliament,” said Oguzu.
Kira Municipality MP, Ssemujju Nganda called for increased scrutiny of the documents laid before Parliament, claiming that in the past, some Ministers have laid air before.
“I think the problem starts with laying of papers. In the past, we had a Minister say I beg to lay when he had nothing in his hands. But the handsard captured him as if he was laying something, I think we need to scrutinize documents that are laid on table because that is where the problem starts, when a Minister says I beg to lay, the technical people helping the presiding officer may need to quickly check because these Ministers have laid air before,” he said, adding: “You have two issues with this Bill, the first is how it was introduced, it didn’t meet the technicality of being accompanied by the memorandum signed by the Minister.”
Ssemujju also rejected the proposal to create a National Council for Kiswahili to promote the use of Kiswahili in Uganda saying, Uganda doesn’t have a Council for English, but people speak the language and the same applies to the local languages.
“I am disagreeing with the whole idea of creating a Council. We study English and all of you here speak English, is there a Council for English? You speak your language, luganda etc. You can’t be the same Parliament supporting rationalistion and you allow Government in a lazy way, to begin creating a Council. Some of us who went to rural schools, we were beaten to speak English, but we are here as Parliament, allowing this lazy Government to also carry us along, that we want to promote Kiswahili, therefore a Council be created,” said Ssemujju.
Joel Ssenyonyi, the Leader of Opposition, also weighed in, saying: “The Minister has also said that they are going to consult within Cabinet to determine, whether or not to withdraw the Bill, there is no two ways around it because the law is the law. I don’t think you can sit and say, we shall not follow the law. There are two ways around it, that as Government, they can be humble enough and withdraw the Bill or as Parliament, we use our prerogative and throw the Bill out, which will make you look shabby, so we are helping you to say, concede, withdraw the Bill because you need to reorganize internally.”
