UGANDA: Parliament approves the increase of ministers

KAMPALA – Ar­ti­cles 113 (2) and 114 (3) of the Uganda Con­sti­tu­tion give the Pres­i­dent a pre­rog­a­tive to in­crease the num­ber of min­is­ters with the ap­proval of Par­lia­ment.

On this day of 10^th June 2021 at Kololo Cer­e­mo­nial grounds, West Bu­dama North East MP, Hon Fox Odoi Oy­weloyo sec­onded by Hon Ce­cilia Og­wal, has moved the mo­tion to vary the num­ber of Min­is­ters in the cabinet.

In his submission Odoi told the MPs that the port­fo­lio of the el­derly is nec­es­sary for the rep­re­sen­tation and for ef­fec­tive run­ning of the state. He em­pha­sized the pres­i­dent needed a min­is­ter to cham­pion the is­sues af­fect­ing the el­derly.

Hon Ce­cilia Og­wal (FDC, Dokolo Dis­trict) was con­cerned that the el­derly in Uganda had for long been ne­glected, in­clud­ing by the Con­stituent as­sem­bly that de­vel­oped the 1995 Con­sti­tu­tion.

I stand here to apol­o­gise that at the time when we were de­bat­ing the 1995 Con­sti­tu­tion, we did not fo­cus se­ri­ously on the unique needs of the el­derly. Whereas we catered for the needs of the in­ter­est groups, we did not cater for the el­derly, Og­wal added.

However, opposition members of Parliament; Kalungu West MP Joseph Gon­zaga Ssewungu and Hon Gilbert Olanya (FDC, Ki­lak South) among others were con­cerned by the in­creas­ing cost of ad­min­is­tra­tion among other rea­sons.

The num­ber of Min­is­ters has now in­creased from sev­enty-nine to eighty af­ter Par­lia­ment ap­proved the mo­tion al­low­ing the Pres­i­dent to vary the num­ber to cater for the port­fo­lio of the el­derly.