Rebecca Kadaga Archives -

Kadaga Institute of Parliamentary Studies faces resistance

Male Solomon Grace — Fri, 01 Oct 2021 12:01:00 +0000

Kadaga Institute of Parliamentary Studies faces resistance; to lose Name, Autonomy in New Motion. 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 Rebecca Kadaga Institute of Parliamentary Studies (RAKIPS) 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 Launch

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.

In February this year, former Speaker of Parliament of Uganda Rebecca Kadaga inaugurated the first board for the Institute of parliamentary studies. The board is chaired by Dokolo Woman MP Cecilia Atim Ogwal and has MPs Anna Adeke Ebaju, former Gulu Municipality MP Lyandro Komakech, Isingiro South MP Alex Byarugaba Bakunda, Justine Niwagaba and Dr Stella Kyohairwe as members.

Also, read; MPs demand list of Ugandans holding diplomatic passports

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Previous AG accountability reports need scrutiny

Male Solomon Grace — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 13:13:00 +0000

Previous AG accountability reports need scrutiny. The Chairpersons of Parliament’s Accountability Committees are seeking to rescind an earlier decision of Parliament to approve pending reports by the Auditor General without the scrutiny of the House.

On 30th June 2020, the Tenth Parliament in a sitting chaired by former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga passed a motion to the effect that the reports of the Auditor-General that had not been considered by the accountability committees be adopted in terms of their recommendations without scrutiny.

However, Medard Lubega Sseggona, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) – Central Government Chairperson says that this decision has affected the operations of the accountability committees yet it is their duty under the Constitution to examine and scrutinize reports of the Auditor General on an annual basis.

According to Sseggona, they have today filed a notice of motion to the Speaker and Clerk to Parliament seeking to rescind the decision by the Tenth Parliament to allow their committees to reopen the reports of the Auditor-General for the years affected.

He added that in their motion, the accountability committees specifically want the 2019/2020 financial year audit report recalled for scrutiny as they wait for the new audit report by the Auditor General that will be released in December.

The legislators are determined and say that they will work so hard to be able to overcome the culture of backlog in parliament and also emphasizes that scrutiny is central to the fight against corruption in the country.

Ssenyonyi the Chairperson of the committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) said that seeking to remedy the backlog by the previous parliament posed a bigger challenge and made accountability committees idle.

Rule 56 provides that no motion shall be moved unless the member moving it has given written notice of the motion to the Speaker and the Clerk not less than three days previous to the sitting at which it is intended to move the Motion.

On the other hand, rule 222 (2) provides that the House may reconsider its decision upon a substantive motion for the reconsideration, moved under a notice of not less than 14 days.

View reports from the Auditor General of Uganda http://www.oag.go.ug/4961-2/

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