Museveni gives MP Nantaba guards
By ISAAC IMAKA
Posted Friday, October 19 2012 at 01:00
The President ordered the security for the Kayunga Woman MP after Parliament rejected her nomination, security sources told Daily Monitor.
The development comes a day after this newspaper revealed that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga had rejected appeals by the President for the Appointments Committee to reconvene and approve Ms Nantaba’s nomination.
The Special Forces Command is in charge of the president’s security and also guards sensitive national installations. It is not known to provide guarding services to MPs or ministers, whose protection is the responsibility of the Police VIP Protection Unit.
Security sources said the President had offered Ms Nantaba security after she received threats from unspecified people.
The reports of the threats could not be independently verified. Daily Monitor could not also confirm whether the threats had been reported to the police and why the force had not offered the MP security.
Members of Parliament, including the Speaker and her deputy, are guarded by police officers. If an MP perceives a security threat, they apply to the Sergeant at Arms, who notifies the Police to provide them with additional security and investigate the threat.
Special Forces Command Spokesperson Captain Edison Kwesiga yesterday said the President has the power to ask SFC to guard any person.
“We guard the President, his family and any other visitor,” he said. “Secondly, it may be upon the President to delegate SFC to guard a particular person on request.”
Ms Nantaba was not available for comment yesterday. Meanwhile, MPs on the Appointments Committee remained divided yesterday over the decision by the Speaker, who chairs the committee, to reject President Museveni’s request to reconvene them.
“The question is why didn’t the President ask the committee to be reconvened on the previous appointees who were rejected by the same committee?” Ms Betty Amongi [UPC Oyam] said yesterday.
“If we reconvene, we will not be trusted by the MPs again. We will be setting a bad precedent and the MPs are only waiting to see to how we handle the matter. If we abrogate our rules, it will be like contempt of Parliament.”
Another Committee member, Mr Mathias Mpuuga (Indep, Masaka), said: “[The President’s] overbearing attitude is not good for the rule of law and constitutionalism in Uganda; his deeds tantamount to blackmail.”
However Ochwa David [NRM, Agule] said Ms Nantaba was “just being fought by land grabbers.”
Youth MP Patrick Nakabaale said the President’s appeal ought to be considered. “It becomes a matter to handle both in the interest of our country and the principles of justice,” he said.
Mbeiza explains why Museveni is her friend
http://www.independent.co.ug/column/interview/736-mbeiza-explains-why-museveni-is-her-friend-
Tuesday, 24 March 2009 17:42
Tuesday, 24 March 2009 17:42
Margaret Kirisa Mbeiza, woman MP for Kaliro District was
appointed by President Yoweri Museveni to become the state minister for
Economic Monitoring. She failed to go through the vetting process at Parliament
and her approval was deferred for further clarification from the president. She
talked to The Independent’s Kibuuka Steven. Excerpts.
How does it feel like being appointed a minister?
It’s very
good; in fact very good because everyone will fear you and you will be called
titles like honourable minister which is very fantastic.
What about when parliament refuses to approve your
appointment citing many queries about you?
It’s very
disgusting because it deprives you a chance to serve your country fully as you
wish. Actually, why I am in Kampala
now is because I don’t have a job as minister and there is no business in
parliament. I am just here resting because I cannot go anywhere.
So will this stop you from doing your NRM work most
especially mobilisation in Busoga and the whole country?
Certainly not
because I am the NRM strong lady in Busoga and the president knows how much I
contributed to kick the opposition out of Busoga. I will continue my
mobilisation work for the NRM and the president because I strongly believe that
the country needs him to develop it further and the NRM.
Has the president ever called you since you were rejected by
Parliament?
He called
me on Sunday before he left for UK
for the Commonwealth meeting and told me that he would handle my issue when he
returned and I know he will.
Talking of the president, there has been talk that you are a
special friend to the president and that your appointment as a minister came
because of your closeness to the president. Is this true and how close are you
to the Fountain of Honour of this nation?
The
President is my friend, a friend to Busoga where I come from and the whole
country. I think why the president appointed me was because of my great
mobilisation of the NRM party throughout the country. Because of him being the
appointing authority, I think he clearly saw that I was capable of helping him
execute his duties properly. I have been to Kamuli, Isingiro, Ibanda and
Sembabule districts campaigning for NRM and I have been using my resources to
do the party work. So I think the president has been getting all these reports
and that’s why he appointed me.
There is information that on most occasions you have visited
the president he has treated you like a VIP. For example last year when you
visited him at his Rwakitura home and he had a long private meeting with you,
he gave you his escort cars and they booked you into the presidential suite at
Rwenzori Hotel; what important role do you play for the nation to deserve such
privileges?
The
president gave me those privileges because I was his special guest that night
and he feared for my life because the journey from Rwakitura to my home is so
long and I had left so late.
There
have been allegations challenging your mental stability, are you normal or have
some degree of madness?
I am not
mad at all. Those saying that I am are just feeling bad and are jealous of me
because I am young and the president has decided to work with me closely other
than them. When I fell sick, the doctors in Butabika [mental rehabilitation
hospital] where my friends had taken me diagnosed me with acute malaria and
high blood pressure and not mental illness as people allege.
Do
you have all the information Parliament needs to approve you as a minister?
I have all
the information. I am just waiting for the Speaker to come back so that I
present to him the information and clear my image which has been tainted by
some people in the media.
Museveni insists on Idah Nantaba
Sunday, 30 September 2012 22:33
‘Why is she
special?’ MPs ask. ‘I won’t respond to rumours,’ Museveni replies
In a move that has raised more questions than it
has answered, President Yoweri Museveni has pleaded with Parliament to
reconvene and reconsider the approval of Idah Nantaba, the Kayunga Woman MP,
for the post of minister of state for Lands.
Reliable sources told us that Museveni wrote two
letters to Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker, trying to convince Parliament to change
its position, saying he had counselled Nantaba and advised her to apologise to
Parliament.
Museveni also wrote that even if this was not the
case, natural justice demands that the accused be heard. Nantaba’s appointment
was first rejected in August on the grounds that she did not have the minimum
academic qualifications to occupy the post.
When she proved that she had the academic
credentials, some MPs on the Appointments committee then questioned her moral
character. Nantaba reacted angrily, claiming some people on the Appointments
committee and senior army officers, who she had exposed as land grabbers in
Kayunga, were fighting her. She also attacked Amama Mbabazi, the Prime
Minister, accusing him of working to fail her appointment.
“The chief executive will explain to me why I am
being tossed around,” Nantaba charged before journalists at Parliament.
In her reply to the President, reportedly sent
last week, Kadaga said reconvening the Appointments committee would not be
possible because members voted on the item. She reportedly advised that the
remaining option was to take the matter to the whole House. The other route
would be to convene a plenary session where all MPs would debate the matter.
Kadaga said that having chaired the Appointments
committee meetings, she would excuse herself from chairing the plenary session.
Reliable sources have told us this offer by Kadaga pleased the president who,
presumably, saw Kadaga as not having done enough to protect the president’s
interests. Sources told us that the letters to Kadaga came a couple of weeks
after the president had met the Speaker and talked her into reconsidering
Nantaba’s appointment.
Museveni-Amongi meeting
In mid-September, sources told us, Museveni had
raised similar issues with Betty Amongi and Justine Lumumba, the NRM Chief
Whip, when he met the duo at State House, Entebbe.
Amongi, the chairperson of the Uganda Women‘s Parliamentary Association
(UWOPA), had gone to Entebbe to try and convince Museveni to officiate as chief
guest at a ceremony where UWOPA will celebrate what it has dubbed “Women @ 50”,
which is part of the golden jubilee celebrations.
She told him that the women, especially those who
support NRM, had made the proposal, which she saw no problem with. Museveni
accepted the request after which he put it to Amongi that she had been among
the people vehemently opposed to the appointment of Nantaba.
“Now that I have sorted you out, I want you to
help me with my issue of Nantaba,” Museveni reportedly told Amongi.
Amongi reportedly told Museveni about the rumour
doing rounds in Parliament that he was treating Nantaba in a special way
to the extent of availing her with soldiers from the Special Forces Group (SFG)
to protect her. Amongi is understood to have informed Museveni that Nantaba is
revelling in, and talking about, her ‘special’ treatment from the president,
something that has not gone down well with ordinary MPs who do not enjoy such
favours from the head of state.
It is not the first time that MPs reject a
presidential appointee on what they describe as ‘moral’ grounds. In 2009,
Parliament rejected Margaret Mbeiza, who had been nominated as state minister
for Economic Monitoring under similar circumstances. They cited ‘moral’
grounds, and Mbeiza was reportedly far from modest about her status as a
minister-designate.
Museveni now faces the same scenario with
Nantaba. Amongi is understood to have put it to the president that after being
persuaded by Nantaba, he went against a directive of the Uganda National Roads
Authority (UNRA). The authority had resolved not to allow any ferry to ply
between Nabuganyi and Kasana landing site in Kayunga district due to the rocks
along the route.
But on a visit there in May, Museveni directed
that the ferry, which had remained docked at the Nabuganyi landing site for
more than three years, be taken to Kasana landing site three-and-a-half
kilometres after ascertaining with special divers that the route was free from
rocks contrary to what UNRA had said. Amongi, according to our sources, added
that there is growing suspicion that Museveni had delayed to swear in the new
cabinet appointees because he is waiting for Nantaba to be approved.
Our sources told us that Museveni did not respond
to all the queries, but told the MP that those were just rumours and therefore
he could not respond to them. He said he had given Nantaba SFG protection after
some people threatened to kill her for being outspoken against land grabbing in
Kayunga.
When The Observer contacted her over the weekend,
Amongi neither confirmed nor denied that a meeting took place, where she and
Museveni discussed Nantaba. She, however, confirmed that last month she
extended an invitation to the president to officiate at the UWOPA function,
through Lumumba.
