Saturday 20 October 2012

Smelling a rat!!!! Uganda media skeptical about President Museveni’s Closeness to specific Cute female legislators: The case of Ida Nantaba and Margaret Kirisa Mbeiza



Museveni gives MP Nantaba guards



 

By ISAAC IMAKA


Posted  Friday, October 19  2012 at  01:00


President Museveni has assigned members of the elite Special Forces Command to guard Ms Aida Nantaba, his nominee as state minister for Lands.

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

Written by Edris Kiggundu


‘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.