Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa yesterday hit back at Internal Affairs minister Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, branding him a hypocrite who is also selfish.
Tayebwa was responding Otafiire who on Monday questioned the size of parliament and it’s relevance to Uganda’s development saying it is not logical for Uganda to have a parliament of 529 MPs yet critical sectors like police are understaffed and underfunded.
Otafiire wondered how Uganda can sustain a parliament almost the size of the UK parliament yet the British economy is 200 times stronger than Uganda’s economy.
While speaking at the 2022 Uganda National Journalism Awards organized by African Centre for Media Excellence (Acme) on Tuesday evening, Mr Tayebwa Otafiire that he is one of the beneficiaries of the small constituencies created by parliament.
“I saw some senior leaders in parliament questioning the size of parliament yet they are the recent beneficiaries of these small constituencies,” Mr Tayebwa. said.
He asked journalists to question the hypocrisy and selfishness of senior leaders in government “whose preoccupation is to drag the young people occupying key leadership positions into the mud.”
The Deputy Speaker also hit at Gen Otafiire and other senior NRM leaders who question the young people in influential leadership positions on issues of the NTM party ideology.
Without mincing words, Mr Tayebwa reminded Gen Otafiire that the biggest crisis in Uganda is not a crisis of ideology of political parties but a question of unemployment, poverty, rising cost of food and cost of living -all which cannot be solved by going to Kyankwanzi for training.
“The questions of 1986 when some people came from the bush might be the questions of today but the answers are totally different,” the Deputy Speaker said.
“The answers to the current problems are not those ones where you have to remind us that you came from the bush, you have the guns, not at all… the narrative is totally different.” He said.
“If am a speaker of parliament, i must address the challenges of my generation.. . people like Otafiire can’t keep taking us back to 1986 solutions. You can’t say because revolutionaries are no longer at the forefront, therefore parliament is dead. Who told you?” He querried.
While Otafiire criticised parliament leadership for limiting the time for members contributions on the floor to only three minutes, Tayebwa reminded him that in the British Parliament, lawmakers speak for one minute.
“In Uganda parliament, some senior leaders want 15 minutes because they are repeating themselves…. people are just somersaulting.” He noted.
Tayebwa reiterated; ”If you are a revolutionary and you fought in the war that brought the government into power, if you’re a senior leader, we salute you and even bow for you but once we are given a chance to serve Ugandans, don’t try to bring us down, just support us, advise us, we might be young, excited and make mistakes but advice us”
‘I want people to respect parliament… we can’t do your work and you don’t want to respect the institution of parliament. We don’t have any single bill of government pending… we processed all government bills and met all statutory obligations of government.”
The deputy speaker cautioned the media against biased reporting and asked journalists to shape the national narrative in their reporting. He called for reasonable media restrictions for noble aims such as national security, public order or even public morals.