As parliament prepares next week to start investigating the Shs. 6billion Presidential Handshake bonuses, Parliament has come out to respond to negative comments directed at the Speaker Rebecca Kadaga, who days ago angrily daubed as “stupid” a Constitution Court order blocking Parliament from discussing the same.
The tirade is being fronted by Senior Presidential Media Advisor John Nagenda who referred to the Speaker’s actions on January 10th as ‘untidy’ and ‘intolerable.’
Mr Nagenda took offence of Speaker Kadaga’s charged tone on the Parliament floor in which she ordered the Attorney General’s office to return the ‘stupid’ court order issued by Deputy Chief Justice Stephen Kavuma, and have it vacated.
The infuriated speaker also closed down all parliament business and vowed not to reopen it until the order was vacated, saying “I can’t accept a situation where Court will dictate how we do our work.”
Kadaga went as far as writing to President Yoweri Museveni about the Deputy Chief Justice, in which complained of a “conspiracy by the Judiciary to undermine the powers of Parliament.”
In two consecutive columns in the government owned New Vision, Mr Nagenda has condemned Kadaga, — whose speakership he strongly supported early last year, — and wondered whether or not she was untouchable.
Nagenda says a high figure such as Kadaga labeling the actions of the Deputy Chief Justice as ‘stupid’ was unthinkable.
“…and the utterly contemptuous way she did it in full view of parliament and television had to be seen to be believed, nor was it for the first time,” wrote Nagenda, who went on to question whether the speaker is answerable to anyone at all.
“Who in the land and by what measures can bring the speaker to book?” He wondered. “Might the Parliament she leads do it? Might His Excellency the President? …the Chief Justice?”
Meanwhile Justice Kavuma has also personally written to Kadaga expressing disappointment in her actions. In a letter dated January 13, Kavuma says the Speaker should not have unleashed her anger about an individual court order onto the entire Judiciary.
In the words of Mr Nagenda, Kadaga seemed to have “careered across constitutional traffic lanes.”
Parliament today however, responded to this criticism, saying that Kadaga was in her right to stand firm against the court order stopping Parliament from looking into a transaction that blatantly contravened government laws.
Chris Obore, Parliament’s Public Relations Director said mordantly that Nagenda wrote ‘good English but with propaganda.”
Obore said Mr Nagenda was unqualified to start judging the speaker, who, since NRM came to power, has been in leadership and is the second party Vice Chairperson. There is a reason, he said, why Kadaga is the ruling party’s Vice Chairperson and also Speaker of the House.
“Kadaga did not attack the person of Justice Kavuma, but she picked the court order and said it should be vacated. The reason she deemed it stupid is because it extinguished Article 90 of the constitution. Besides, the court order had shut up everybody in the country. How can you shut up the whole country because some two people have complained?” wondered Obore.
“At no time did the speaker fault the judiciary, but the court orders which had far reaching complications and had already caused paralysis.”
Fortunately, Obore noted, even those who had secured the order realized that it was very dangerous, retracted it and apologized.
He said, “Judges say that judgments are open to criticism. Why isn’t the speaker — herself a lawyer and the first woman to open a law firm in the country — allowed to critique Kavuma’s order?
Next week on Monday, Parliament’s committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) is expected to start probing the Presidential handshake, where some of the beneficiaries will be summoned to give their justifications.
The committee was given 60 days by the Speaker to have completed this work.
The probe is in spite of advice by President Yoweri Museveni, who while addressing MPs from his party last week, said they should slow down on the matter and avoid throwing the good-willed and hard working officials involved in the Oil tax cash sharing, under the bus.