The 10th Parliament has Tuesday approved a proposal by President Museveni to vary the number of both Cabinet and State Ministers after a heated debate amongst Members of the House.
This was during the 4th sitting of the first session of the 10th Parliament which took place in the Chambers of Parliament despite the insufficient space.
The number of Ministers has now been raised to 80, where Cabinet Ministers were increased from 28 to 31 while State Ministers to 49.
The motion was tabled by Kiboga Women Member of Parliament (MP) and the Government Chief Whip, Ruth Nankabirwa, who proceeded to give a number of justifications, among them the need to facilitate effective service delivery.
A total of 30 Members of Parliament got a chance to present their distinguished views on the motion which saw new members struggling to be heard for the first time.
The embattled Busiro South MP, Peter Ssematimba who is facing expulsion from the House over academic papers said appointing more ministers was prudent and the only way through which government work will be effectively monitored.
“To attain our target of becoming a middle income earner, more Ministers are needed to ensure that the available resources are put to their rightful use,” Ssematimba said.
Majority voted in favor of the new ministries
Kampala Central MP, Mohammed Nsereko opposed the proposal which he said was in bad faith and that it has strong financial implications to the tax payers.
Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LOP) and Kasese Member of Parliament Winnie Kiiza disagreed with the idea of putting the proposal before the full house, and suggested that it should have been the appointments committee to take care of this matter.
“The new ministers are now looking with a pleading eye to the members; this is likely to generate bias.”
She also told the house that she has little expectations in the expanded cabinet.
“I don’t think that the new ministers are going to make miracles; and those who think that appointing ministers to their regions will benefit them, that is so unfortunate.”
“If service delivery was linked to Ministries, the majority of Ministers wouldn’t be kicked out of Parliament by the voters. We had a ministry in the Rwenzori region but we benefited nothing out of it.”
Kizza referred to the Obote government that had less that 20 Ministers but offered good services to the people of Uganda.
Nonetheless, the members eventually voted in favor of the motion.