The UPDF Chieftaincy of Doctrines boss, Maj. Gen. Pecos Kutesa was cautioned by fellow army Members of Parliament before landing into trouble on Thursday.
Gen Kuteesa has a scheduled appearance before the defense parliamentary committee, over his remarks about cattle theft in northern Uganda, which were deemed by members as careless.
ChimpReports has exclusively learned that the UPDF Caucus sat last month at the Defense headquarters in Mbuya where they brainstormed on how to handle debates in the 10th Parliament.
The closed door sitting according to a source who attended, was chaired by the army Caucus’ Whip Capt. Sarah Lakot who is also the one who designated the generals to different standing and sectoral committees at Parliament.
The meeting, we are told, primarily focused on tutoring the new military representatives to refrain from commenting on sensitive matters at Parliament.
“Members were given warnings against jumping into hot debates. Carefulness was stressed, especially that any of us getting up to speak should first internalize the consequences,” a source from the group said.
The UPDF MPs also agreed between themselves in the meeting that anything that concerns the army should be handled by the Defense ministers who are politicians.
“There was a verbal agreement that things that concern security and the army should be left to the minister (Defense) to handle.”
Most army MPs usually do more listening during the debates in the plenary than talk, and they only tend to contribute in the committee meetings.
In the 9th Parliament a word was hardly heard from the Deputy Chief of Defense Forces, Lt. Gen. Charles Angina and five other army representatives. Some of them were even rare at Parliament and only the Gen. CDF Katumba Wamala and Gen. Elly Tumwine were active on the floor.
Gen Kutesa however, is proving to be a different breed of army representative, who is more open-minded and flexible like the rest of the conventional parliamentarians.
According to our source, Kutesa was particularly warned at the Mbuya meeting about getting excited into the debate with politicians.
On Thursday while the house was debating the Leader of Opposition in Parliament’s response to President Yoweri Museveni’s State of the Nation Address, Kutesa hopped into the discussion.
A concern had been raised on why the President has never addressed the issue of cows which were stolen from the areas of Lango, Acholi, Teso and Karamojong in the late 1980s.
The excited Gen. Kutesa took the microphone and told the house on record that he saw how cows were taken but he couldn’t tell who took them.
MPs from the affected region got furious, forcing the Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga to order the Defense and Internal Affairs Committee to investigate the General.
Yesterday the Committee Chairperson, Judith Nabakoba told this website that the probe is starting as early as next week.