UGANDA, Kampala | Real Muloodi News | Hon. Persis Namuganza, State Minister for Urban Planning and Development, has stated that Parliament has no authority to remove her from the Cabinet over the Nakawa-Naguru land dispute.
The Adhoc Committee report on the Nakawa-Naguru land controversy found Hon Persis Namuganza guilty of abuse of office and overstepping her mandate when she directed the Uganda Land Commission (ULC) to allocate land to some companies and individuals while claiming to be communicating a non-existent presidential directive.
Hon Namuganza says that Parliament acted like a mob against her. She claims that she was not given a fair hearing during the discussion and acceptance of the contentious report parcelling out of Nakawa-Naguru land to people and companies.
“This report was misleading Members of Parliament, debating things which they don’t know about and finally passing resolutions which they actually don’t know,” Hon Persis says.
“On this basis, first of all, I belong to the Executive and I know that they will have to forward the resolutions to the Executive for confirmation and I’m sure the executive is sober and it will not act the way they acted,” she adds.
She further claims that her directions to the ULC were executing presidential directives and that it was up to the commission to decide whether or not to act on them. She claims that because the president has discretionary powers, presidential commands are sometimes verbal and cannot be challenged.
“If this report for example was saying I grabbed this land for myself or I used a certain company to grab this land for me, there I would accept. Even if the president doesn’t write, it is incumbent of the minister who has attended the meeting to communicate to relevant authorities what has transpired from the meeting for action,” says Hon Namuganza.
Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka, however, said: “When a minister or any person receives a presidential directive, he or she must be able to determine what provisions of the law are available for it to be implemented, so you implement it in accordance with the law.”
Hon Namuganza also questions why the report fails to include other ministers who served on the inter-ministerial committee that distributed most plots.
“And they are the ones who decided these people to be paid. It is that committee that presented a report to the Cabinet and which the President okayed and they passed it. You wonder that those ones are not being talked about,” she says.
According to the parliamentary rules, the executive has six months to act on the parliament’s recommendations.
The question is whether or not the executive will accept the recommendations from the Nakawa-Naguru land investigations, which include requesting Namuganza to resign.
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