Kampala, Uganda: Parliament’s Appointments Committee has approved 80 of the 82 ministerial nominees recently appointed by President Yoweri Museveni, with one nominee yet to appear before the committee and another facing further scrutiny before a final decision is made.
The two-day vetting exercise was conducted by the Committee on Appointments, chaired by Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Jacob Marksons Oboth and Deputized by Deputy Speaker, Rt Hon Thomas Tayebwa.
Speaking after the conclusion of the exercise, Hon Tayebwa said the committee had substantially completed its work and would communicate its recommendations to the President in accordance with Parliament’s Rules of Procedure.
“We have approved 80 out of the 82 nominees. One is still pending because it has not yet appeared before the committee, and another one, we found issues which we are going to communicate and make a final decision on,” Tayebwa told journalists on Tuesday evening.
He, however, declined to disclose the identities of the affected nominees.
Dual Citizenship Issues
On concerns surrounding some ministerial nominees, Tayebwa revealed that the committee extensively investigated allegations of dual citizenship involving several appointees.
According to the Deputy Speaker, verification conducted with the Ministry of Internal Affairs established that three nominees held dual citizenship, while another possessed citizenship acquired through marriage. However, he said all the affected nominees had formally renounced their foreign citizenships before their approval.
“We discovered that we had three colleagues who had dual citizenship and one colleague who had marital citizenship. We looked at it extensively and all of them proved repeatedly that they had renounced their citizenship in the other countries,” Tayebwa said.
“They have taken a patriotic step of choosing Uganda above all. Some of these people have families in those countries, but they have taken a painful decision of renouncing their citizenship elsewhere.”
Corruption Fight Tops Ministers’ Agenda
Several of the newly vetted ministers used the exercise to outline their priorities, with the fight against corruption emerging as a key theme.
State Minister for Local Government Justine Nameere pledged to crack down on corruption and revenue leakages within local governments.
“The revenues at cities, districts and divisions are being under-declared. A city is collecting Shs1.7 billion, but an errant town clerk will report Shs20 million. That is a huge leakage. We must ensure government programmes are alive and strengthen the supervisory role,” Nameere said.
Meanwhile, State Minister for National Guidance Alioni Yorke Odria proposed introducing digital systems to strengthen anti-corruption efforts.
“Through the ministry, we are going to introduce software that we shall use to fight corruption, be it through phone calls or bank systems. We shall work with other ministries to ensure this fight is carried out across the board,” Odria said.
Incoming State Minister for Public Service, Hon Lydia Wanyoto, pledged to tackle irregular recruitment practices and address concerns surrounding prolonged acting appointments in public institutions.
“I have heard severally that there are many people in acting capacity and that there are challenges with promotions. There are reports of public service boards asking for bribes to give jobs. We shall ensure that Ugandans who qualify go through due recruitment processes and that no Ugandan pays for a public service job,” Wanyoto said.
State Minister for Primary Education Phyllis Chemutai pledged to focus on improving the quality of Universal Primary Education (UPE), particularly through better infrastructure and school feeding programmes.
“There is also a problem of poor feeding of primary pupils and many parents cannot afford the feeding policy. This causes children to perform poorly and drop out of school. I will advocate for children to be given food to sustain them in school,” Chemutai said.
On the health front, State Minister for Primary Health Care Dr Charles Ayume urged calm following recent Ebola cases and ruled out the need for a lockdown.
“We are guided by scientific evidence, so we should not panic. A lockdown is usually the last measure, but right now the Ministry of Health is doing whatever it takes through surveillance, awareness creation and early warning systems,” Ayume said.
New Foreign Affairs Minister Amb. Adonia Ayebare said he would prioritise strengthening coordination among government institutions involved in foreign policy implementation. “This will ensure that we are all well coordinated in delivering effective implementation of our foreign policy, which is based on patriotism, regional integration and Pan-Africanism,” he said.
Under Rule 177 of Parliament’s Rules of Procedure, the Speaker is required to communicate the committee’s decisions to the President within three working days.
The approvals clear the way for the majority of President Museveni’s ministerial team to formally assume office and begin implementing government priorities for the new term.
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