The former minister of State for Health General Duties, James Kakooza, has accused members of the appointments committee of bias and holding a hidden political vendeta against him. He accuses them of being jealous of his appointment.
Without divulging names, Kakooza said that reports by the appointments committee that he does not hold the necessity qualifications for the position of a minister, are defamatory in nature and intended to bring him down politically.
Kakooza who has been a junior minister of health since 2008, had his re-appointment rejected last week by the committee headed by Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, on grounds that he does not possess the minimum required advanced level qualification or its equivalent.
Kakooza insists he completed his Advanced level education from Kampala High School. He says that on the basis of this alone, he does not need to prove that he has a degree qualification.
Last week, the committee gave Kakooza a chance to pick his transcript from Nkumba University, but he returned to parliament later in the evening saying that the school would write to the committee.
Four other appointees; Saleh Kamba, Muyanja Mbabali and Nasser Sebaggala, were also rejected by the appointments committee and were not among the new ministers sworn into office at State House Entebbe today.
According to Kakooza, the four affected MPs will address a press conference on Tuesday at 10am at parliament. He says they want to clear their names before the public against an impression that they have no integrity and have lied by producing fake papers.
He took issue with the committee members, accusing them of lacking integrity because in his view, and leaking information to the media.
As other ministers were being sworn in today, Kakooza spent most of the day at his home in the company of his children. He said he had returned from a weekend in his Kabula County constituency and decided to just rest home.
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