Members of Parliament and government are now set for a political showdown after two MPs on Monday collected enough signatures to recall the house for a special sitting to debate the Oil sector.
Theodore Ssekikubo, the Lwemiyaga County MP and his Bugweri County counterpart, Abdu Katuntu on Friday started collecting signatures of legislators to demand that Speaker Rebecca Kadaga recalls MPs from their recess to debate broadly all agreements related to the Oil sector in Uganda. The MPs say that as it stands now, various oil agreements that the government of Uganda has signed with the Oil companies are bad and only benefit the foreign companies.
They say the agreements are shrouded in high secrecy.
Constitutionally, the two legislators needed a minimum of 125 signatures out of the 375 elected members to compel the speaker to call for a special sitting.
Two Army MPs, Maj. Sarah Mpamba and Col. Phinehas Katirima are among the surprise signatories that also include a number of known NRM diehards such as the MP for Bunya West Vincent Bagiire, Fox Odoi of West Budama, Mathias Kasamba of Kakuuto, and Moses Balyeku, the Jinja West Municipality MP. The others are Hood Katuramu who represents the disabled people in Western Uganda and Jinja East Municipality MP, Nathan Nabeeta. Also on the list are Raphael Magyezi, Igara West MP, and Onyango Kakoba for Buikwe North and Kwizera Eddie, the MP for Bufumbira East.
Balyeku, who signed as number 56 on one of the two lists said he wants the oil agreements made public because this is not a personal wealth but a national resource.
//Cue In: “I have signed because……”
Cue Out: “……position of the party.”//
Article 95, Sub-section 5 of the Constitution of Uganda directs the Speaker to recall the MPs from their recess for a special debate on any date within 21 days from the date the petition is received by the Speaker’s office.
Katuntu says he is overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of MPs across the political divide in signing the petition. He describes it as unprecedented in the history of parliament and says perhaps it is because of the interest that all legislators have in seeing a more transparent approach to handling the oil sector.
//Cue In: “It is unprecedented…….”
Cue Out: “……with 125 members.”//
But as Katuntu and Ssekikubo gathered the last signatures at about 4pm on Monday, the Attorney General Peter Nyombi appeared at parliament and said that whatever the MPs do he would never deliver to them the oil agreements, unless the various principle signatories allowed him to.
Nyombi named the three principles as government of Uganda, Tullow Oil Uganda and Heritage Oil Uganda and the Ministry of Energy.
