Commissioners’ Censure Motion Chaos: Movers Accuse Sergeant-at-arms of ‘Sabotage’

The drama associated with the censure motion against the four Parliamentary commissioners seems to be far from over as movers of the motion led by Lwemiyaga MP Theodore Ssekikubo turned their guns on Sergeant-at-arms at Parliament, Ahmed Kagoye of sabotaging their ever-less the required 177 signatures’ process.

A tough-talking Ssekikubo told reporters at parliament on Thursday that he had got information that Kagoye ordered for the “removal of the table of record and chairs, we have been using to collect signatures for the censure motion.”

Likening unverified Kagoye’s action to “terrorism,” Ssekikubo said that the head of MPs and parliamentary staff’s security had interfered with the signature collection exercise, but had “since abandoned his office at Parliament and is not picking up his calls.”

However, flanked by colleagues; Sarah Opendi and Joseph Ssewungu, Ssekikubo was quick to add that he had secured another table to continue with their exercise.

Although they have been postponing their final days to collect signatures every time their deadline comes up to the extent that they announced their exercise open-ended, the team is expected to unveil the final list of all the MPs that have appended their signatures on Friday 21st June 2024.

Doomed To Fail

Reacting to Ssekikubo’s allegations, Bugiri Municipality MP Asuman Basalirwa said that movers’ cries point to people applying grandstanding politics, but well aware that it won’t yield anything.

“I told you from the very beginning that Ssekikubo’s process was a non-starter. The Rules of procedure state that if Parliament passes any decision and you want to change it, you bring a substantive motion to change the earlier decision made by Parliament.” Basalirwa said.

He wondered why they were shifting the goal posts every time they get a challenge, saying, “at the start, the debate was that the Service Award [to commissioners] was never approved [by parliament], but I brought evidence to the contrary, and they dropped that argument. So if Parliament made that decision, how would that decision change? You do not change that decision by censuring the four Commissioners, you bring a substantive motion requesting Parliament to change its earlier decision.”

He advised them that since the Rules of procedure of parliament do not dictate that signatures of the censure motion “have to be collected at Parliament alone,” they can even collect them from their offices or actually, attend the upcoming thanksgiving ceremony organized by Mathias Mpuuga, one of the commissioners to get signatures from MPs preparing to attend it.