Kimanya-Kabonera MP Abed Bwanika has defied leader of opposition in parliament and the spokesperson of his National Unity Platform (NUP) Joel Ssenyonyi regarding the Kavule-based political organization’s call on its members to boycott the regional sittings, with the first one happening in the northern Ugandan city of Gulu this week.
At least three plenary sittings, an official dinner and a presidential address will happen in Gulu this week. MPs and staff started leaving Kampala for Gulu today ahead of the first Gulu plenary sitting scheduled for Wednesday, August 28, 2024.
Defying Ssenyonyi’s directive for the boycott of the Gulu sitting, Bwanika was one of the MPs travelling on August 26. Ssenyonyi and those who believe in his stance have argued that the budget set aside for the regional sittings should have been spent on some more important things.
Bwanika claimed that Ssenyonyi and his group were just boycotting the regional sittings because it was Speaker Anita Among in the driving seat.
He also argued that it is in the interest of NUP to go to Gulu as a way of wooing its people to at least vote some MPs on the political party’s ticket in 2026.
“If the Opposition was clever, we would have been the first to camp in Northern Uganda so we gather the region and [ask its people to] support us. The Northern region did not support us. The National Unity Platform does not even have any MP from that region,” Bwanika said.
“But if you start this kind of politics that ‘I am not going because it is Speaker Among in charge,’ that means you have never understood politics.”
On the funds to be ‘wasted’ on the sittings, Bwanika further argued that it is the same Parliament to which Ssenyonyi and other opposition MPs belong that passed the budget, allocating funds for the regional sittings.
He wondered why they would now pretend they did not know about the regional sittings and the money they would cost. “Ssenyonyi, ‘where are you always when the budget is being passed because you don’t seem to understand anything?’”
As the regional sittings are days away, several intern doctors have not got placements because government claims there is no money. (See Details Here).
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