Some Members of Parliament appeared confused on Wednesday as the House okayed the 254billion shillings budget for Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).
Some Members of Parliament appeared confused on Wednesday as the House okayed the 254billion shillings budget for Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).
This followed a vote on a motion put by Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah on whether the KCCA budget should not be passed by Parliament.
Oulanyah’s motion, which seemed to have confused many MPs on both the government and opposition side, required a majority NO for the KCCA budget to be passed by Parliament. Most of the motions voted on in the House to pass require a majority YES.
Before putting the question to the motion, Oulanyah ascertained that in the House there were 127 Members, the mandatory quorum before Parliament takes a vote. Recently, the Anti-Homosexuality Act was successfully challenged in the Constitutional Court with judges ruling that at the time of its passing in December last year, Parliament lacked quorum.
Oulanyah then phrased his question carefully, “Am going to put the question to the motion, that the budget of KCCA should not be passed; those in favor say aye to the contrary no.” Majority of the legislators voted NO.
Oulanyah’s question followed a prolonged debate on the minority report tabled by Masaka Municipality MP Mathias Mpuuga, seeking Parliament to halt the approval of the KCCA budget citing illegal budget procedure used by the Minister in charge of Kampala Frank Tumwebaze.
Mpuuga’s report had dissenting views on the main report of the Committee for the Presidency that scrutinized the Ministerial Policy Statement for the financial year 2014/2015 and had okayed the KCCA budget. The committee further sought for Parliament’s adoption of the entire Report under which six other votes were scrutinized.
After the MPs had voted on the motion, Oulanyah noted that the main report for the Presidency had been adopted and therefore consideration of the minority report was not necessary.
This ruling by Oulanyah left many MPs especially on the Opposition side confused. They started moving out of the chambers. Mpuuga moved straight to the Deputy Speaker and whispered to him before moving out.
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The overall budget passed under the Presidency Ministerial Policy Statement for financial year 2014/2015 amounts to 1 trillion shillings which will go to different departments including Office of the President, State House, Office of the Prime Minister, KCCA, External Security Organisation and Uganda Aids Commission.
Since the main report of the Committee for Presidency was not debated all the budget proposals for these different votes were passed by parliament without a debate apart from the contention that was on the KCCA budget whose debate took over 6 hours.
