The National Unity Platform (NUP) party, yesterday discarded Hon. Mathias Mpuuga as the Commissioner of Parliament replacing him with the Mityana Municipality MP, Hon Francis Zaake Mutebi. It should be recalled that Mpuuga recently rose to the job after being replaced by Hon Joel Ssenyonyi as the new leader of Opposition (LoP).
However, a while ago allegations of corruption were levied on the Mukungwe-Nyendo MP. This forced the party to lash out with different punishments at Mpuuga. And one of these was asking him to step aside from his Commissioner of Parliament role.
Mathias Mpuuga has adamantly however refused to heed to this order forcing NUP’s hand. The acting party president Dr Lina Zedriga Waru put out a communique saying that the party’s NEC had resolved to remove Mathias Mpuuga.
This is because he failed to justify why the party should leave him in the role after the allegations of corruption where he’s said to have pocketed Shs 500m. Therefore, the party will start the necessary resolutions to impeach him in the coming weeks.
“In light of this, NEC has resolved to recall Hon. Mathias Mpuuga from the Parliamentary Commission on account of corruption, dishonesty, and abuse of office, and to notify Parliament of the same.” The statement from NUP starts to read.
“NEC further resolved to nominate Hon. Zaake Francis Mutebi as Parliamentary Commissioner. His nomination was informed by the fact that he was illegally removed from that role in March 2022” the letter continued to assert and said the reason why this happened.
…to pave way for the grand corrupt and questionable dealings of the Parliamentary Commission that have now come to light. In the coming days, the Party will initiate the relevant processes to effect this resolution,” part of the statement from NUP read.
However, the Director of Public Communications at Parliament, Dr Chris Obore said that NUP doesn’t have the authority to do this. This is because removing a commissioner is governed by the rules of procedure of Parliament.
This is initiated by through a notice in writing to the clerk of Parliament. It has to be signed by one-third of all voting members of Parliament with an indication for moving the removal motion.
However, the clerk of Parliament was yet to receive any such notification by the time of closure of Parliament yesterday. Additionally, Obore said that out of the 529 voting MPs, a third of these MPs would have to vote in favor of the removal.
Therefore, NUP’s Impeachment of Mpuuga is null and void as of now. We are waiting to see the procedure NUP will follow to do this.
