Age limit debate disruption

Normal government business   

But government officials are adamant; they are focusing on the right priorities.

“Parliamentary business today and tomorrow is not about age limit; there are other businesses going,” said Frank Tumwebaze, a cabinet minister for Information Technology and Communications and NRM MP for Kibale East constituency.

He told The Independent on Sept. 21 that those saying that Parliament and government is missing priorities are being diversionary.

When asked to explain how the ongoing age limit debate helps Uganda to overcome corruption, revamp a bad economy and other problems, Tumwebaze said:

“All issues you are suffering from stem from leadership; the chaos in your history as Uganda was not out of corruption, not out of cancer, it was leadership. Good leaders promote good policies, good policies stimulate development, bad policies come from bad leaders and bad policies stink for development.”

He added: “If you don’t resolve leadership and governance questions all the other problems that rotate around that will remain.”

Age limit debate VS Observer’s issues that Parliament and government should be working on (graphical presentation)

• Finding killers of 21 women [murdered] in Entebbe and Nansana by end of Sept. 21
• Identifying killers of former AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi
• Finding killers of Muslim clerics
• Dealing with unending land grabbing cases
• Fighting high corruption levels in government
• Punishing lazy public servants
• Acting on various government investigation reports
• Dealing with lavish government spending and redirecting resources to key service sectors – education, health
• Prioritising agriculture revolution for food security and economic prosperity
• Prioritizing vocational training for job creation
• Revamping a weakening economy (GDP printed at below 5% for last five years compared to over 6% growth years earlier – by attracting FDI, increasing exports through market research, improving production standards and more)
• Planning for oil boom optimism
• Dealing with climate change issues by stopping encroachers of forest reserves and swamps, game parks and reserves
• Stimulating tourism to earn foreign exchange
• Fighting poverty
• Ending early marriages and school dropouts
• Promoting equal opportunities for all
• Keeping peace and security
• Monitoring government projects to ensure efficiency
• Grooming young leaders in socio-political and economic space
• Promoting innovations in ICT and other sectors
• Allowing people to exercise freedom of speech, expression
• Enhancing accountability and transparency in government

Some of the unresolved Supreme Court electoral reforms that need urgent attention before the two year period elapse   

• Amend the law to extend the filing and determination period of Presidential petitions to 60 days to enable concerned parties and court to adequately prepare and present their case
• Enactment of a law to bar the involvement of public servants from meddling in elections.
• Amend the law to provide for punishment of those media managers and houses who refuse to grant equal airtime to all presidential candidates. In the 2016 presidential election petition, Mbabazi accused the state-run Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) for not giving equal opportunity and airtime to all political candidates
• Amend the law to make it permissible for the AG to be one of the respondents in the presidential election on grounds that there are certain issues that need the response of the AG.

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