The Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga, has rejected the expulsion of Mityana Municipality Member of Parliament, Hon. Francis Zaake, from his position as parliamentary commissioner.
In a secret ballot conducted out of 161 Members of Parliament (MPs), 155 MPs voted to remove Zaake from the commission while only four MPs voted against the motion and 2 votes were declared invalid.
Zaake, a member of the National Unity Platform (NUP), was impeached as a parliamentary commissioner on grounds of misconduct.
Zaake’s ouster from the commission came on the coattails of Parliament adopting the amended report of the Committee of Rules, Discipline and Privileges presented by Chairperson, Abdu Katuntu.
However, Mpuuga described Zaake’s removal as illegal.
“They jump to amend the resolutions of the committee and recommendations to include matters not envisaged and without the member being given hearing rest on critical illegality. I am very sure when the time comes to officially raise these issues, they will be able to be laid bare,” he said.
Mpuuga, a member of NUP, said his party is not about to nominate another person for the job.
“We didn’t succeed in getting a settlement to the conflict because we feared that what started as altercation would descend into conflict in Parliament, and therefore will serve to curtail the job for which we were elected. Hon Zaake Francis is still a Parliament Commissioner, we shall not forward another name as Speaker Anita Among said,” he added.
Proceedings against Zaake began after he took a swipe at Deputy Speaker of Parliament Anita Among from his personal Twitter account only to delete the tweet soon after.
However, the tweet was seen before it was deleted and this has caused a furore in the House, driving a wedge between opponents and proponents of the government as some MPs started calling for Zaake’s removal from the Parliamentary Commission while others defended his right to express himself.
“To my consternation, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament while presiding over a session of parliament controverted the finding of High Court in Suit No. 85 of 2020 that I was tortured by sarcastically stating but with the utmost level of recklessness that though tortured, won a medal in E.A @Parliament_Ug games,” Zaake tweeted, to touch off a storm in parliament.
Then he threw the knockout pitch: “the utter bunkum emanating from her dishonest lips was only intended to mock and break me down, this is idiocy! Parliament deserves better, how a person of her calibre lack intelligential prowess to appreciate that healing is a natural phenomenon!”
After his tweet, the Gulu West Member of Parliament, Ojara Martin Mapenduzi, who is an Independent MP nominated by the National Unity Platform (NUP) as the chairman of the Local Government’s Accounts Committee in parliament, moved a motion to evict NUP’s Zaake as a parliamentary commissioner.
He said Zaake’s removal from the Parliamentary Commission for using this “insulting language” against the person of the Deputy Speaker was in line with parliamentary procedure and propriety.
The Parliamentary Commission is the top decision-making organ of the House and comprises the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Prime Minister, Minister of Finance, Leader of the Opposition and four backbencher commissioners.
