14 January 2025
By, Ssenabulya Isaac
Leader of the Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi has revealed plans to embark on the cleaning up of Parliament to restore integrity, saying as much as Ugandans have attributed the decision made by Members of Parliament to being incompetent, records indicated many MPs are educated, but rather, the biggest issue is lack of their commitment to the fight against corruption.
He made the remarks while addressing journalists at Parliament, in commemoration of the 1year since taking over office on 9 January 2024, from his predecessor Mathias Mpuuga.
“We shall also keep pushing for the cleaning up of Parliament where we work because this is our turf, this is our backyard and in this new year, we are simply going to engage a higher gear on the fight against corruption as you will see. I have heard people say that the current Parliament has got incompetent MPs. I actually disagree. The major issue as far as I am concerned in this legislature of ours is lack of integrity,” noted Ssenyonyi.
The Leader of Opposition said that unlike the sentiments in public blaming the ill decisions made by MPs on incompetence, he argued that all MPs know what to do because when voted by people, they know the issues that concern people and are capable of voicing them but that doesn’t happen many times, attributing this to lack of integrity.
“We fear to step on some toes, we fear to annoy some people. You hear MPs say they told me if I insist on these issues of corruption, they are going to bring an opponent against me and fund that opponent. So how do you say that MPs are incompetent or shallow? Because I hear that from analysts. No, I don’t agree, I think what we lack here is integrity. Because MPs are educated, exposed, they know what to do.
You remember that MPs were paid Shs5M to remove term limits in 2005, these were educated people they knew what to do, they knew that term limits were good for the country. So, did they remove term limits because they were incompetent? No, but because they were bribed. In the 10th Parliament, MPs were given Shs29M to remove age limit did they not know that this wasn’t good for the country? Didn’t they hear the voices of their people? So, did they do this out of incompetence? No,” noted Ssenyonyi.
According to Ssenyonyi, MPs in the 11th Parliament are well educated and revealed that out of the 557 MPs, at least 18 of them have got PhDs, 231 MPs have Masters Degrees, 251 MPs have Bachelors Degress, I know this information will shock some of you. 37 have Diplomas, only 16 possess just the minimum qualification of UACE, Senior Six and only 4 possess Certificates that are equivalent to UACE.
While kicking off his address, Ssenyonyi revealed that his first year as Leader of Opposition has been tough, where he was forced to work with lean staff numbers after Parliament declined to renew contracts of the staff he found in office.
“It has been a tough year and I thank God I am a tough man and we are a tough team. As you saw, I was fought from the word go by many people but I stood my ground because I had work to do together with colleagues. There have been numerous challenges that were out to frustrate us something we said will not bow us down,” noted Ssenyonyi.
He added that his first year was characterized with numerous challenges like being denied attendance to the Parliamentary Commission meetings and working with a lean team.
“As soon as I came to office contracts of staff that we had here came to a close and they weren’t renewed, I asked why they said it was a new system and that wasn’t the practice previously and so, we didn’t have staff to operate with, they said we shall get for you staff from other departments of parliament but of course the nuances of the Office of the Leader of Opposition is a bit different. So, it has been tough but we kept moving,” noted Ssenyonyi.
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