The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Members of Parliament have withdrawn the censure motion against General Elly Tumwine after they failed to garner adequate signatures to propel the motion.
As of last week, only 19 Members of Parliament had so far signed on the censure motion against Tumwine, and by Wednesday evening 39 MPs had signed.
Parliament started the process of censuring Tumwine for frustrating investigations into torture of Ugandans and also blocking Members of Parliament in the Human Rights Committee from doing their work.
The house amended the human rights committee report to include closing all safe houses in the country and initiating a censure motion against Tumwine.
Now the MPs who had started the censure process have withdrawn the matter due to a lack of interest by MPs.
Mbwatekamwa Gaffa, the Kasambya county MP who authored the censure document in a press conference yesterday said that they managed only 39 signatures and this is not adequate. He says failure to censure Tumwine only shows the hypocritical nature of MPs.
Manjai County MP John Baptist Nambeshe has disagreed with the withdrawal of the motion saying that MPs who appended their signatures were not consulted over this move of withdrawal. He says the mover of the motion should have waited for the end of the 10 days to be able to withdraw the bill.
The Parliament’s rule of procedure says that at least one-third of the Members of Parliament should append their signatures on the list if the motion is to proceed.
After ten working days, if less than one-third of all the MPs have appended their signatures on the list, the Notice of Censure shall cease. This now means the MPs have until Thursday next week to solicit for signatures.
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