Opposition Democratic Party (DP) Secretary General Mathias Nsubuga has explained why he led a delegation to State House Entebbe for a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni.
Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters at City House in Kampala, Mr Nsubuga, who was accompanied by DP Women League leader Florence Namayanja and the party’s National Youth leader Christopher Okidi among others, said he was asked by fellow opposition politician, Nathan Nandala Mafabi, to represent him as head of delegation to the Inter-Party Organisation on Dialogue, (IPOD), on July 1. He also refuted media reports that all the other parties were not represented at the IPOD meeting.
Formed in 2010, IPOD brings together six political parties in the country namely: the National Resistance Movement (NRM), the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), Justice Forum (JEEMA); the Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC) the Conservative Party (CP) and the DP, to foster inter-party mutual understanding.
And, speaking today Mr Nsubuga disclosed that all the party secretaries general including Mr Nandala Mafabi, the FDC Secretary General who was supposed to lead the IPOD team, met earlier in Jinja and agreed to meet the President.
“Honorable Nandala Mafabi who was supposed to lead the delegation and doubles as FDCs secretary general called me prior to the meeting and informed me of how he could not make it to the meeting because of trying to bail out his party members at Nakawa court including Ingrid Turinawe that were arrested earlier on after the Besigye trial in Nakawa court. He then asked me to lead the delegation on his behalf which I agreed to do,” Mr Nsubuga said.
The DP Secretary General pointed out a number of issues they discussed with the President, saying the delegation emphasized a detailed review on the just concluded elections, including transparency in the appointment of Commissioners of the Electoral Commission, press freedom and the methodical funding of political parties.
“Even though political parties are given funds by Parliament through the budget, the largest shares go to the ruling party since it has more members in parliament than any other party and the more members the more the funds, so there was need for a systematic way of distributing funds to promote equality,” Mr Nsubuga said said.
He further charged that the delegation told the President that the post-election period has been characterized by a number of arrests of the opposition members that include the former presidential flag bearer Colonel (rtd) Dr Kizza Besigye and the Nakawa Member of Parliament FDC’s Michael Kabaziguruka among others.
Another IPOD meeting is scheduled to take place in the first week of August, Mr Nsubuga said.
