The National Resistance Movement (NRM) has strengthened its footprints on the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee after six Members of Parliament were designated to the committee.
Ruth Nankabirwa, Government Chief Whip took to the floor to designate new MPs to their respective committees, where the legal committee took the lion share.
The new members Robert Kasule Ssebunya, Prossy Akampulira, Taban Idi Amin, Rose Akello Lily, Asinde Suubi and Carolyn Kamusiime.
The new development follows an outcry made by Raphael Magyezi, the Igara West MP last month, where he accused the committee members of being biased against his bill and demanded to have the committee reconstituted.
At the start of scrutinising the Constitutional Amendment Bill No.2 of 2017, the legal committee comprised of 23 members, with the NRM having the majority of 13 MPs. Independents were second with six members while the Democratic Party and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) had two MPs each.
Nankabirwa’s move rubbed FDC strongman, Opposition Chief Whip Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, the wrong way, prompting him to stand up in protest, demanding to know if Nankabirwa was in order to change the composition of the Committee just to get support of the controversial Presidential Age Limit Bill, yet the Speaker Rebecca Kadaga made an undertaking not to have the Committee composition changed.
Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, who was chairing the plenary sitting, told Ssemujju that the new members came to parliament as a result of by elections and have rights to belong to committees like all their colleagues.
“There is nothing irregular about what Nankabirwa did,” Oulanyah said.
