The Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah and India’s Minister of State for External and Parliamentary Affairs, Hon Shri V. Muraleedharan have held discussions aimed at strengthening relations between the two Parliaments
In a meeting held on Friday, 12 November 2021, Oulanyah said the two Parliaments can cooperate in areas of training and benchmarking.
He said new legislators in the Uganda Parliament would benefit from training at the India Legislature on the best Parliamentary practices.
Oulanyah said there is need for exposure of the new MPs to a different environment to bring them up to speed with the ideal construct of their roles and dealing with Parliamentary procedures. “I look to revive the exchange support platform we had with the Parliament of India to help with capacity building of the Members. As a beneficiary, I speak on good authority that it is resourceful,” he said.
He added that benchmarking is an area of cooperation that needs to be exploited both by the Executive and Parliament.
“We have a brand new Parliament with only 115 incumbents out of 529 MPs, something that poses a challenge in many ways evidenced in the fact that we are expanding our Chamber to accommodate the big number,” the Speaker said.
Muraleedharan said that the two Parliaments have been working together and this has been strengthened by the high-level political visits between the two states.
“The cooperation between the Parliaments and the trainings will continue to exist and grow in all facets possible. I will therefore carry your suggestion with the Speaker of Parliament on this matter,” the Minister said.
Muraleedharan also invited the Speaker and MPs to attend the centenary celebrations of the Public Accounts Committee of India’s Parliament in December. Oulanyah confirmed attendance.
