Bugiri Municipality legislator, Asuman Basalirwa, has tabled the National Sports Bill, 2021 for its first reading.

The Private Member’s Bill was tabled on behalf of Budiope East County MP Moses Magogo during plenary sitting on Wednesday, 09 November 2022.

The bill seeks to repeal the National Council of Sports Act. Cap 48. The object of the bill is to consolidate and modernize the law relating to the incorporation and registration of national sports organisation and community sports clubs.

Further to that, the bill intends to provide for the management, promotion, development and regulation of professional, amateur and recreational sports in Uganda and to streamline the recreation, registration and management of national sports organisations and community sports.

Speaker Anita Among referred the bill to the Committee on Education and Sports.

Parliament deferred the first reading of the bill on 09 March 2022, with government arguing that there is a need for further consultations on the financial implication.

Magogo was scheduled to table the bill, but the then Government Chief Whip, Thomas Tayebwa, said that the bill had several connotations of financial implication which require co-sponsorship.

Attempts by the Minister of State for Sports, Peter Ogwang, to convince the House during the sitting of Wednesday, 09 November 2022 to heed the earlier position on harmonisation of the bill were futile.

“Procedure requires that before a bill is tabled, it has to go through Cabinet. Cabinet will approve the bill on Monday and it will be tabled. I request the House to permit that the consolidated bill is tabled after Cabinet approval,” Ogwang said.

Among, however, advised government to take over the bill at committee stage, if they feel the proposed law is not sufficient enough, citing a similar scenario in which government took over the Succession (Amendment) Bill, 2021 at committee stage.  

“We are bringing the bill in good faith, we are helping you to work. We cannot have a Bill laid and it takes eight months. Let us not deprive a private member of executing his constitutional mandate,” she said.  

The Speaker added that Parliament has a legislative agenda of 62 bills and yet not even a quarter of the bills have been handled.

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Experts from the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA) have called on government to offer free legal services to Ugandans, whose rights have been abused while on duty abroad.

CEPA proposes that since government collects revenue from exportation of domestic workers, part of the revenue should cater for legal aid.

“Many of our migrant workers have been sexually and physically harassed, others have been denied their pay, government should in such a case be able to assist them get justice and claim their payment,” said Brighten Abaho, Programme Associate at CEPA.

He was speaking before the Committee on Gender, Labour and Social Development on Wednesday, 09 November 2022, where he made submissions to the Employment (Amendment) Bill, 2022.

Abaho suggested that once the bill is passed, all bi-lateral agreements on labour export, should be reviewed and aligned with the law to rule out any grounds for exploitation as witnessed in several reports.

He further proposed an increment in penalties for Ugandan employers guilty of employee exploitation, cognisant that the existing ones in the principal act are not deterrent enough.

“We are talking about employee harassment, and the fine of not exceeding 42 currency points an equivalent of Shs 840,000 is not deterrent enough. We propose an increment to 200 currency points for anyone who mistreats employees,” said Abaho

CEPA also wants the Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development to update Parliament on external labour quarterly.

The committee chairperson, Flavia Kabahenda, said the US$30 charged for every domestic worker abroad does not reach the gender ministry to be able to assist migrant workers.  “The ministry lacks money to monitor the sector, all the money goes through Uganda Revenue Authority to the Consolidated Fund to do other things,” said Kabahenda.

Workers’ MP Margaret Rwabushaija, said there was need for government to pay attention to the deteriorating relationship between Uganda and countries where it exports labour.

“Where things are going, the Arab world is getting afraid of us. Even our committee which was about to go for oversight has been blocked,” said Rwabushaija. She called on government to open up to other countries for labour export.

Fellow Workers MP, Charles Bakkabulindi, was concerned that the proposed increase in penalties may not be the solution to labour exploitation and suggested strengthening of law enforcement.

“People know how to evade such fines. Therefore, the law enforcement should be the focus, hiking the penalty to so many years, or so many million shillings may not help,” Bakkabulindi said.

The committee has commenced receiving submissions from stakeholders over the Employment (Amendment) Bill, 2022.

The bill seeks to regulate employment of domestic and casual workers so as to improve their working conditions. It provides for compulsory registration and licensing of recruitment agencies for domestic workers and non-manual labourers.

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The Committee on Public Accounts – Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) has commenced inquiries into audit queries on the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), with virements and reallocation of employee costs.

First was on a reallocation of Shs58 billion as virements- the permission given to accounting officers under the Public Finance Management Act, subject to the approval by the Secretary to Treasury, to move money from one budget line to another.  

UNRA Executive Director, Allen Kagina offered a response, saying the problem is the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) given to them by the Finance Ministry, based on which they sign contracts with contractors for the construction of roads, and later hit a snag with delayed or even no payments at all.

This, said Kagina, is responsible for the persistent indebtedness in which UNRA is entangled each financial year, and said the solution lies in putting a halt to new projects until current ones are completed.

“If all the money is not released, the debt will accrue; the solution is to either pay all the debt, which hasn’t been done or stop constructing new roads until we finish the ones we have started,” she said.

Mawokota South MP Yusuf Nsibambi had earlier placed the blame on UNRA officials, whom he said are not bold enough to reject the conceptualization of new projects before completing ones they have started.

“How much do you push [against the commencement of new projects] because I don’t see any fault on your part, but you are also playing politics; you create the impression that you are going to construct roads, you assemble equipment, you mobilise contractors, whereas not,” he said.

Committee Chairperson, Joel Ssenyonyi offered Parliament’s support. “If UNRA is having challenges, we want to see how we assist you to solve the challenges,” he said, in reference to the financing challenges.

MPs then moved to the query highlighted by the Auditor General, John Muwanga, as ‘diversion of funds for employee costs’.

The Auditor General said that, ‘the accounting officer reported to have spent Shs98.3 billion on employee costs. However, the review of the payments file indicated that out of the above amount, actual expenditure on salaries and related costs was Shs93.7 billion; the rest of the salary funds amounting to Shs4.6 billion were actually spent on settlement of civil works obligations’.
 
MPs have now tasked UNRA officials to present detailed accountability of the Shs4.6 billion and the list of projects to which it was diverted.

In the audit report, UNRA’s accounting officer had explained that the balance was occasioned by a botched recruitment plan, following a government directive to freeze hiring new staff due to planned restructuring and layoffs.

The inquiry continues tomorrow, Thursday, 10 November  2022.

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