KAMPALA – The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah has instructed parliament’s legal team to extract the Hansard and examine the discrepancies in the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Act as amended in December 2019 that new provisions were smuggled into the Act without the knowledge of Parliament.
The directive followed a complaint by Betty Nambooze (Mukono Municipality) who pointed out a number of provisions that had been smuggled into the final Act assented to by President Yoweri Museveni, remarking that the changes mean that the Bill that was passed into law by Parliament is different from the Act that was signed by the President.
She explained, “That never at any one time when we were debating the amendment of the KCCA Act did this house consider anything to do with the metropolitan police. However, in the gazetted law there is a clause that talks about the metropolitan police and the same was drawn into the amendment as one of the matters handled in this house.”
Nambooze pointed out a number of discrepancies including the metropolitan police which was never considered in the amendments as well as the establishment of the Metropolitan Physical Planning Authority a provision that was furiously rejected by Parliament but shockingly made its way to the Act assented to by President Museveni.
“When this Parliament sat to consider the KCCA Amendment Act, the house unanimously rejected the idea of the metropolitan physical planning authority and recommended the deletion of section 21 that talked about the same. When you look at the law that was assented to by the President and gazetted it provides for the metropolitan physical planning authority that is to be coordinated by the Kampala minister,” explained Nambooze.
The Mukono Municipality MP who also doubles as Shadow Minister of Kampala Capital City Authority & Information noted that the inconsistencies in the final text are misrepresenting Parliament and kills the spirit in which the law was brought before Parliament for amendment.
Deputy Speaker Oulanyah instructed the legal and legislative department at Parliament to extract the hansard and compare it with the final Act pointing out that as the constitution stands, it is only courts of law that can reverse decisions made by Parliament.
Oulanyah remarked, “That one we always handle it at the Acts of Parliament’s Act which makes provisions on how we make corrections and therefore, I am instructing General Council-Office of Legal and Legislative Affairs to look at the handsard and look at the text the President has assented to and if there are variances, we see how to harmonise them because there are mechanisms for dealing with this.”
