{President Museveni will meet the legal costs of NRM MPs who are facing petitions challenging their election.}<\/p>\n
The move is intended to facilitate legal teams for the embattled MPs and save the party from potential by-elections in which it has a record of awful performance.<\/p>\n
During a Caucus meeting of NRM MPs at State House on Friday, Government Chief Whip Ruth Nankabirwa told the President that the party may lose seats in the 10th Parliament if he does not come to the financial rescue of those battling petitions in courts.<\/p>\n
Mr Museveni subsequently directed the party secretary general, Ms Kasule Lumumba, to compile a list of NRM MPs with petitions in court and compile a budget of the financial requirements. More than 40 NRM MPs are defending their seats in court.<\/p>\n
As the party was mulling over the proposal on Friday, NRM\u2019s Busiro South MP Peter Sematimba was kicked out of Parliament after High Court ruled that he lacked the minimum academic qualifications for an MP. According to sources who attended the Caucus meeting, the members also resolved to initiate an arbitration process between NRM-leaning independents like Kabakumba Matsiko, who have filed petitions against official party MPs. Kabakumba is challenging the election of NRM\u2019s Ernest Kiiza for Masindi Municipality seat.<\/p>\n
Ms Nakanbirwa yesterday confirmed the President\u2019s pledge to bail out MPs on petitions but declined to divulge further details, saying her office was still compiling the list. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was reminding the President of what he promised, to help MPs who were flag bearers of the party but are facing petitions in court. Our numbers in Parliament may diminish if we keep on losing cases and by-elections are more [politically] costly,\u201d Ms Nankabirwa said.<\/p>\n
At the same Caucus meeting, MPs expressed misgivings about the Cabinet line-up announced on Monday.<\/p>\n
{{Banyoro on key cabinet position}}<\/p>\n
Buyaga West MP Barnabas Tinkasiimire said Bunyoro is not happy with the removal of 88-year-old Henry Muganwa Kajura as Deputy Prime Minister and not replacing him with another from the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI only delivered a message from the Banyoro who are saying that they have been having a deputy Prime Minister and that is what they want. I know it is his prerogative to appoint Cabinet but this is the demand from the people who elected him,\u201d Mr Tinkasimiire said in an interview yesterday.<\/p>\n
Lango NRM MPs voiced similar frustration that the President side-stepped them and appointed UPC\u2019s Oyam County South MP Betty Amongi as Lands Minister.
\nKaramoja MPs raised similar issues complaining about the transfer of First Lady Janet Museveni from the Karamoja Affairs position and replacing her with John Byabagambi. Ms Janet was appointed minister of Education and Sports in the new cabinet.<\/p>\n
Mr Museveni promised to meet the grumbling MPs and explain how he selected the Cabinet.<\/p>\n
However, NRM\u2019s Nankabirwa said: \u201cWhat is happening happens all the time the President names Cabinet. It is next to impossible to satisfy everyone. There will always be a section of people that is complaining. We just need to sensitise our people that there are many positions which are equally important as Cabinet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{President Museveni will meet the legal costs of NRM MPs who are facing petitions challenging their election.} The move is intended to facilitate legal teams for the embattled MPs and save the party from potential by-elections in which it has a record of awful performance. During a Caucus meeting of NRM MPs at State House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[99],"byline":[2481],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-monitor"],"bylines":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2481,"name":"DAILY MONITOR","slug":"daily-monitor","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26011"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26011"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}