Cabinet reshuffle: Beatrice Anywar, Anita Among poised to make list

As President Museveni puts final touches to a new cabinet list, information emerging from the corridors of power indicates that two erstwhile opposition leaning MPs could make the final cut.

These are: Beatrice Anywar, the Kitgum municipality MP and Anita Among, the Bukedea Woman MP.

Museveni has traditionally reshuffled in the second year of his new term and sources within State House told Nile Post that the president is preparing to ring changes to his cabinet as he prepares for the next election.

A new cabinet list is expected before the end of July, sources said.

Anywar, a former Museveni critic who led protests against the giveaway of part of Mabira forest in 2008 for which she earned the moniker “Mama Mabira”, has lately become a key point person for the president.

A seasoned politician, Anywar denounced the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) in the run up to the 2016 elections, briefly embraced Amama Mbabazi’s Go Forward before finally gravitating towards Museveni and the NRM.

She currently serves as vice chairperson of the committee on Gender, Labour and Social Development, a position she was seconded to by the NRM in 2016.

Highly placed sources told The Nile Post that Museveni could appoint Anywar to the Environment docket although we could not readily establish whether she will serve as full minister or minister of state.

The docket is currently occupied by Sam Cheptoris, the MP for Kapchorwa municipality.

Over the last two years, Anywar has become closer to the NRM and President Museveni.  In July 2016, she told The Observer that if she were offered a cabinet post by Museveni, she would take it with both hands.

“In politics, we don’t have permanent friends and enemies. Somebody appointing you a minister does not mean that he has taken your brain away,” Anywar said candidly.

Anywar voted to remove the age-limit, a move that Museveni later lauded at a party he hosted for NRM legislators at State House after the passing of the bill.

President Museveni has also attended a number of functions in Anywar’s constituency, heaping praise on the MP and donating money to various interest groups there.

We have also been told that Mama Mabira now freely access the president and if you want to see Museveni, she could take you there faster than many senior NRM officials.

Now insider sources said this “loyalty” is likely to be rewarded with a cabinet appointment.

Anita Among

In the same vein, sources said Among is being considered for ministerial appointment. It is not clear which docket she will be given, sources told us.

Formerly the deputy treasurer of FDC, the Bukedea Woman MP has become one of the most powerful back benchers because she reportedly has unfettered access to President Museveni.

A politically shrewd operator, Among serves has vice chairperson of the Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE), a position she was seconded to by FDC.

Yet she has continuously voted with the NRM on contentious issues, including the removal of the age-limit in December 2017.

Like Anywar, Among has on more than one occasion brokered deals between opposition members and President Museveni.

For instance, when the president wanted to meet MPs from Kasese, angered by the raid on Omusinga Charles Wesley Mumbere’s palace and the subsequent arrest of the Rwenzururu king, it was Among who persuaded all FDC MPs to meet the president in January 2017.

She, indeed, accompanied them to Museveni’s farm at Kisozi in Gomba for the meeting.

She also hosted President Museveni at her thanksgiving party in Bukedea in 2016, and months later the president was back in Bukedea to attend her father’s last funeral rites.

“She is so powerful that even ministers bow to her,” one  of the MPs told The Nile Post.

This power could translate into a cabinet job, we have been told.

Sources have told us that other likely new appointments to cabinet include Raphael Magyezi, the Igara West MP who drafted the age-limit bill and Peter Ogwang, the youthful MP for Usuk county who serves as a commissioner for Parliament.