Govt withdraws 36 agencies merger Bills

The irregularities relate to the certificate of financial implication without which the Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs last week said left the bills hanging and below standard.

PARLIAMENT | The government has withdrawn a whopping 36 bills of rationalisation of national agencies over irregularities in the due process of their tabling.

The irregularities relate to the certificate of financial implication without which the Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs last week said left the bills hanging and below standard.

The legislators faulted government for breaching Rule 76(1) of the Public Finance Act as none of the bills had certificate of financial implication with others having wrong titles.

During plenary on Tuesday, legislators told government that parliament will be setting wrong precedence to pass the bills in their format.

"The Omnibus Amendments of the Acts of parliament contravenes our Rules of Procedure and I don't know how this parliament will look in the eyes of law students who benchmark on our laws and we shall be setting a bad precedence," Ndorwa East MP Wilfred Niwagaba said.

Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda described the tabling of the Bills as "very gave serious matter" and challenged the Attorney General to tell Parliament that a Bill that was brought in that fashion will not have to be withdrawn.

"his is the precedence we're setting as parliament that they can throw documents and begin collecting them like they are doing now," Ssemujju, who also sits on the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs committee, said.

Last week, the committee threw out AG Kiryowa Kiwanuka, Justice minister Norbert Mao and Muruli Mukasa of public service of the irregularities in the Bills.

And during plenary on Tuesday, parliament had to remind government of Rule 76(1), which mandates for the presence of certificate of financial implication prior to introduction of the bill.

The rule calls for a certificate of financial implication when the bill is being introduced in parliament and members of parliament insisted that no way a certificate can be Amended until the bill has been introduced .

Legislators led by Jonathan Odur resolved that the government follows the proper procedure of processing the bills to avoid anomalies which had been red-flagged.

"Once a bill is referred to the committee, only the committee can bring it back through a report and it's my opinion, Madam Speaker, that such wonderful ideas of how these bills are handled are very ugly, deformed, defective," Odur, MP for Erute South, said.

He suggested the AG brought a "garbage truck to pick the bills."

Patrick Isiagi, of Kachumbala, said the government was putting Parliament at ransom.

"We are in a budget process and finance has not allocated money, why do you bury a person before he is dead?" Isiagi said. "Why is the Attorney General doing things in shadowy way."

AG Kiwanuka conceded and withdrew the bills "with defective certificate of financial implications".

By close of business on Tuesday, Parliament had only scrutinised three bills, which had certificate of financial implication. These are the Constitutional Amendment Bill, Karamoja Development Agency Bill, and the National Information Technology Authority Bill.

Among the bills that were withdrawn include the Education Amendment Bill 2024, Internal Affairs Amendment Bill 2024, National Resources and Environment Amendment Bill 2024, and Works and Transport Amendment Bill 2024.