Several Shadow Cabinet ministers have gone into hiding from the prescripts of Parliament after failing to defend their Alternative Policy Statements, Entebbe Post has learned.
Some of the shadow cabinet ministers who went into hiding include Mityana Municipality MP Francis Zaake who acts as the Shadow Minister for the Presidency, Makinde East’s Derrick Nyeko, the Shadow Defense Minister and Nakawa’s Ronald Balimwezo who is the Shadow Minister for Kampala (KCCA).
The three were supposed to present the Alternative Policy Statements before the Alex Byarugaba led Committee for the Presidency and the Wilson Kajwengye led Defense and Internal Affairs Committee.
According to inside sources at Parliament, the three defend the Alternative Policy Statements for the Ministries that they presented before the full house in the different specific committees.
However, the three had to present before Friday. By the time they were invited, Nyeko (Defense Shadow Minister) lied that he had traveled abroad while Zaake and Balimwezo said they were too busy to attend to the Committees
“We wonder how they will have such Statements incorporated into the upcoming budget when they fail to defend them. We shall now consider them useless,” a clerk to one of the Committees told this website.
It has been established that the Shadow cabinet introduced alternative budget framework documents that they never agreed upon since the shadow cabinet never discussed them.
“Even other Shadow Ministers, including the Leader of the Opposition evade, joining the processes to formulate the Alternative ideas and only come to Parliament to read what we prepare for them. I wonder if we were not trusted enough and we offer wrong work for them to read. How would this country feel. They do not offer time to the work they are supposed to do.” A source who engaged in the budget processes told this website.
This website also understands that the well as the Shadow Cabinet Minister for ICT Helen Nakimuli attended the committee. She was not cognizant of the Alternative Policy Statement on ICT she read before the full house.
“She ended up failing to understand ICT even when she read a statement. In committees, we go beyond reading what has been written to us. We also engage in asking questions for the line Minister to clearly give an overview of what the Alternative Ministry really wants. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that,” one of the members of the committee told this website.
It has also been established that the Leader of the Opposition Joel Ssenyonyi, despite having a Ugx 56 trillion budget, did not know the rightful figures of the National Budget submitted by Government. Ssenyonyi, in his submissions while reading the Alternative Budget, said Government drew a Ugx 66 trillion budget instead of a Ugx 72 trillion budget.
I saw it longtime ago that opposition in lead NUP can not lead Uganda