The Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga has revealed that 81 MPs have so far signed a motion seeking to censure security minister, Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi for allegedly abdicating responsibility in the face of alleged torture of Ugandans by security officers.
NRM Members of parliament have declined to append signatures on a planned censure motion against the security minister. No single NRM legislature has signed on the motion, five days after a list of members was put up in the office of the Sergeant at Arms.
On Thursday last week, NRM Chief Whip Thomas Tayebwa wrote to all NRM members of parliament urging them not to sign a censure motion against Jim Muhwezi.
In the opposition sponsored motion, Muhwezi is accused of abuse of office and misconduct for failing to stop several cases of detention without trial and torture of opposition supporters.
Acknowledging that torture is not part of government policy, Tayebwa informed NRM Legislators that the motion was ill-conceived and politically motivated to weaken the NRM Government and party, through blackmailing some of its senior and hardworking cadres.
Only 81 MPs have so far appended their signatures out of the 186 needed to move the motion onto the house order paper.
“In Modern democracy, whenever such motions are brought, someone holding a high public office, to avoid embarrassment, it is incumbent upon you to resign and set forth a precedent. This is alien to our executive,” Kioga North MP Okot Bitek says.
NRM has this arrogance of the majority. But a majority that does not act with sanity and soberness is just a mob,” Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze says.
If the motion is placed on the order paper, more than half of all members of Parliament, that is 278 of the 556 members must support it.
All opposition parties have only 109 members in the 10th parliament.
Mpuuga says the process of collecting signatures will be concluded on Thursday and is optimistic they will have raised the required number of 176.