A number of Members of Parliament have been re-designated from the Public Accounts Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) to other sectoral committees following a directive by the Speaker, Anita Among.

According to Among, 50 percent of the newly designated legislators on COSASE missed a capacity development workshop organised by the Parliamentary Commission between 15 and 17 February 2024, without a satisfactory explanation.

“If we cannot be accountable ourselves, then why do we want to have other institutions accountable? Whatever payment we made as Parliament was a nugatory expenditure and based on that, I am going to ask the party whips to re-designate the members on the committee who did not attend the workshop,” Among said.

She gave the directive while chairing a plenary sitting on Tuesday, 20 February 2024.

The Speaker also tasked the Clerk to Parliament to initiate appropriate disciplinary proceedings on staff members who missed the training without satisfactory explanation, noting that nine out of 35 staff invited for the training did not attend.

The Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Joel Ssenyonyi, alluded to concerns raised by MPs on the low attendance of plenary sittings by ministers that has limited House business on a number of occasions.

“Madam Speaker, we have kept complaining; in fact, twice or thrice, you have adjourned the House because the front bench is vacant. I want to seek your indulgence that we see how we begin to crack the whip generally including for ministers,” said Ssenyonyi.

During the plenary sitting, the Government Chief Whip, the Dean of Independents and representative of the army in Parliament re-designated MPs as per the Speaker’s directive.