By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
NATIONAL
The evil at the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting with the contenders of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) has been exposed.
Yesterday, the president who is also the National chairman of the NRM together with the members of the CEC held a long meeting with 130 candidates who had expressed interests in the NRM flag for the upcoming EALA elections as CEC battled to endorse only six candidates.
In what seemed to be a selection of suitable candidates however ended up becoming unfit as the party top leadership started courting some of the contestants bribing and inducing them with largesums of money and other gifts to withdraw from the race.
Anonymous source told this publication that some self-seeking aspirants accepted the bribe and announced they were withdrawing from the race while others who rejected to the offer were asked to wait on the CEC’s next move, probably another meeting to decide on their fate and endorse the recommended six candidates.
The meeting was closed at 10:00pm and all the members left the state house for home awaiting on the next call to endorse the six candidates. Over 50 candidates had allegedly received the inducements while others insisted on representation.
EXPOSURE
To the members consternation, few hours later they received notices that the CEC had redolved to maintain the incumbent MPs already at the Arusha parliament for a second term something that the candidates did not agree to in the meeting.
“Yesterday we were invited to meet His Exellency president and we met him at State House Entebbe and we just left around 10:00pm . They have persuaded some of us to leave the race for cash and other goodies and we refused. Some accepted. However, when we left CEC made a decision to maintain those MPS who are already in EALA for the second term,” anonymous
The source did not disclose the particulars of the people who accepted the bribe for citing security reasons but, added that they pocketed over Sh5 millions each.
Last evening, the NRM Secretary General Richard Todwong announced that CEC had endorsed the incumbent six EALA MPs for a second term to allow them complete their tenure.
Todwong noted that this was resolved after 63 candidates of the 130 candidates who had expressed interests in the positions and were in the meeting agreed to voluntarily withdraw from the race.
CEC “Hereby, recommends that the EALA members be maintained, in recognition of their exceptional performance, to continue their tenure for another term as members of the East African Legislative Assembly,” SG Todwong wrote.
The endorsed members are Rose Akol Okello, James Kakooza, Mary Mugyenyi, Paul Musamali, Dennis Namara and George Stephen Odong.
The names of the endorsed candidates have since been documented and will be forwarded to the speaker of parliament for the legislators to vote.
At least nine (9) candidates are required to represent Uganda to the EALA in Arusha Tanzania, six of whom are NRM membets while opposition political parties and independents form the remaining numbers.
Other candidates who have expressed interests in the EALA parliament include Harold Kaijja (FDC), Gerald Siranda (DP), Mohamad Katerega (JEEMA), Julius Buchana (indep), Moses Ntanda (Indep) among others.
