By Mulengera Reporters
Through his Vice President Jessica Alupo, President Museveni used the Monday cabinet meeting to direct trade minister David Bahati to stop usurping the work of Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja and always consult or seek guidance before making public pronouncements.
Gen Museveni, who attended the morning part and left, was unhappy with Bahati’s announcement in Parliament last week halting the ongoing enforcement operations aimed at streamlining the trading order across the country. This has taken the form of petty traders being pushed out of the road reserves and other forms of public property or public spaces from where they have been informally operating. Churches built without land titles, in swamps and without the relevant approvals too have to be targeted and razed to the ground.
In the presence of Nabbanja, Bahati (a senior minister with a lot of state house connections) was asked to explain who mandated and authorized him to make such a pronouncement. He was asked to stop doing that and to find a way of walking back his pronouncement, which risks portraying the Museveni government as confused and indecisive. In self-defense, he said he sat with a few Ministers and they agreed to call off the operation because of the haphazard manner in which it was being executed.
The cabinet members present unanimously agreed that the enforcement operations must go on in all towns of Uganda, including upcountry ones but that the local government ministries must intensify sensitization Baraza sessions to sensitize the petty traders as to why the enforcement operations are necessary.
Speaking on the President’s behalf, Alupo directed all ministers to first seek guidance of the President or prime minister before making such consequential pronouncements on government policy. Sources at the meeting say that Bahati (whose views were opposed by a group of senior ministers led by AG Kiwanuka Kiryowa who insisted that the streets must be cleaned up) left the meeting looked deflated and crashed.
And fellow ministers were told to learn from his example and avoid engaging in actions or making pronouncements that risk portraying any of them as trying to usurp the Prime Minister’s powers. This information was corroborated by the multiple cabinet sources this news website spoke to about the proceedings at the Monday cabinet meeting. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
