THREE HOURS LATE: Where Exactly Was NUP MP Jimmy Kanaabi Coming from Instead of Prioritizing the Business of The Buikwe People?

By Mulengera Reporters

Jimmy Kanaabi is the MP Buikwe South in Buikwe district. Before becoming MP, he served for five years as the area LC5 Chairman. Carrying the NUP flag in 2026, he polled 23,053 votes defeating Michael Phillip Lulume Bayiga who was the incumbent. PFF’s Lulume polled 7,890 votes.

The race had other candidates including NRM’s David Mutebi (14,058 votes, Enoch Kaluuba (258), DP’s Christine Gloria Mugerwa Kasule (292) and Anthony Mukasa Harris who, despite being a former MP years ago, trailed with 143 votes.

Like any other MP of the 12^th Parliament, Kanaabi belongs to Committees of Parliament and one of these is that of Public Service & Local Government, which is ably chaired by Herbert Edmund Ariko.

On Tuesday, the Committee hosted a delegation from Uganda Local Government Finance Commission who were led by Vice Chairperson Mariam Nalubega. She represented her boss Isaac Musumba who is way for official leave. See more in this YouTube video by clicking on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzI4hsoFMAs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqEK0kMVplg.

The Commission is created under Article 193 of the Constitution and it among other things is mandated to advise the President on how financing can be mobilized to facilitate service delivery through local government units. The meeting reflected on many things including the human resource, revenue generation and funding constraints local governments continue to be faced with.

The Committee (which previously interacted with officials from ULGA, Ministries of Public Service & Local Government and will soon engage with the OAG) has 28 members and most of them were present for the Tuesday session which began shortly before 10am and went on towards 1:30pm as members prepared to go for plenary.

In his case, Hon Kanaabi came minutes to the end of the session. Looking physically and emotionally exhausted, the youthful legislator (who rarely talks in the House) staggered into the meeting room and sat at the extreme end of the long table, next to Jane Frances Amongin the Kaberamaido Woman MP.

In his hands, he carried a stripped purplish necktie which he said he was unable to tie and put on because he doesn’t know how. He bent over to people seated in the row behind where sat and whispered to a young lady, one of the Committee technical staff, to help him fix the same. “I personally don’t know how to tie it. Can you please help?” Kanaabi asked as the lady signaled ability to do what was being asked of her.

The neck tie was passed on to her as Kanaabi waited for the same to be worked on and returned to him. Because she had been busy moving up and down, the lady never worked on it promptly and that’s why Kanaabi stayed without his tie and gratefully, he was already casual smart enough even without wearing it.

After making general comments in response to the presentation that the LGFC officials had made prior, the Committee Chairperson Ariko signaled his Vice Chairperson Rose Obiga of Terego to say something, whereafter he signaled the rest of the MPs to say something too. Kanaabi gestured in a way that indicated to Ariko that he too wanted to say something.

Ariko hesitated to let him ask any question because, in his view, he had just entered and it was hard for someone who had missed so much to be able to ask any intelligible questions. He suggested that Jimmy Kanaabi just sits and listens to benefit from what colleagues had already asked, having been part of the meeting from the start. Kanaabi seemed to be okay with this arrangement. He calmly sat and followed proceedings while occasionally glancing at Tik Tok lives (off his smart phone) that were being relayed from NUP-affiliated comedian Kapere’s funeral.

Towards the end of the session, Ariko (fair-minded as always) called on Kanaabi to say something too making it clear it would be unfair for any of the people’s representatives to be gagged and prevented from saying something during the sitting of the Committee to which he or she is a member.

Kanaabi ended up inadvertently burning his fingers and it was clear it would have been better for him not to say anything. He demanded that the LGFC officials provide answers to questions that MPs had put to them during an earlier interface. These related to the Commission property (vehicles and laptops) which the Auditor General had flagged as missing and unaccounted for.

The matter had come up in a different Committee (PAC which is an accountability committee and not in Ariko’s Committee). Ariko appreciated the honorable for his questions and asked Mariam Nalubega, who led the LGFC delegation, to respond to them.

Leveraging on her experience as a former MP for 10 years (five as the National female youth MP and another five as Butambala Woman MP on the independent ticket), Nalubega said she was regretting to inform Hon Kanaabi that his questions couldn’t be answered because Ariko’s Committee was the wrong forum from where to discuss business and respond to questions that had been asked in a different Committee of Parliament.

This indeed was embarrassing but majority Committee MPs were modest and avoided saying anything that would make their already deflated colleague (Jimmy Kanaabi) to become even more uncomfortable. He somehow got away with it and better still, there weren’t many media cameras in the Committee.

As part of his question, Jimmy Kanaabi had also used the time given to her to explain why he came late for the session. That he had started from the Patrick Nsamba-led PAC Central where officials from Kiruddu Hospital had been in the hot seat for much of the morning. He said this is why he was late but he joked that this was good and beneficial to the Ariko Committee because members can benefit from the information and knowledge a member garners by attending such an accountability committee of Parliament. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).