By Mulengera Reporters
During the recently concluded Cabinet retreat at Kyankwanzi, tempers at some point flared-chiefly deriving from a belligerent exchange that happened between the Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja and Secretary to Cabinet Lucy Nakyobe who heads both the Cabinet Secretariat and public service.
Nabbanja hadn’t liked the contents of the presentation that was made by the Solicitor General Pius Perry Biribonwoha and she was angry at the Cabinet Secretariat, the organizers and conveners of the retreat, for bringing such a provocative presenter.
In his paper, Biribonwoha cited legal and constitutional provisions which show the extent to which Minister’s powers are limited when it comes to influencing decisions relating to procurement, contracting and recruitment of staff at their respective Ministries.
Even when such presentations by the Solicitor General had always been given at Cabinet retreats since the days of Biribonwoha’s predecessors, his presentation was resented and declared controversial by majority Ministers at the 2026 retreat. A good number of the Ministers are young and new which is why at some point they demanded that all PSs line up infront and briefly introduce themselves.
There was a plenary session to discuss, ask questions and generally give feedback on Biribonwoha’s presentation. This was when Ministers vented anger and poured out their hearts. Leading the charge was Balaam Barugahara and his State Minister Justin Nameere who said she was already feeling suffocated on realizing how powerful the PSs and other members of the technical wing are. Nameere, whose talking points were parroted by many subsequent speakers, went as far as questioning what people were going to be Ministers for since it was clear from the Solicitor Generals’ paper that all the power belongs to the PSs.
Robinah Nabbanja also spoke and was the most forceful and controversial in her submission. She said she had always felt uncomfortable with too much powers being placed in the hands of PSs and said now was the perfect opportunity for her to directly register her concerns in the presence of Nakyobe, the Head of Public Service, who she faulted for always defending technocrats at Ministries. She said many things, moreover in a belligerent voice, that some people at the retreat perceived her submission as a personal attack on the much revered Nakyobe.
In the end, Nakyobe in her capacity as the chief organizer of the retreat, many of whose sessions the President missed as he had to be away to attend to other national matters, made it clear it was time for the gloves to come off. The Nabbanja unwarranted fire had to be answered with fire. In a raised voice, Nakyobe said it was in order to abruptly end the retreat since the political leaders didn’t seem to understand the spirit of the contents of Biribonwoha’s paper.
She said she was appalled to realize that there was no chance to find common ground on this issue, having seen the vehemence with which the Prime Minister, the head prefect of Cabinet, had made her point. She insisted the retreat must come to an end prematurely since there was no need to continue with something some of the political leaders were perceiving to a be a conspiracy to undermine them by denying them chance to exercise power. There was pandemonium as Nakyobe seemed determined to escalate the whole thing in order to demonstrate her credentials as a powerful and highly credentialed retreat convener who didn’t give a damn about answering Nabbanja’s fire with fire.
ALUPO INTERVENES:
It took the intervention of Vice President Jessica Alupo, who has always portrayed herself as being the adult in the room in such explosive Cabinet moments along with Katumba Wamala, to calm down tempers between the PM and Nakyobe.
Calm as always, Alupo explained how there was nothing belittling or deceptive that Biribonwoha said. Having joined Cabinet in the late 2000s as State Minister at Gender in charge of youths, Alupo said she had been to many such new cabinet induction retreats and that in her view there was nothing wrong or unpalatable that Biribonwoha said. She made it clear the same was exactly what his predecessors-namely Lucien Tibaruha and Francis Itooke-said at all previous cabinet induction retreats.
She said she admits that having a bad and disrespectful PS can mess up the whole Ministry and make the Minister(s) look bad and ugly but having a poor understanding Minister can equally lead to bad outcomes. She also asserted that some PSs can be awry bad. She said the law provides as Biribonwoha articulated but strictly adhering to it can’t be enough. She explained that at the end of the day, it’s the personality and individual character of the Minister or PS that makes the difference.
She called upon fellow Ministers or Cabinet members to find a way of having deferential and complementary working relationships with their PSs; making it clear both of them look bad, incompetent and lose out in case of tensions arising from a toxic relationship. In the end, she insisted the two sides must always be deliberate about working towards finding common ground.
Alupo, who was praised for deescalating the whole thing to the extent that by the time she finished her submission both Nakyobe and Nabbanja had become relaxed and smiling, completed with sharing a personal lived experience. She made deferential reference to Ms Christine Kintu Guwatudde, the first PS she worked with at Gender when still a young lady who had just been made Minister in charge of youths and children affairs. She said Guwatudde was seasoned, mature and parental to the extent that she helped Ministers to have a good relationship. She said she was a mentor from whom she, as a young Minister, learnt many good things.
She contrasted that with the PS she had at the Ministry of Education where she was elevated to full cabinet Minister and deployed after the 2011 elections. Without naming the PS, Alupo said she felt comfortable sharing on the contrast since the PS who made her life hell wasn’t present at the retreat (this was being polite because the truth is that PS was present and has since been deployed to a smaller and less demanding docket because of her complicated character).
Alupo said on arrival at Education, where she replaced Namirembe Bitamazire, she landed in the hands of a very good PS-FX Lubanga from whom she learnt a lot as a younger Minister. That Lubanga helped her harness all the good stuff she had learnt from Guwatudde at the Gender Ministry. The Vice President said when it was time for Lubanga to exit, the President contacted her to consult if she was prepared to work with the new PS he intended to send to replace Lubanga. She thrice, after consulting, implored the President not to but in the end, fearing to be misunderstood, she told the HE it was okay and that she was ready to work with whoever the appointing authority deploys.
In the end, her fears were validated when that female PS turned out to be the hell she had been notified she was going to be. Alupo said all the Ministry business got paralyzed for all those years and things would only work out and some progress gets to be made when the complicated PS had travelled abroad and was out of station for someone else to act. Alupo spoke of other civil servants at the Ministry frequenting her office as the Minister to have real crying sessions as they prayed to God to prevail on the President to have the bad PS transferred away some day.
By the time the VP completed her submission both Ministers and PSs had understood the dangers of being a bad-mannered person and the need to understand each other and always work towards finding common ground regardless of what the legal provisions say. She explained it’s not true that Biribonwoha’s presentation was full of prohibitions aimed at turning them into lame duck Ministers.
Alupo also advised that Ministers can point out areas of the law which they think need revision and amendment in case they feel unduly constrained as opposed to being angry at the Solicitor General. To her credit, Alupo opted for a consultative approach and put together a Committee of senior cabinet colleagues (Prof Ephraim Kamuntu, Henry Tumukunde, Jim Muhwezi, Kiwanuka Kiryowa, Sam Mayanja and a few others) who she summoned/hosted at the VP’s Kyankwanzi pent house to try and come up with a more harmonized position to create better understanding of the situation.
And that is how common ground of some sort was established and the retreat carried on to the harmonious ending as opposed to the chaotic premature ending many had feared following the bitter exchange between Lucy Nakyobe and Robinah Nabbanja (who during the same retreat also complained about the IGG over publicizing her work against civil servants perceived to be corrupt). (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
