By Our Reporters
In a phone call, FDC party president Patrick Oboi Amuriat (POA) was hesitant to dismiss reports that close to 20 MPs (out of the less than 40) the FDC has in Parliament have turned their back on him and ordered the accounts department of Parliament to stop remitting their monthly cash contribution to Najjanankumbi. Each MP makes a monthly contribution of Shs500,000 towards the running of party activities. However, since the November Delegates Conference, many of the MPs haven’t been enthusiastic about the leading opposition party largely because they failed to convince delegates to vote their candidate Gen Mugisha Muntu who lost to the much underestimated POA. Consequently, the disgruntled MPs have been involved in a range of inadvertent defiance activities meant to cripple and demonize new Party President POA. They have for instance actively been participating-and even funding-the ongoing consultations Gen Muntu has been holding across the country. We are told the pro-Muntu MPs have been individually reaching out to the Parliament Accountant directing stoppage of the monthly deductions towards the party. “We have contributed enough because at the start we were contributing to buy the party headquarters which we completed. Now what is the reason to continue making this contribution? In fact I rather save that money and begin contributing towards the rent payment of Muntu’s party offices in Bukoto than continuing to fund FDC,” one of the aggrieved MP confided in Mulengera news website. “I’m not comfortable being on record at this time but at an appropriate moment, we shall come out as a group and explain our position.” We separately spoke to a few other FDC MPs who confirmed feeling the same way adding they were in the process of stopping monthly contributions. The MPs largely fear dealing with the anxiety that would result from publicly being seen by the voters to be defying the party on whose ticket they were elected in February 2016.
POA SPEAKS OUT:
We rung POA to verify this story and asked him if he would confirm all his MPs had made their monthly contribution for January. This is how he cautiously answered: “That is a matter of Parliament because that is where the money is deducted from but as to whether they have suspended those monthly payments, I’m not yet aware of that information.” Unable to clearly deny the story, POA then changed his narrative and said: “I think you are talking to a wrong person. I’m the President of FDC and the President doesn’t get involved in financial matters. The best person you should ask is the Treasurer General or the Secretary General. As president, I just receive papers and chair meetings. I don’t handle money. I chair meetings for the different organs of the party. And by the way our finances are confidential and aren’t supposed to be discussed with the media.”
PROGRESS ON MUNTU PARTY:
In a related development, progress has continued to be quietly made on the process for Gen Muntu to de-camp from FDC and form his own party. We have reliably learnt that whereas Muntu is busy moving across the country collecting views from FDC members, a small secretive committee of senior officials who happen to be his sympathizers is carrying on with the relevant preparations and paper work. “There is a team in place holding meetings to finalize on the party name, logo and the colors,” said a source very close to Gen Muntu’s scheme of things. Courtesy of the same source, we got the opportunity to look at the proposed logo that is shrouded in colors of pale yellow and green with a small white-ish circular thing in the middle. Muntu’s taskforce is also already operating an office in the Bukoto neighborhood not very far from Kabira Country Club. On the status of this house, sources differed. Whereas one source told us the group needs to raise monthly rent the very reason why MPs want to re-channel their monthly pay, another source braggingly said “rent isn’t a problem at all because that house was actually donated to us for this purpose by a sympathizer who isn’t expecting any rent from us.” The source likened this apolitical sympathizer to what Garuga Musinguzi was at the inception of FDC. Garuga donated his Najjanankumbi House and merely required the party to gradually pay the purchase price. These same sources say that besides the 20-something disgruntled FDC MPs, Gen Muntu is counting on a big group of liberal-minded cadres that he hopes will de-camp from NRM the way the PAFO core comprised of defectors from NRM. Our efforts to speak to either Treasurer Geoffrey Ekanya or SG Nandala Mafabi, as advised by POA, were unsuccessful as the two officials never answered their phone calls. In a related development, unverified reports indicated by press time that Winnie Kiiza the LoP had indicated to POA that she was prepared for anything including being asked to hand over to the new LoP who some say might end up being Kaps Fungaroo. Watch this space for more details.
