By Mulengera Reporters
The just-ended NRM MPs Kyankwanzi retreat was infiltrated by more than 50 undercover political operatives and IOs whose duty it was to help gather intrusive personal information about the targeted new MPs’ suitability for inclusion in Cabinet.
The information gathered is meant to guide the ongoing vetting by the President who also took advantage of the several plenary sessions to do personal assessment of the individual MPs’ capabilities and limitations. As always, he carried his A4 notebook in which he kept noting down things as the newly elected legislators contributed during the different sessions.
The more than 50 undercover operatives kept retreating to the Kyankwanzi-based Green Lodge in turns to compare notes on the actionable intelligence that could have been gathered the previous day(s). The same would be consolidated into a comprehensive report for onward submission to the big man from Rwakitura who, given his busy schedule, was not able to personally attend each and every plenary session at Kyankwanzi.
Many of these IOs and political operatives were donned in attire that had the inscription ‘NALI staff.’ This ensured that MPs and other retreat participants easily disregarded them, taking them to be casual employees of the National Leadership Institute.
From their political intelligence briefs, the President was advised to help MPs reduce and overcome Cabinet-related hysteria or tensions and potential vulnerability/exploitation by the baferes (who tend to extort money from them while promising to lobby for one’s inclusion), by considering outing his new Cabinet list ahead of the 12th May swearing-in ceremony.
This is something he used to do before shifting to keeping the country guessing for long and taking his time up to towards end of July, before the new Ministerial re-deployments can be proclaimed. Sources say that this (having the cabinet list out before swearing) is something Gen Museveni is currently giving serious consideration to.
That he is sympathetic to especially new MPs whose naivety can easily be leveraged by Kampala-based baferes/power brokers who can go as far as manipulating new legislators to the point of taking a loan to pay them money, ostensibly to facilitate those lobbying for their inclusion in the new Cabinet.
The other reason being given to justify the need to have the new Cabinet list out before 12th May, as opposed to waiting up to July, is the need to end the attendant media speculation and let the very serious government service delivery work and execution of the 2026-2031 Manifesto work to begin real early without having to waste much time. There is also need to let go some in the old Cabinet, majority of whose members are evidently exhausted and need to be relieved to go into private life.
VETTING LIST:
This news website understands that those whose suitability for inclusion in the big man’s forthcoming Cabinet lineup is being vetted include Moses Byaruhanga, a long-serving political assistant to the President. Hailing from Bunyoro, Byaruhanga (arguably the most experienced and best networked regime ideologue) has been part of the Museveni innermost political universe since the late 1990s when he had just left University.
A very experienced political strategist Moses Byaruhanga to whom Gen Museveni is very grateful for helping him to re-organize and recapture a little bit of Kampala in such a short time. The same Byaruhanga also knows a lot about the President’s wealth creation interventions such as Emyooga, PDM and all the preceding ones. With this experience, he could be elevated to cabinet.
Another potential Cabinet-level inclusion is Desire Muhooza.While at Kyankwanzi she represented Gen Saleh when president Museveni was laying Gen Saleh institute’s foundation stone
Gen Salim Saleh’s daughter famously led the NRM campaign to exorcist NUP-ism out of Kiboga during the just-ended election season and she succeeded. More senior Movementists from Kiboga tried to frustrate her efforts but Muhooza (at whose instigation the likes of ex-district Chairman Siraje Kizito Nkugwa quit NUP and returned to NRM) overlooked such intrigue and kept her eyes on the ball.
In the end, the campaign teams she coordinated delivered victory for the President and for more than 80% of the other NRM candidates, to the detriment of the opposition NUP.
Last February, Moses Kigongo led a group of NRM officials including defence Minister Oboth-Oboth to celebrate her victory at Kiboga grounds where thousands turned up to declare their loyalty to the NRM revolution under Desire Muhooza’s leadership.
Both Kigongo and Oboth predicted bigger things for Muhooza and asked the people of Kiboga to solidly rally behind her and to never regret their decision to make her their MP.
Muhooza is vastly connected, being a member of the first family (Gen Saleh’s daughter), but she, ironically, is down to earth to the extent you can’t know of her powerful parental connections unless someone reveals it to you. She is clandestine in her operations and deliberately avoids the media limelight. She prefers that her actions speak for her record as opposed to engaging in self-praise.
At the Kiboga celebrations in February, Oboth and Hillary Onek revealed being aware of the very sensitive diplomatic assignments which Muhooza has over the years been undertaking for and on behalf of Generals Saleh and Museveni.
The outgoing Kampala state minister Kyofatogabye Kabuye is being vetted to replace Alice Kaboyo for the Luwero triangle docket. Madina Nsereko is being vetted to replace him at the Kampala Affairs Ministry and the only thing diminishing her suitability is the court case that was recently filed by NUP’s Fred Nyanzi challenging her Kawempe South MP victory.
Hajjat Minsa Kabanda is being considered for elevation to Presidency though even the incumbent Milly Babalanda remains appreciated for a job well done.
Kasambya MP David Kabanda is being marketed by members of a very strong lobby group to be considered for the position of State Minister for Sports, although Janet Kataha, the senior Minister there, remains very comfortable with the workaholic Peter Ogwang and wouldn’t want to see him taken away as the country counts down to the 2027 AFCON. Otherwise Kabanda is undisputedly a rising star given the fact that he is the Secretary General for PLU and given the big margin with which he won re-election as Kasambya County MP.
Notwithstanding the Catholic Church negativity and NUP/Rose Nalubowa Musajjakawa’s election petition challenging her EC declaration as the Woman MP-elect for Masaka City, the versatile Justin Namere is another new entrant seriously being vetted. Having opted to overlook all the hostility by NRM Masaka chairman Buregyeya, Museveni is open to deploying her either at fisheries or lands as one of the state ministers.
Being deployed to the Tourism docket is also a possibility as the appointing authority believes Namere can leverage her natural communication capabilities to globally market Uganda. The only negatives that are consistently being profiled about Namere by Mzee’s vetters is her belligerent character whereby she is one young lady who takes no prisoners-and will tell off anyone anywhere no matter who they are. It’s very concerning to the vetters that wherever she has worked, Namere picked quarrels with workmates and had acrimonious departures.
The fear is that the inclusion of such a person will only ferment, as opposed to deescalating, intrigue in Cabinet. Some Museveni advisors believe that Namere can do well replacing Balaam as Minister of youth and children affairs, as the very workaholic incumbent takes up the labor docket or that of information & ICT.
Aggrey Bagire, a long serving MP from Mayuge in Busoga, is being considered for redeployment as state minister to MAAIF where he served before as Minister and also as chairman of the now defunct NAADS.
Bagire is an agriculturalist by training and also practices the same trade in Busoga and Northern Uganda where he holds square miles of land on which he cultivates a lot of grain for which he is one of Uganda’s biggest exporters into South Sudan. He is a wealthy politician with demonstration farms back home in Busoga and his loyalty to Museveni and NRM is unquestionable. All these combine to make him the suitable cadre to fill the vacuum left by the Iganga/Kigulu North ouster of Bwino Kyakulaga.
Gen Museveni is obliged to reward Busoga because his electoral performance improved there, notwithstanding the original resentment the perceived mistreatment of Kadaga and Persis Namuganza had fermented among the ordinary people there.
From Kamuli, Buzaya’s Fred Muzaale and Bugabula North’s John Teira (who used to work at State House) are being vetted too. They are Kadaga loyalists who happen to enjoy organic support, just like their patron herself. And there is a high likelihood that one of them will be included, according to knowledgeable insiders.
Persis Namuganza, who is currently vying for Speakership even though she was able to bounce back as an independent after rogue-minded actors targeted her inside NRM internal elections, is being considered for elevation to full cabinet Minister with high chances of being deployed to head the Ministry of Kampala Metropolitan Affairs. She is a people-person who Gen Museveni believes can help advance the social justice causes (bread & butter issues) of the ordinary people in Uganda’s most urbanizing districts of Kampala, greater Mukono and Wakiso.
Eng Zadock Mutekanga, an effective mobilizer who defeated Buhweju County’s Francis Mwijukye who had been the lone opposition MP in Ankole since 2016, is also being vetted with a possibility of replacing Musa Ecweru as State Minister for Works.
Until he became the Buhweju MP-elect on Thursday 15th January, Eng Zadock had been running his road construction company based in Kyanja in Kampala’s Nakawa Division, while benefiting from the President’s generous intervention requiring government agencies to prioritize local contractors whenever it is practicable in order to give meaning to the ‘local content’ public procurement regulations.
Mpaka Mwine is being vetted too and accepted as due for cabinet level deployment except that his dad Afande Bright Rwamirama already serves in the same Cabinet. But since Uganda is increasingly moving into the post-shame era, Gen Museveni could surprise all of us by opting to have both father and son serve in the same Cabinet.
Mpaka’s selling points include being a morally upright person who can’t easily be corrupted; if the public record he demonstrated for the years, he headed Parliament’s Trade committee is anything to go by.
Having lived off government since leaving University (started out as youth MP defeating Henry Tumukunde’s son in 2016), Mpaka has also built profound understanding of how government works and Gen Museveni is convinced that he can do a very good in Cabinet just like Henry Musasizi (former chair of a related committee) has done-covering the ground for the evidently exhausted Matia Kasaija at the Finance Ministry. Mpaka could replace Evelyn Anite as State Minister in charge of investments & privatization.
Christopher Bakashaba, who flushed CEC member Mwesigwa Rukaari out of Mbarara City North, is another Cabinet-level prospect from that part of Ankole because whoever it turns out to be, Gen Museveni badly needs a young man for Cabinet-level deployment to embolden political mobilization of the young people in the fast-growing Mbarara City which over the past few years has been threatening to politically pivot towards Dr. Kizza Besigye and Bobi Wine-ism.
Making one of the MPs from there a Minister would amplify counter mobilisation to push back to ensure that the opposition doesn’t take firm root in Mbarara, which is in such close geographical proximity to Museveni’s backyard of Rwakitura.
Odrek Rwabwogo or whoever he recommends will most likely (all factors remaining constant) replace near-senile old man Francis Mwebesa for the Trade Ministry docket. Peruse through this link for our earlier reporting on Gen Museveni’s upcoming Cabinet: https://mulengeranews.com/katumba-wamala-tipped-to-replace-nabbanja-as-m7s-2026-2031-cabinet-lineup-takes-shape/. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
