By Mulengera Reporters
On Wednesday, Uganda’s current Solicitor General Pius Perry Biribonwoha was among those who spoke and presented papers at the ongoing Cabinet retreat at Kyankwanzi, where the Permanent Secretaries and accounting officers are equally in attendance.
Biribonwoha, who has been in charge since October 2024 when the President appointed him to replace Francis Atooke, candidly spoke to Ministers about many things including the enormous powers the Permanent Secretaries hold under the laws of Uganda regarding key decision making and when it comes to getting things done in the daily running of their respective Ministries. He was clear on things the law strictly prohibits Ministers, as political leaders, from indulging themselves in doing at their respective dockets.
This displeased many Ministers and indeed during plenary Biribonwoha faced a barrage of hostile and belligerent questioning against which not even the VP Jessica Alupo and PM Robinah Nabbanja, who were the biggest political leaders during the session, in the absence of the President, could shield him. His submissions were apparently misunderstood and many Ministers perceived him as someone out to embolden the PSs to trim and even disregard them going forward.
During the same retreat, Nabbanja had casually registered her displeasure with the Head Public Service Lucy Nakyobe (also Secretary to Cabinet), accusing her of over pampering and emboldening the PSs and nonpolitical technocrats at the Ministries, while exaggerating their importance in the running of the government business at the respective Ministries.
That notwithstanding, Nakyobe received a lot of kudos at the retreat as members unanimously clapped as Ann Muhairwe who represented the IGG praised her for raising the standards and quality of the public/civil service the country currently has. Even Speaker Oboth-Oboth, speaking during the same afternoon, equally made complementary comments about Lucy Nakyobe’s work ethic.
During the same retreat, the officials from the IG who were led by Ann Muhairwe, one of Justice Aisha Batala Naluzze’s deputies, cautioned Ministers against indulgence in ultra vires actions while advising them to strictly stick to doing what the law permits them to do. They were told that way, they are able to avoid landing into problems with the ombudsman.
Nabbanja used the occasion to demand to know why the OPM officials recently arrested from the Refuge department were exposed in the media by the IG’s own media team which reported the news and splashed their faces on X yet these are mere suspects. She casually demanded to know why the IG now wants to compete with paparazzi’s instead of sticking to their core mandate.
Vice President Jessica Alupo also asked a question as to why there are many rogue-minded investigators at the Inspectorate. She gave instances were such individual investigators have acted crudely including being compromised to give whistle blowers’ information and their identity to the very perceived corrupt superiors they are whistle blowing or complaining about in the first place.
Instead of being defensive or dismissive, Ann Muhairwe gave a long detailed answer making it clear they have a zero tolerance policy against such rogue actions and whoever gets reported is thoroughly investigated and sanctioned, once his or her culpability has been established. She also spoke about rogue-mindedness being indicative of the larger moral degeneration problem for Uganda, and not merely for the Inspectorate.
She illustrated how the people the IG recruits to work for them as investigators etc are drawn from the larger Ugandan society from which all the other terrible characters, working elsewhere at other public entities, originate. She called for collective efforts so that the struggle to have Ugandans’ morals rehabilitated can be as inclusive of everybody else as possible. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
