Special seat legislators need to attend district council meetings

WHAT HAD TRANSPIRED IN PARLIAMENT LAST WEEK DURING QUESTIONS AND ANSWER SESSION:

A special seat legislator has called on the review of a law that would enable fellow appointed legislators in the country be in a position to attend financial committee meetings which are being organized by district council authorities in areas of their representation. The call was raised by special seat Taska Restitula Mbogo (CCM) who wanted to know why in these councils’ financial committee meetings their presence is always uncalled for and yet they serve as Members of Parliament like those chosen by the people. Responding to this query, the deputy minister of State in President’s Office responsible for Local Government and Regional Administration Josephat Kakunda said that, special seat legislators are not among the members selected by ward councilors in a respective district council in the country. 

However, he noted that, this is because of the clause in financial law which does not recognize their presence in these important financial committee meetings organized by the councils. The deputy minister has pledged to bring in parliament the bill so that it should be amended according to the parliamentary procedures so that all special seats legislators would now have the opportunity to attend such financial committee meetings organized by district councils. In addition to the question, a supplementary question was also raised by another special seat legislator Catherine Magige (CCM) who also intervened with an idea of requesting the speaker of the National Assembly to think of paying a constituency fund to special seat legislators. However, she continued as saying that, special seat legislator are also capable of convening public rallies in areas of their representations according to the law.