ANALYSIS: Race for EALA seats

“The Museveni regime has made leadership look like it is there for anyone to be appointed to Cabinet or ambassadorships,” he said, “The standard has been set so low, anyone can just be appointed to anything. Today loyalty is at the forefront of a cabinet appointment, we have to deal with this decisively.”

Apart from this he faults what he says has become a political culture, where politics is now no longer a calling but a place where people can go seeking for a job.

“In a healthy economy, a teacher and a doctor should be able to go about their work motivated but people are quitting these professions to rush for parliament because there you will earn Shs20m,” Muntu says, “That impacts negatively on the capabilities of people and the entire nation.”

Muntu says that Uganda needs a team of people who understand these challenges and are committed to ensuring an environment where there is innovation, transparency, holding people to account and a proper management of the economy to spur healthy growth.

“With this,” he says, “people will refocus and not think about money when they are joining politics.”

But Shem Bageine a former Minister of State for East African Affairs is not particularly concerned about the calibre of representatives at EALA because he says this doesn’t affect the quality of legislation.

Bills are presented by a Council of Ministers and when legislators come up with private members bills, they have to be in consonance with the EAC treaty.

Bageine also says that when protocols are signed by the partner states, they have to be brought back to EALA for legal backing.

“For example in 2013 we had the Monetary Union protocol but it had to be enforceable after it was presented to EALA,” Bageine says, “They worked on several issues like East Africa Statistics Bureau for standardised data collection, a financial services commission, East Africa Swahili commission, non-tariff barriers, security matters.”

Bageine says that what some people call low calibre is an issue of personality. “The current Speaker is doing an excellent job,” he said, “The approach to work is what brought down the previous Speaker”.

Another former EALA member, Irene Ovonji, gave a perspective of what it means to be a representative there.

Ovonji said that at the regional parliament, legislators deal with challenges of globalisation.

Odida says initially most of the engagements they had were business oriented involving big businesses and her and colleagues tried to make it more inclusive.

“The negotiations were being led by East Africa Business Council and you would hardly see trade unions, civil society so we lobbied partner states for the treaty to be a development treaty where all these interests would be catered for,” she said, “We advocated for chapters on women empowerment, NGOs in the new treaty and many other interest groups to make it look wholly representative. Turning the treaty into a development-orinted one was fundamental to some of us.”

She adds that EALA members should also strive to connect EALA to a Pan African Parliament by bringing their agendas together. “All these regional blocs should be about more cohesion but our national politics are now entering,” Odida said, “We need technical expertise, trade and integration to be emphasised. If we send cadres we will lose out.”

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editor@independent.co.ug