Africa-Press – Uganda. The Opposition Forum for Democratic Change leadership has threatened to drag two senior party officials before its disciplinary committee for alleged insubordination and failure to respect party authority.
Mr Erias Lukwago, party deputy president for central/Buganda who is also Lord Mayor of Kampala, along with Kira municipality MP, Mr Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, who is the party spokesperson, were singled out for allegedly fabricating lies about party president, Mr Patrick Oboi Amuriat and Mr Nathan Nandala Mafabi, the secretary general.
Mr Amuriat yesterday told a media briefing that: “Our spokesperson has misused his office as a platform to attack the party. Since he has failed to keep the image of the party, he deserves disciplinary treatment”.
Mr Lukwago on the other hand was accused of not performing.
“As deputy president coming from Buganda, he is expected to provide leadership in the running of party programmes in the region. Unfortunately, he has been reluctant and resisted implementation of party activities in Buganda. He is also not receptive to activism in the city…, especially given his vantage position as Lord Mayor of Kampala,” he said.
The party leader, who is himself the subject of an ongoing attack by the two officials in an alleged bribery plot allegedly designed to ‘sell FDC to President Museveni’, also raised the matter of Tuesday’s meeting organised by the said officials.
“We have received information about the financing of the Nsambya meeting from suspicious sources,” he said with providing any proof, before adding: “Some of the people who claim to have financed the meeting have never contributed a penny to the party”.
He, however, called for calm, saying “this is our party for which we have invested our youthful energies and we shall never sell it to anyone at any amount of billions as accused”.
At the same press conference, Mr Mafabi again demanded that Mr Ssemujju proves his allegations.
“I have declared all my businesses and property to the IGG and how I have gained it. When I left the World Bank, I was being paid $20,000 per month in 2001. When Ssemujju left journalism he was being paid how much per month? If he has those properties he has when he was being paid almost nothing, what of me who was being paid in dollars,” Mr Mafabi said.
As he did on Monday, Mr Mafabi maintained that the FDC spokesman has been, and continues to be, the biggest beneficiary of government funding.
Since he is the FDC chief whip in Parliament, Mr Ssemujju is entitled to a government car even when he also received money to buy a vehicle just like other members of Parliament, Mafabi pointed out.
He also claimed that in just the last six months, Shs374 million has been spent on Mr Ssemujju’s travels and he is on record to have, strangely, managed to be in three different countries which are far apart on the same day – suggesting possible mischief.
Yesterday, Mr Ssemujju said any decision to drag him before the disciplinary committee should be decided either by FDC’s National Council or National Executive Council.
“The party does not belong to Amuriat and Nandala. Call the chairperson of the Council, Mr Wasswa Birigwa, and ask whether he has ever received any petition against me,” Mr Ssemujju said.
On Shs374 million travel allegation, the party spokesman said that he is accountable to Parliament.
“Parliament has a policy that if one does not travel or fails to spend the calculated daily allowance, the money is deducted from his pay and Parliament has done this to me. If the FDC wants me to account to Nandala, they should start funding me for those travels”.
The Lord Mayor also laughed off the disciplinary threat, saying neither Mr Amuriat nor Mr Mafabi have powers to subject them to such action.
“It is laughable and ridiculous because what we did was within our mandate. I am the deputy president of Buganda region and Ssemujju is the spokesperson of the party. He convened that meeting within that particular mandate and it was within his prerogative and within the confines of his authority to convene that meeting. It was about the state of affairs in the party which is legitimate so I see no justification for that,” he said.
He called the move “an empty threat”.
“I invite my friends in the party; my colleagues in the party, Nandala and Amuriat to read the provisions of the constitution. Article 28 is very clear and it states that the person in charge of disciplinary matters in the national chairman who is Birigwa and he does that within the framework of the party constitution,” he said.
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