Government hits back at Mengo over Bill

By Al-Mahdi Ssenkabirwa

Kampala State House yesterday responded to Buganda Kingdom, accusing it of double standards in its dealings with the central government as the debate surrounding the proposed law to regulate activities of traditional or cultural leaders continued.

The response came on a day when Minister for Gender and Culture Gabriel Opio, under whose docket the Bill was tabled, said the government has now agreed to amend at least one contentious section. Clause for amendment In its original form, Section 9(2) says: “Where there is more than one traditional or cultural leader in the area of a regional government the position of the titular head of the regional government shall be held by each of the traditional or cultural leaders within the area of the regional government in rotation for one year at a time.”


Mengo rejects this proposal, especially since it suggests that heads of chiefdoms, which it believes were recently created by the government to spite Buganda, would be given titular leadership over their kingdom.
“It should be made clear that this Bill is subject to amendment and we have agreed in the parliamentary committee that section 9(2) will be amended because it does not apply to the four major kingdoms (Buganda, Busoga, Bunyoro and Tooro),” Mr Opio said. “Regions like Bukedi [in the east] which did not have cultural heads by the time we promulgated the Constitution [in 1995] are the ones that will [come under the jurisdiction of the said section].”

Presidential press secretary Tamale Mirundi had earlier told journalists yesterday that during the constitutional review process in 1995, the Mengo establishment presented its views, including the one that bars the Kabaka from engaging in politics. “When government was collecting views to draft the Constitution, it was Mengo that proposed a non-political king.

And that is exactly what government is trying to enforce but they are making noise,” he said in reference to the controversy that has been provoked by the tabling of the Institution of Traditional or Cultural Leaders Bill, 2010. “But if they have changed their earlier position and now want a political king, let them demand a constitutional amendment through Parliament rather than confusing people.
”But Mengo Information Minister Charles Peter Mayiga last evening defended the kingdom, saying Mr Mirundi’s attacks were misplaced.
“No one is agitating that the Kabaka be allowed to engage in partisan politics. These are legal matters which I know Mr Mirundi not to be conversant with,” he said, adding that the proposed law is intended to erode the cultural integrity of Buganda and make all its pillars irrelevant.
“The entire Bill is obnoxious because it is against the common principles of law and government shouldn’t attempt to defend it,” he said. The Bill, which seeks to operationalise Article 246 of the Constitution, and is currently before Parliament, has since drawn the attention of religious leaders, Buganda kingdom leaders, including the Kabaka and opposition leaders, all of whom say it is provocative and demeaning of traditional institutions.

The Bill, among others, seeks to operationalise Article 246 of the 1995 Constitution and bans traditional leaders from engaging in partisan politics, prescribes benefits and penalties in case of the violation of the law. The Constitution bars religious and cultural leaders from engaging in activate politics. Mr Mirundi’s remarks come at a time when Buganda Kingdom is having a strained relationship with central government over a number of unfulfilled pledges like federalism, among others.
The government has previously offered Buganda a regional tier arrangement, saying it is synonymous with federalism but the kingdom rejected it.