The Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa has cautioned the chairpersons and vice chairpersons of committees of Parliament to desist from holding closed meetings as it’s breeding suspicions of corruption in the House.
Closing the two days training for both the chairpersons and vice chairpersons of committees, the Deputy Speaker says it’s unfortunate that some accounting officers have been coming to parliament thinking Mps have a price.
The two days training for all the Chairpersons and vice chairpersons of committees in Parliament against the vice of corruption has ended with the Deputy Speaker asking the Executive to interest themselves in the reports of both the Auditor general and the reports of Parliament.
The Deputy Speaker who advised the leadership of the committees not to make committee meetings a torture chamber also revealed how the commission has now budgeted enough funds to facilitate all the activities of the committees so to avoid the alleged corruption in these committees.
” We need to clean up the image of Parliament. It does not mean that we should behave like hit men while in committees because you will have some members who will come wanting to lynch accounting officers. No you do not need to that”. Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa said
“Our senior lawyers here will tell you that you extract any evidence from from a witness out of a smile. So I would request you to come out and address issues of integrity”. Tayebwa added
Tayebwa also warned the committee leadership on committee members who fail to attend the proceedings of committee but only sign the attendance books for purposes of earning an a committee sitting allowance.
” We have reports where some MPs have been going to committee clerks and sign the attendance books yet they have not attended the meetings. You need to bring sanity to these committees that you have been entrusted to lead”. Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa said
The Deputy Speaker also cautioned the committee leadership to desist from conducting closed meetings as their breeding suspicions of corruption in the House.
” The media once they are covering the committee, then you say media and staff get out we have issues with the these technical people first. We should not have any in-house issues with technical people”. Deputy Speaker said
“The in-house issues should only be for the committee without the technical people, because that’s when people go out and allege that you they were strangling us because they wanted money from us”. Tayebwa added
“As the leadership of Parliament, we are going to facilitate you because we don’t want a situation where you are running to the entities as committees to facilitate your activities”. Deputy Speaker affirmed
Tayebwa also says it’s unfortunate that some accounting officers have been taking parliament casual thinking MPs have a price