I am tired of beggar voters, says Otafiire. Minister says voters have turned MPs into sources of income and solutions to all their problems. Kampala. The minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Maj Gen Kahinda Otafiire, has said he is tired of voters who have made it a habit of begging from their Members of Parliament. He said this habit distorts the use of money in Uganda’s politics and must be stopped. “Every time I go to my constituency, I find about 20-30 people in my compound asking for financial support. Some want you to pay school fees for their children as if you were there when they were producing the children. We must end this culture of begging,” Otafiire charged. He was speaking at a public dialogue on commercialisation of politics organised by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Kampala, on Friday. In his signature humourous language, Mr Otafiire said: “MPs have now become doctors, magistrates and marriage counsellors. You find people saying the church roof has been blown off by a storm. But I am not the author of the disaster. Why don’t you pray hard to God after all it is His house? Let Him restore it,” Gen Otafiire mused. The Ruhinda County MP warned that if the use of money in electoral processes is not checked, the country will be deprived of quality leaders who are locked out because they don’t have the finances to satisfy the voters’ material demands. “That is creating more problems because those who cannot spend much money will look for other means of getting power like violence,” Mr Otafiire cautioned. “But let’s not politicise the matter and limit it to NRM. Don’t voters ask DP people for money? Even in UPC, FDC and in Lukyamuzi’s one-man party it is there. This habit is like malaria, which affects all people,” Mr Otafiire added. Mps seek Redress Some MPs Simon Mulongo (NRM) and Sam Otada (Independent), working with the National Democratic Institute, are now mobilising a parliamentary forum to specifically address the problem of use of money in politics with a view to make a law that punishes the offenders.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 04:37:03 +0000
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