KAMPALA: The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mr Mathias Mpuuga, has asked the European Union Delegation to Uganda to support the Opposition’s legislative agenda, saying it is meant to improve service delivery and the human rights situation in the country.
Flanked by selected members of his shadow cabinet, Mpuuga told the EU diplomats that as representatives of the people, the Opposition in Parliament has a duty to push for improvements in service delivery and accountability.
“The theme under which we operate in the 11th Parliament is accountability and service. The absence of accountability compromises not just the quality but even the depth and the reach of service delivery,” Mpuuga said during a meeting at his office at Parliament on October 15, 2021.
The EU delegation was led by the EU Ambassador to Uganda, Attilio Pacifici who was in the company of ambassadors Roswitha Kremser (Austria), Veestraeten Rudi (Belgium), Nicolaj Hejberg Petersen (Denmark), Mathias Schauer (Germany), Maria Hakansson (Sweden) and Anna Merrifield, the deputy EU head of mission.
Mpuuga took the diplomats through the opposition’s legislative agenda which he said, was drafted as a pathway that the opposition intends to follow in its push for reforms.
“We have to prioritise, we must pick out the issues that have backward and forward linkages to what we want to achieve… the legislative agenda houses the key issues that will guide the opposition programme for the coming years and key among them are constitutional and electoral reforms,” the Nyendo-Mukungwe MP told the ambassadors.
“We believe that if we fix some of the outstanding constitutional questions and electoral challenges, we can probably go a long way in reshaping our young democracy,” he added.
He said that the opposition intends to lobby the ruling NRM party to agree to proposals to reforms intended to purge the gaps in Uganda’s electoral and political laws.
“We are planning on how to bring the ruling party on the table to rethink the future of Uganda. We want legislation that will empower the Electoral Commission such that it doesn’t remain a paper tiger and fail to regulate and take care of its responsibilities before, during and after elections,” Mpuuga said.