Betty Nambooze
BETTY NAMBOOZE BAKIREKE, the member of parliament representing Mukono Municipality, has expressed her views on the recently presented alternative opposition budget by the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mathias Mpuuga.
According to her, the budget is commendable, but it falls short of challenging President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s strong hold on power. In an exclusive interview with Muhamamd Kakembo before her return to the United States for medical treatment, Nambooze also said that if she had opted not to get the much-needed foreign treatment, government officials would have “eaten that money” instead of investing it in the health sector. She said the government spends about Shs 396 billion on foreign treatment.
Excerpts:
In the 10th Parliament, you came up with a private member’s bill to regulate alcohol in Uganda; but we saw that it was Sarah Opendi who finally brought it in this parliament. Why did you abandon it?
To effectively navigate through the complexities of legislation, it is essential to introduce the right laws at the appropriate time. Laws concerning the regulation of society should be prioritized at the beginning of parliamentary sessions because people’s focus tends to shift during election periods as politicians cater to their interests.
In 2016, I chose to present a bill aimed at regulating the alcohol industry, with a focus on treating alcohol as a public health concern rather than a mere trade issue.
Among the provisions I proposed was the transfer of alcohol regulation from the Ministry of Trade to the Ministry of Health. However, during the bill’s presentation to parliament, the state minister for health, Sarah Opendi, informed the house that a similar bill was still in draft form.
According to parliamentary rules, bills presented by the executive branch take precedence over private members’ bills. Consequently, parliament ruled that I collaborate with the minister to harmonize our proposals.
Did that happen?
I submitted my draft to the minister and kept reminding her to bring the bill. However, she informed me that the director responsible for that sector was ill, and they were waiting for her to recover. Sadly, the lady passed away. By the time Kadaga [Rebecca, former speaker of parliament] allowed me to present the bill, only two weeks remained before the elections.
As I mentioned earlier, it was not an ideal time as people’s attention had shifted towards the elections. Furthermore, we were also struggling with the government to change the electoral laws. Therefore, I could not divert the focus from regulating elections to discussing alcohol.
After we returned to the 11th Parliament, I began working towards saving the bill. However, my health issues worsened, and I had to leave the country for treatment. During my absence, Sarah Opendi took the opportunity to present the bill. I had no issue with this, as the main goal was to get the job done.
However, what hurt me the most was that she had watered down my bill. She had removed all the provisions that I had tried to convince parliament to include to safeguard our children. If she had assisted me in presenting the bill, we could have achieved better results.
Instead, she sat on the bill until she decided to do the job, and she presented a watered-down version of my carefully crafted bill. I do not wish to engage in a fight with her over the bill. Our main intention is to regulate the industry for the sake of our children.
Why is regulating the alcohol industry an important thing to do?
Regulating alcohol is more urgent than even legislating homosexuality because one leads to the other. When dictators allow the public to misbehave at a personal level and enjoy more freedom than necessary when it comes to self-management, they create what is called a democratic dictatorship.
They then tighten control over governance, not allowing people to exercise their democratic rights politically. However, they permit them to sit in the bar and drink throughout the day, and at the end of the day, they say, “Museveni has brought development, and we can drink alcohol.”
This is a characteristic of failed states. I have been unable to meet with Opendi, but I would like to request that she brings the version of the bill that I gave her. She will have my full support. I want her to remain the mover, and I do not want to be seen as frustrating the law because I was unable to present it myself. However, I must mention that she is one of the people who frustrated me in the first place.
You returned from America recently, where you had gone for treatment; can we now say your health is now OK?
I did not get discharged; I returned to see my family. Waiting for the next surgery in Manhattan had become too expensive for me. I still have three more pending surgeries, which are months apart. So, sitting in Manhattan, a very expensive city, didn’t make a lot of sense.
I didn’t choose Manhattan just for the sake of it; I was given only three options: Israel, Germany, or America. There were many things that I considered. Personally, I’m not fond of Israel, and it is also very expensive. Furthermore, I had undergone medical treatment in India, where I could not communicate directly with doctors.
I promised myself that I would never go for treatment where I could not express myself fully. So, America became the only option. Despite its expense, it was the cheapest option available.
We hear the state allowed you to travel for treatment… My medical forms were signed by the [former] speaker of parliament, Jacob Oulanyah.
People claim I met with madam speaker Anita Among, but all she did was facilitate a sick member of parliament to go for treatment.
Can we say that after the three surgeries, you will be completely out of danger?
I hope so, but doctors say there are so many things pending review and assessment. Parliament has been notified that it is going to be a protracted battle. Those people had intended to kill me; it’s like people are trying to dig me out of a grave.
There is talk that a lot of taxpayers’ money has been spent on your treatment…
First, that is blackmail. But blackmailing a mature and seasoned politician like me does not work. People think Ugandans are gullible. They can’t understand things in their proper context. I believe we should work on our health systems here so that we stop spending money in foreign hospitals.
Me going abroad and spending a lot of money only emphasizes what I have been campaigning for all the time. I had one option; either to become a martyr or to go for treatment; I chose to stay alive and continue the struggle. The issue is that Uganda spends Shs 396 billion annually on foreign treatment.
We should talk about Betty Nambooze, yes, but let us get the whole list of those getting treatment abroad and discuss it. We know the government spent US$180,000 (Shs 666 million) on Betty Nambooze—that’s a lot of money. But how I wish I could be treated here!
But the people saying these things are members of your own party…
I don’t know how expensive my life should be. To those saying $180,000 is a lot of money; how expensive is my life? I want to ask my brother, Doctor Abed Bwanika, how expensive is Nambooze’s life?
He should be blaming the people who tortured me, people who failed to work on Lubowa hospital, yet taxpayers’ money was spent. I did not leave a local hospital or refer myself to a foreign hospital. I didn’t go out yet, but I could be treated at Lubaga because that’s where I started. I didn’t trade anything for treatment; that’s why I spent three years without going out. I got sick in 2017.
I have been able to secure the treatment I deserve seven years later just because I had nothing to give in exchange for it. At one time, I was asked to write a minority report on Lubowa hospital if I wanted to get money for foreign treatment. I refused to write a minority report.
Government appeals to the hypocrisy fallacy that, if you have misgoverned the country, one of the tactics you can use is to make the country hopeless by telling people that even the opposition is as hopeless as you. Just tell me one opposition leader in the whole world who used to receive treatment from the people he was fighting, unless that person was in jail.
We are already so brave to have our families here. I feel sad that all that money was spent on me when it could be used to benefit the health sector. But I am sure of one thing; if I had chosen not to go for treatment, that money would not have been invested in the health sector. They would eat (sic) that money, and Nambooze would be dead.
Some say that leaders like you negotiate for yourselves and then tell Ugandans not to negotiate with the state to regain their freedom. The long time we have spent fighting the dictatorship has confused many people.
We must appreciate that opposition people are redundant. We don’t have anything to do because the space is so limited. We can no longer hold rallies or hold any activities. So, at the end of the day, if you are trapped in one bottle, you start biting each other.
Some people find others easy prey, and the enemy is not leaving us alone. But I can’t sit in the corner of my house and start crying because I have been defeated. I will fight until we are free or until I have no strength left in me to fight.
Are you satisfied with the performance of the opposition in the 11th parliament?
Well, given the vibrancy of the youth, who are the majority in NUP, I expected better results. But maybe, the over-expectations were because we had not sat down to consider that the dictatorship is also in its last and final days, and they are doing all they can to disorganize us.
I really sympathize with the Leader of the Opposition [Mathias Mpuuga] in some areas. He is handling a group of young politicians. They are young in age and politics. They are beginners in everything; they are having their first babies, their first homes, their first wives, their first cars, their first flights, and, you know, they have too many responsibilities.
They are divided between their individual selves and the country, yet the dictator is experienced at whatever he is doing. This is the group that Mr Mpuuga was given to lead, with a very vibrant leader outside parliament who is also new in politics, just two years of parliamentary work. So, all this was bound to happen. I’m not trying to justify a bad moment in our politics, but I’m just trying to understand why we are faring like this.
Do you think Mpuuga has done a good job?
If I were him, I would not have been conventional by bringing things like a legislative agenda. What’s there to legislate? The people we are fighting with are not gentlemen. This is not the time for boardroom politics; it is time for street politics.
Pursuing a legislative agenda instead of activism disappointed me. Mpuuga let the fire burn out, and now he must light it again. If I were the leader of the opposition, every time they would take. Allan Ssewanyana and Muhammad Ssegirinya to court, parliament would not sit. We would all go to Masaka or sit on the stairs of parliament because these are not normal times to offer composed and sober opposition.
How would you handle the LoP job?
The first mistake we made was to participate in the election of the speaker. We gave it a sense of normalcy. We now participate in debating sessions. What do we do in parliament that is implemented?
The only good thing we have done is support our speaker in dealing with her enemies. But we even failed to do it properly. You censure a minister, then the next day, the same minister comes and sits at the front bench, as if nothing happened, and nobody can pick up a water bottle to throw it at her.
This is the time to throw shoes at ministers, not to raise points of information. Maybe I’m just becoming so desperate, but again, desperate situations call for desperate actions.
What do you say about the opposition’s alternative budget?
The alternative budget is a nice piece of work; however, I don’t believe that this is the first time we are doing this. The opposition has presented alternative budgets since I joined parliament. The only difference is in the way NUP presented it.
The party involved people outside parliament, and the content was different. However, what I want to say is that all this goes back to the conventional way of doing politics.
We are giving the dictator a lot of goodwill for nothing. It must have cost the taxpayer a lot of money; it must have cost the LoP and his team so many sleepless nights; and of course, it’s well-thought-out. However, what do we get out of that budget? It will gather dust on the parliamentary shelves.
mmkakembo@gmail.com
Source: The Observer
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