Tumwebaze Explains Lukwago Impeachment Process

Comrades and friends, greetings to you all. I have decided to write this post to help give most of you friends that bother to debate objectively, the truths surrounding today’s KCCA meeting that i chaired and where majority councilors unanimously voted out the Lord Mayor. 

The report of the tribunal was received in the open just like its proceedings had been. I forwarded copies of the same report to the Lord Mayor and to all councilors for them to read in advance and comprehend the contents.

While the law gives me 14 days to convene a meeting like this one and also given the fact that i was at liberty to convene this meeting at any date and working day of my choice, including doing so immediately after the day of receipt of the tribunal report, i did not do so for justifiable reasons.

I gave the Councilors and The Lord Mayor a period of one week to read the quite voluminous report not in a haste, but of course conscious at the same time of the 14 day time line set by the law. I also announced that this meeting would be called in the second week still within the 14 days.

This is what exactly happened

I issued a notice dated 21st November 2013 inviting the Lord Mayor and Councilors for this meeting pursuant to Sec.12 (17) of the Kampala Capital City Act, 2010. It is therefore untrue for those insinuating that this meeting has been fast tracked to defeat some agendas of some people in court.

If indeed i had intended to fast track the meeting for purposes of defeating any intended litigation, I would have convened the meeting  a day or two after receipt of the tribunal report.  Still that would have been within the 14 days.  But I didn’t do so. I gave them the 7 days.

I wish therefore to advise the Lord mayor and his supporters to respect this otherwise legal process and avoid unnecessary and irresponsible politicking. I wish also to add that The Lord Mayor was by law required to either attend the said meeting in person or to send a legal representative. He never notified me of any of his intentions; either to be absent or to be represented by a lawyer. Indeed when a motion for his removal was moved and seconded, I called on any of his legal representative to make his defense as the law says. There was none.

The other falsehood I have seen doing rounds on social media and passionately promoted by agents of hate blogs like Ugandans At Heart, is that while I chaired the said meeting that ended up with the Lord Mayor Elias Lukwago being impeached, a one councilor Ssewanyana who moved from his chair and attempted to assault me in my chair, served me with a court order that was halting the proceedings and that I ignored it and ordered him out of the chambers. That is false.

That young man as most of you may have seen the video clips came prepared to behave unethically, engage in some drama and only work towards disrupting the meeting. He jumped from his seat and aimed at me. Fortunately I remained calm and security restrained him.

Another yet false allegation they make is that the lawyers of the Lord Mayor came with a court order to serve it on me and that they were denied entrance and that police grabbed from them a copy of the court order and burnt it to ashes. Of course all these are naked lies and they don’t add up. From the two allegations already you can discern a contradiction.

First, if the lawyers had indeed got a court order and that they were the ones with it and bringing it to serve it, what then is the other court order alleged to have been with Ssewanyana inside the council chambers? Who had what court order? All that is untrue, and caution should be exercised not use the institution of courts to cover up propaganda schemes of political actors.

The fact is; there was no court order served on me. And even if the alleged court order was to be there, why would lawyers attempt to serve it on me well aware of the usual procedure of service and the party to serve on behalf of government? The person to serve on behalf of government is not any officer but always the attorney general. So our position is that there was no genuine court order duly served on me.

More questions on this matter can be paused. Like at what time did the purported court sit to issue that court order? Courts don’t open for business before 9am? Even after a court order is issued it has to be extracted after paying in the bank requisite fees. So which bank opens by seven or eight o’clock in the morning to have enabled those extracting the order to pay the fees and thus get the order duly sealed and issued?   How come a same interim order application is still being argued before Justice Yasin Nyanzi and he has adjourned the same for Thursday? So which interim order was given yet a very same one is still pending before a judge? All these point to the credibility of the alleged court order.

The fact however that 29 councilors is including 7 opposition ones from DP and FDC today unanimously voted to remove The Lord Mayor from office and he thus ceased to be mayor of Kampala as soon as the vote was taken. That is what the KCCA act section 12 states.

The bigger picture here to note is that this is not a partisan conflict between NRM and opposition. Otherwise how do you explain the 7 councilors of the opposition that joined the other NRM ones to take the majority vote? Why didn’t the opposition solidarity bind them to him? He only got 03 votes.

So by and large, the huge bi partisan majority vote far above two thirds taken against Mr. Elias Lukwago is not about party politics but rather it’s on the question of his personal competences and leadership capabilities. Even those opposition councilors couldn’t stand Mr. Elias Lukwago’s style of leadership.

Finally it’s worth noting that Mr. Elias Lukwago still has an opportunity to appeal. The same law which provides for his removal provides at the same time an opportunity to him to appeal within 21 days. But all the same the councilors irrespective of their political party interests have taken a bold step provided for in the KCCA act, (a law that even Mr. Lukwago participated in enacting as he sat in the 8th parliament) and they should be respected.

They were too elected by the same people of Kampala who elected the same Lord Mayor. So Let us separate emotions from facts and lies from the truths.

Am therefore proud that I did my role conferred to me by the law as minister without fear or favor. I have endured harsh judgement, hateful attacks, physical intimidation and insults and even cheap attempts aimed at my children have been invested in.

I leave all that to God and forever promise to do work entrusted me with fairness and decisiveness.

I shall never hold back, fear to take action on any matter am convinced about nor succumb to cheap intimidation and black mail. Let those scheming to use those cheap tricks know.

Otherwise I salute all of you friends who send me cheers and messages of support. Kampala will match forward at all costs…

Thank you

Frank Tumwebaze

Kampala Minister