The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party on May 19 duty-bound more than 300 of its Members of Parliament to back the controversial Uganda People’s Defence Forces (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which comes up for final debate today.
Mr Hamson Obua, the government Chief Whip, told journalists after the party’s parliamentary caucus meeting chaired by the President at State House Entebbe that the MPs resolved to support the UPDF Amendment Bill, 2025.
“The NRM Parliamentary Caucus passed two resolutions, including to support the UPDF Amendment Bill as presented in Parliament by the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs in fulfilment of the Supreme Court ruling on the same and following our earlier resolution on the same,” he said.
“The Caucus also resolved to support the Private Members Bill aimed at amending the Political Parties and Organisations Act to set a condition precedent for all political parties to be members of IPOD as a condition precedent for accessing government resources,” he added.
Defence minister Jacob Oboth-Oboth last week tabled the proposed UPDF Amendment Bill, 2025, which among others seek to reactivate the trial of civilians in military courts.
The Bill also proposes to establish two additional services of the Special Force Command, and the Reserve Force, as well establish the Joint Military Command and the Service Command and Staff Committee as administrative structures of the Defence Forces.
The Bill, among other proposed amendments, seeks to insert Clause 117A into the UPDF Act, 2005, which will see persons subject to military law under exceptional circumstances. Among those is a person found with one of the 38 equipment or 26 ammunition, which is the monopoly of the defence forces.
A person found with this equipment and ammunition outside the country shall also be tried according to the proposals. The Bill was then sent to the joint committees of the Defence and Internal Affairs, and that of Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, which scrutinised it and met a number of officials till Friday when they wrote the report.
The joint committees are expected to present their report after the Bill’s second reading, with the House reconvening into the Committee of the whole House, which will then scrutinise the Bill and later make the final decision.
The NRM apparently boasts the largest number of legislators who are enough to make two-thirds of the majority required for any Bill to be passed in Parliament. Parliament has 557 MPs, including 529 who have voting rights, and 27 who are ex-officio. Of the 529, NRM has 337 members followed by Independents 87, the National Unity Platform (NUP) 57, and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party 31, Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) 11, the Democratic Party (DP) 9, while the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), and Justice Forum (Jeema) have one MP each.
The Opposition Parliamentary Caucus, led by the Leader of Opposition Joel Ssenyonyi, yesterday said they would attend today’s session and put up a spirited fight to resist the passing of the two Bills, which they say are targeting them.
Today’s Order Paper shows Parliament is also expected to debate and pass or reject the Political Parties and Organisations (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which, if passed into law, would force all political parties to forcefully dialogue.
The Bill aims to make the Inter-Party Organisation for Dialogue (IPOD) as one of the structures of the National Consultative Forum (NCF), and seeks to make it a mandatory requirement for every political party having representation in Parliament to subscribe to IPOD in order to access the funding they currently receive under the NCF arrangement.
src: Monitor
