UGANDA PARLIAMENT'S PERFORMANCE RATING IS A GOOD STARTING POINT

THE NEW VISION
KAMPALA, UGANDA
EDITORIAL
28th May, 2009

The Africa Leadership Institute’s latest report on the performance of Members of Parliament is a welcome move in advancing democracy in this country.
Democracy is about checks and balances. The three arms of government, the executive, judiciary and legislature, serve this purpose.

However, business and civil society also have a critical part to play in a functioning democracy.

In the case of Parliament, which has oversight over the executive, the question has always been: “Who will monitor the monitors?”

The Africa Leadership Institute has answered this call and should be supported in making this survey come out at least twice in the five-year term of every House.

By making it a regular feature of our political culture, our representatives will be compelled to be more vigilant in the execution of their duties and give their constituents a better feel of what they are up to in Kampala.

Hopefully, an additional benefit will be an incremental improvement in the survey results, with an eventual capacity to chart long-term trends of individual legislators and the House in general.

There still remain some loopholes, but none that compromises the report to the point of uselessness.

For example, the ministers’ contributions in the committee were marked as not available, which is a major omission. It is in working with the committee to pass bills that the ministers’ main work in Parliament is seen. Also, while judging the effectiveness of an MP in the House will always be subjective, there’s need for a few more objective criteria.

But it also raised interesting questions like the usefulness of the current crop of army MPs and whether they are the best representatives of their institution. All of them earned Fs in their contributions to the plenary.

The survey needs to be tweaked to be more effective, but its usefulness, will be vindicated by history.