Eala session adjourned after heated row over speaker’s fate

 

East African Legislative Assembly Speaker Margaret Zziwa is escorted by the Sergeant-at-Arms after the Eala sitting was adjourned in Arusha yesterday. PHOTO | FILBERT RWEYEMAMU 

By Peter Saramba ,The Citizen Reporters

In Summary

The intervention forced a Kenyan member Joseph Ombasa to also interject, claiming article 38 (3) of the Eala regulations allowed the House to proceed with matters that are of dire importance to the EAC.

Arusha. The East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) session was adjourned indefinitely yesterday after a motion to remove its Speaker, Ms Margaret Nnatongo Zziwa, backfired.

Heated debate preceded the suspension of the plenary session as members engaged in technicalities of the move to remove the Speaker.

The Eala session that usually starts at 2pm was delayed until 3.44pm after some of the members boycotted after learning that the order paper did not contain the controversial motion.

But when it was finally tabled, sitting resumed amid tension that continued into the short but heated arguments before the Speaker announced the assembly would remain suspended until further notice.

The motion that has been on the cards for some time now was finally moved by outspoken Kenyan member Peter Mathuki who was one of the early signatories to have Ms Zziwa removed as a Speaker.

It was seconded by Ms Shy-Rose Bhanji from Tanzania, Nyiranilimo Odette from Rwanda and Hafsa Mossi of Burundi.

Ms Zziwa, a Ugandan national who took over the position in June 2012 as the first woman Speaker, has been at logger heads with a number of Eala members who accuse her of incompetence, poor leadership, dictatorship and favouritism.

She allowed the tabling of the motion after lengthy consultations with the EAC Lawyer Wilbert Kaahwa and the Clerk to the assembly Kenneth Madete.

A minute into Mr Mathuki’s tabling of the motion, another member Fred Mukassa Mbidde stood up and sought guidance from the Speaker over the legality of continuing with the motion. He said there was a pending case in the High Court that relate to the office of the Speaker.

The intervention forced a Kenyan member Joseph Ombasa to also interject, claiming article 38 (3) of the Eala regulations allowed the House to proceed with matters that are of dire importance to the EAC.

It was then that Mr Kaahwa jumped in to clarify that the case in Court did not bar the members from their debate on the impeachment of the Speaker. He said a ruling on the matter had stated as much. However Mbidde immediately accused the EAC Lawyer of seeking to mislead the House and said he was taking sides in the debate.