The Speaker of Parliament, Rt Hon Anita Among, has asked the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) to “investigate the forces sponsoring the spread of malicious information against her on social media”.
This followed accusations that she barked at David Bahati, the Minister of State for Industries, during a plenary discussion on protests by traders against the high taxes imposed by the government.
According to the report, Among allegedly rebuked Minister Bahati as “an incompetent minister” for failing to resolve the standoff with traders.
While presiding over Wednesday’s plenary, Among cautioned the public against the rampant misuse of social media and urged UCC to clamp down on the perpetrators of fake and malicious information.
“I am lucky that I am not on social media because I don’t like stress. There was something written on social media circulating that yesterday, I barked at Minister Bahati, as being one of the worst Ministers incapable of running the Ministry of Trade, that is why traders are striking. This is very false, very untrue and too malicious. I want UCC to investigate this and I want to get the sponsors of this,” said Among.
The Speaker also proposed that the people mounting negative messages against her on social media are in need of prayers saying:
“There are people who are monopolizing the use of social media to destroy other people. The minister is one Minister who is permanently here. How can you attack such a Minister? I think there is a problem in this country. There is a misuse of social media, I think you people need prayers. How can you start abusing social media to that extent?”
The Speaker was also once quoted on social media for banishing the Deputy Attorney General from the house and threatening that she would never let him speak as long as she is the Speaker of Parliament.
Meanwhile, Among halted Peter Mugema (Iganga Municipality MP) from raising a concern on reports about the assassination attempts against Leader of Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi, describing such talks as an attempt to play to the gallery, saying whoever feels their lives are in danger, they should report to Police instead of having such discussions in Parliament.
“Let us not play to the gallery. I am seeing a lot of things, if there is any assassination attempt, you go and report it to the Police. Who can assassinate a person? For what? Of what value are you? Let us not play to the gallery,” she stated.
She added: “Anyway, if that was taken in the bar, maybe some people had taken something. For me, those are the things that shouldn’t even come here because we don’t assassinate people. Nobody is of value that we want to assassinate people and stop playing to the gallery.”