President Yoweri Museveni who also doubles as the National Chairman of the ruling political party, National Resistance Movement (NRM) will tomorrow Thursday officially open the ongoing retreat of party’s newly elected members of parliament.
A total of 243 newly elected NRM MPs, the secretariat staff as well as the Central Executive Committee members and those from the East African Legislative Assembly are participating in the retreat which will last three weeks after kicking off on April 7 this year.
“The national Chairman is expected to preside over the official opening and to deliver a number of papers on various topics,” says Emmanuel Dombo, the NRM Director for Information and Publicity, who revealed that the official opening will be relayed live on various media houses.
The core objective for the retreat is to ideologically re-orient the NRM leadership to enable them refocus on the socio-economic transformation of Uganda within the broader context of the survival of the African race given the current global pressures and challenge, according to Richard Todwong the party’s deputy NRM Secretary General.
The participants will be taken through the ideological foundation of the party, challenges and opportunities for Uganda, East Africa and Africa, assessment of the NRM’s past manifestos and priotizing commitments of the 2021/26 NRM manifesto.
In her preliminary remarks, the NRM Secretary General, Justine Kasule Lumumba, welcomed the MPs and congratulated them upon being elected.
She reminded them of their core responsibility of solving people’s problems and advised them to listen attentively so that they can be able to put to use what they are to learn from the retreat.
Unlike the previous retreats, the incumbent MPs including the speaker of parliament, Rebecca Kadaga and her Deputy, Jacob Oulanyah (both members of the CEC) are not attending this retreat due to their tight schedule at parliament.
“We were guided out of consultation from the parliamentary commission that helped us understand the timetable of parliament and the speaker chaired meetings. It was from parliament that were were advised that the current Members of Parliament will not be able to attend because there is a constitutional requirement to pass the national budget. Definitely parliament can’t sit minus the speaker and deputy speaker,” said Todwong.