Kampala
Parliament yesterday rejected former Kampala Mayor Ntege Sebaggala's appointment as a Minister without Portfolio on moral grounds and opened parallel investigations into the academic qualifications of two other appointees.
The fate of Bunyoro Affairs Minister Saleh Kamba and Investment Minister Mbabali Muyanja remains in balance after the Appointments Committee rejected the duo's academic credentials.
Kamba, Muyanja's woes
According to sources on the committee, Mr Muyanja's fate is expected to be decided today while Mr Kamba's academic papers are still being investigated by lawyers. "We are not blocking these people in bad faith, it's just that they have glaring problems with the academic qualifications and that's the problem," a source said.
"We are going to study the two cases (Mbabali and Kamba's) and a decision will be taken. We don't want to put people in government without the necessary qualifications," he added.
Other sources told Daily Monitor last evening that the committee agreed to summon the Ministry of Education permanent secretary to explain Mr Mbabali's academic qualifications.
For Mr Kamba, his troubles started when the committee showed him a petition from outside of Parliament questioning his academic papers, a claim he protested.
Seya's ‘morals'
Sources who attended the meeting which ended after 9pm last night, told Daily Monitor that Mr Sebaggala, who was the first person to appear, was rejected on moral grounds yet others reportedly questioned his ability to express himself fluently in English, the official language in the country.
And after he left the committee, MPs who were overheard laughing, also took another hour to discuss his appointment before they took a unanimous decision to throw him out of Cabinet.
Earlier, speaking to journalists outside the committee room, Mr Sebaggala expressed optimism that he would make it, saying: "There is nothing to worry about, my party (NRM) has the majority members on the committee."
But according to sources on the committee all the NRM members rejected him before a decision was taken to write to the President to appoint another person as Minister without Portfolio.
In 1998, Mr Sebaggala was arrested in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and was charged with eight counts, six of fraud and two of making false declarations to the US Customs. He served 11 months of his sentence in jail after he was found guilty.
After his appearance yesterday, he denied that he doesn't travel to some countries "I have a house and children in the US and I have always travelled whenever I want," he said.