KAMPALA – The Parliamentary Performance Scorecard 2018 – 2019 was launched on Thursday, indicating that the House performed well in playing its oversight role.
The Parliamentary Performance Scorecard is a governance monitoring tool used to provide Ugandans with critical information about the performance of Members of Parliament.
Speaking at the launch in Kampala, Mr David Pulkol, the Director of the African Leadership Institute, which conducted the survey, said while the House performed well in legislation, it performed relatively poorly in representation and appropriation roles.
“Overall performance of Parliament was 60%. In legislation, Parliament scored 60 5%. They performed relatively poor in representation and appropriation roles. Parliament is lauded that 428/437 issues of national concern raised were directed to be handled during the 3rd year session, and only five were directed to the 4th year session,” he said.
“263/437 issues of national concern were instantly responded to. 179/215 questions raised by MPs were responded to by the Prime Minister and/or line ministers,” he added.
Mr Pulkol also revealed that MPs from northern Uganda attended plenary most followed by legislators from eastern Uganda. MPs from central Uganda had the lowest plenary attendance.
Leader of the Opposition Betty Aol Ochan was named the outstanding frontbencher female, followed by State Minister for Minerals Sarah Opendi, who is also the Tororo Woman MP.
Abim Woman MP Janet Okori-Moe was named the most outstanding female backbencher followed by State minister for Children Affairs Nakiwala Florence Kiyingi.
In committees, male MPs performed better than female MPs.
Manjiya County MP John Baptist Nambeshe had the highest score in plenary attendance amongst MPs.
“Most Ugandans are not aware of the proper roles of MPs. People cannot follow the happenings of Parliament, especially because MPs travel to Kampala to attend Parliamentary sessions, something people can’t always follow,” Mr Pulkol said.
The Director-General of the Uganda Management Institute, Dr. James L. Nkata, said “As an institution of research, we are very careful not to demonstrate any kind of research that would cause bias. Ours is purely academic, well researched, and analyzed.”
“We advise that Parliament discusses the limiters of performance. It is our belief that the Parliamentary Score Card represents what it set out to measure. This scorecard has the potential to improve governance. What gets measured, gets done,” he added
Ambassador Marco de Swart representing Democratic Governance Forum said: “We have invested in this project because we believe Parliament is key to Uganda’s governance. It is for that reason that people need to know what Parliament does. Having facts about what Parliament is doing enables parliamentarians to engage more productively with the people and also offers people an understanding of Parliament’s work.”
