“HON MBAHIMBA JAMES APPLAUDS CSO ROLE IN EDUCATION AND INFORMATION SHARING"

In a meeting organized by RWECO on 8^th October 2013 at RWECO OFFICE Kasese Municipality with the Member of Parliament for Kasese municipality HON Mbahimba James on how RWECO can influence the natural resource policy as well as ensure involvement of   members of parliament in RWECO activities.

 The purpose of the meeting was to share with the area MP on what is being done by the organizations in areas of; 

a).Human rights promotion,

b).governance and social accountability, 

c).Promoting effective teaching and learning in secondary schools, 

d). Health Plants for health people to boast production.

Hon Mbahimba in Black stressing his idea.

HON. Mbahimba James apologized for not participating in RWECO activities as he was either not informed or misinformed. He thanked RWECO and its   members RIC-NET, Good Hope, KALI and RIDEAFRICA for their efforts in ensuring effective delivery and urged them to continue sensitizing the communities to understand the role of the MPs and help them to perform their roles rather that spend money on Fundraisings.

   

He emphasized that a Member of Parliament has 3 major roles to play and these are;

1.     Appropriation of government resources including budgeting and allocation of money.

2.     Make laws/ACTs and review

3.     Representative of the people not a delegate. He is speaking on behalf of the voter he represents.  He should know the constituency more than the Member of Parliament.

In addition to what RIC-NET does in improving the literacy and proficiency levels in English language by enhancing use of ICT in teaching at secondary level and enhancing communication skills of 9000 primary pupils in the region, he mentioned the Idea of Zoning schools according to their standards to join USE and UPE.Such zoning can help good schools to levy some money to cater for other services that can help improve the academic standard. This idea would help the public schools to fully compete with private schools as it has been done in Kampala. He however mentioned that the CSOs and the local leaders need to first understand the concept and share the concepts with the local leaders effectively.

In his social contract to the community as pledged during the campaign, he agreed that the local people have been misinformed on many issues that are happening. This misinformation is a result of desire for people to join political positions based on lies. He mentioned that “information is Power” and every citizen need that weapon. People need information on progress of Kilembe mines and the contract that has been recently been signed, information of operations of NAADS e.g. 2 billion shs coming to Kasese annually, information on infrastructure development like Roads, Airport, water and electricity.

He argued CSOs to constantly interface with the different committee of Parliament on various issues happening in the country that are not clear to the people because they have more access to the community that MPs who may be more involved in meeting. CSOs are also free to petition the Speaker directly. He agreed to reduce the Gap in information sharing between his office and the consortium in either participating in live talk shows and Neighborhood assemblies, packaging some information, and helping CSO access to other information that can easily and readily be available. He pledged to organize other MPs in the district to update the people live on KIMEZA on what they have done for the past two years