KAMPALA – Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa is worried that the laws that the House passes have little or even no impact on the community, while others have gross negative effects on the people who send the MPs to parliament to legislate on their behalf.
Tayebwa said there is need for the House to establish a technical unit that would take on the task of legislative scrutiny through which all legislations passed by the house are monitored at the implementation level, to assess their impact on the people, but also would help bring the House closer to the electorate.
“Technical personnel need to take lead in the post-legislative scrutiny of the laws we pass, to find out their impact on the people,” he said, adding that it is such an important function to the House.
“Post Legislative scrutiny is very important, other than focusing much on pre-legislative policy scrutiny. Even in Cabinet, when they are bringing a law, they first bring the principles, but no one does the post-legislative scrutiny,” Tayebwa said.
Tayebwa was speaking yesterday at a skilling session for policy analysts and researchers attached to the Office of Leader of Government Business in Parliament and the Leader of Opposition in Parliament at the Parliamentary Building in Kampala.
He singled out the Biofuel Act 2018 saying many people are calling for such an act, without knowing it really existed.
“Many people don’t know that we have the Biofuel Act. I have seen people pushing for it but we have it and it is where we could get a clear blend that is cost-effective but also friendly to our environment. So, the duty should be on Parliament to do post-legislative scrutiny and say when we passed this law, what was its impact on society?” Teyebwa asked.
The Biofuel Act was enacted in 2018 to regulate the production, storage and transportation of biofuels and the blending of biofuels with petroleum products. It also provides for the functions of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.
He added that once the Post Legislative function is done well, the House would avoid getting into traps of duplicating laws, but rather strengthen the existing laws.
The Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga applauded the House for skilling the technical teams in the house on issues of Policy analysis, which would strengthen debate and policy implementation.
“This is a good trend we are taking, we need to skill our teams as an assurance that we shall have policies that would impact on our people.” He said.
Mpuuga argued Members of Parliament to make proper use of the expertise of the Policy analysts and research to enrich their debates in the house and strengthen their representation so as to have an impactful contribution to both the House and their constituencies.
Mpuuga noted that such efforts to skill parliament’s policy analysts are important, saying they help the MPs to generate the content needed to present on the floor while raising matters and debates on the different bills and motions tabled.
“We are aware that the quality of output of MPs in the opposition depends a lot on the technical ground of the Policy analysts. We have undertaken in-house training to try and augment their existing natural qualities with their own academic qualifications, and such trainings will close the gaps among technical officers whose duty is to help the Legislators deliver on their mandate,” Mpuuga said.
Parliament runs the Policy and Research Department, which is charged with the responsibility to enrich the Members’ debates by generating content used during debates and motions tabled on the floor of the House.
The department also ensures that the legislations produced are appropriate to the current trends without contradicting the existing legislations, as well as acting as the back-server room for the legislators in promoting and protecting the quality of debate and representation.
This is carried out by the department as it offers technical guidance to Parliament during committee sessions, proceedings, and report writing as well as technical guidance to delegations sent to benchmark policies and proceedings abroad.
https://thecooperator.news/mps-urge-govt-to-draft-comprehensive-policy-on-tax-collections/
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