Members of parliament had expressed mixed reaction over the need to have more deputy speakers to avoid vacuum and confusion in case the speaker and her deputy are absent.

Some MPs say that it’s necessary to have more deputy speakers although other say that having more than one deputy speaker is a waste of resources.
This comes after last week’s plenary was pushed to this week to allow the Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga and her deputy, Jacob Oulanyah to attend the Uganda North America Association (UNAA) meeting currently on-going in the United States.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga

The member of parliament for Pallisa County, Jacob Richards Opolot says that in future parliament has to approve more deputy speakers so that parliament’s work is interrupted.

However,MPs including; Anna Maria Nakabirwa, Kyankwazi district, Peter Sematimba,Busiro South,Bernard Atiku,Yivu  and Paula Turyahikayo Rubabo, argue that although there was confusion for MPs to attend to plenary because of  both speakers being absent, it does not warrant having more deputy speakers because it would be a waste of tax payers money.

In the 9th parliament civil society and some members of parliament had wanted to move a constitutional amendment to have more than one deputy speaker envisaging a situation when both the speaker and her deputy could be unavailable for chairing parliament and that the gap can be filled by  the second deputy speaker  to chair the session.