Government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo has suggested that speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has told Ugandans a good number of lies, including about a Covid19 drug.
Kadaga and Opondo are sworn enemies, and the latter used a recent communication about the speaker’s efforts to support Islamic banking to take a swipe at her.
“I’ve received 22 names of eminent Muslim scholars who have requisite skills in Islamic Banking,” said Kadaga. “I’ve forwarded them to the Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.”
In response, Opondo reminded Kadaga that she was yet to deliver a Covid19 cure she promised a scientist from Busoga would manufacture in association with a foreign drug maker.
“The country is still waiting for the COVID19 drug manufactured by a ‘boy’ from Busoga you promised on the floor of Parliament last year to be available in two weeks,” the government spokesperson reminded the speaker.
In March 2020, Kadaga assured Ugandans biochemist Mathias Magoola would begin, in just two weeks, producing a spray that kills Corona virus.
She claimed Prof Sarfaraz K Niazi had donated the drug’s patent to Uganda.
Even when the Uganda Medical Association (UMA) warned it was too early and misleading for anyone to claim to have a drug for the deadly respiratory disease, the speaker was adamant.
Opondo’s attack of Kadaga is likely to be interpreted by the speaker’s supporters as woven into a propaganda campaign meant to discredit her as deserving of a third term as speaker of Parliament.
Within the ruling NRM party, Kadaga is facing stiff competition from her two-term deputy Jacob Oulanyah who wants Parliament’s top job.
Weeks ago, NRM chairman President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni suspended speaker race campaigns.
In the State House meeting in which campaigning was suspended, Museveni tasked Opondo to explain why he openly criticized Kadaga, yet both belonged to the ruling party.
Top government official fires back at Speaker Kadaga for labelling Vice President position ‘useless’
