COVID19: Parliament of Uganda to closed for two weeks

In a cir­cu­lar writ­ten by the Clerk to Par­lia­ment, Henry Yow­eri Waiswa on Tues­day, June 22 to MPs, he noted that the de­ci­sion had been taken af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the of­fice of the Speaker.

“Par­lia­ment like the rest of the coun­try has been af­fected by the sec­ond wave of Covid-19 pan­demic with the pos­i­tiv­ity rate of 17.1%. As a mit­i­gat­ing mea­sure in the pre­ven­tion of the in­fec­tion, the ad­min­is­tra­tion of par­lia­ment in con­sul­ta­tion with the of­fice of the Speaker is clos­ing par­lia­ment to Hon Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment for two weeks to dis­in­fect the par­lia­men­tary build­ings,” said Yow­eri.

The Di­rec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions at Par­lia­ment, Chris Obore in a state­ment on Tues­day also dis­missed the claims that Speaker Ja­cob Oulanyah was ill and that he had not been flown out of the coun­try for treat­ment.

“Fol­low­ing a year of in­tense po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns, keep­ing the Rt. Hon. Speaker away from home for months, he is tak­ing some time to be with his fam­ily. This has been en­abled by the new sched­ule of work where the Speaker and Deputy Speaker take turns to con­duct House busi­ness. In keep­ing with the Pres­i­den­tial guide­lines on #COVID19, Par­lia­ment is, from the top lead­er­ship, scal­ing down phys­i­cal pres­ence at work,” said Obore.

The de­cision follows the con­cern raised by a sec­tion of the pub­lic of in­creas­ing COVID19 cases among the Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and the period of two weeks will give room for dis­in­fec­tion of the Par­lia­men­tary build­ing.