Opposition Members of Parliament sitting in a Shadow Cabinet meeting on Tuesday have resolved not to attend he State of Nation Address this afternoon.

The MPs from various opposition parties including the National Unity Platform – NUP, Forum for Democratic Change – FDC, Democratic Party – DP, Uganda People’s Congress – UPC, People Progressive Party – PPP, and Justice Forum – JEMA claim the address will yield no results.

Mathias Mpuuga, the Leader of Opposition (LOP) says the decision was reached at unanimously by all the six parties. Mpuuga says they disagree with the unresponsive approaches of President Museveni and his Cabinet to addressing the soaring prices of essential commodities in the country.

“If any members attend on their on as outliers , they are not our prisoners, we are communicating a joint solution of a consultative process, the yield to this decision will be moral. People actually have no money in their pockets, so we are telling the President that you are sleeping on duty and we shall not accompany you today, We are also displeased with him” He says

Mpuuga has also accused the President of using his long arm to interfere with an independent arm of the government, ‘Judiciary’ and influencing the trial of Members of Parliament Muhammad Ssegirinya of Kawempe North, and Allan Ssewanyana of Makindye West.

“He has interfered with the work of the judiciary, resulting into the continued detention of our colleagues, when he looks to the Speaker’s left today and we are absent, he will know that we are in the country, Our absence will remind him of our presence” he says

The accused MPs remain in custody for the past nine months as their trial stalls

Since their arrest in September 2021, this will be the third time the opposition MPs are protesting. In September and in March, they boycotted a plenary to protest the abduction and arrest of the two MPs, human rights abuses, arbitrary arrests, and detention of citizens by security operatives in the country.

President Museveni will on Monday afternoon deliver the State-of-the-Nation address at Kololo Ceremonial grounds at 2pm.

This address usually focuses on the state of affairs in the country and is in line with Article 101(1) of the Constitution of Uganda. This also marks the official opening of the 2nd Session of the 11th Parliament.

The highly anticipated address comes at a time when the public has given up hope on the government finding solutions to the sky rocketing prices of essential commodities.

During his last address on the difficult economic times, President Museveni left Ugandans with no immediate solutions to their precarious state after he asked the public to either use items sparingly or opt for alternatives to expensive items.

The President stated that the government would not interfere with market forces by regulating prices, offering subsidies or cutting taxes on the prices of essential items. To him, this would lead to heavy tax loss in a economy that thrives from collected taxes.

“The tax loss would cripple our budget and the planned developments. Moreover, the removal of taxes on some of the commodities, would mean tax loss to Government of: Ugx. 1.53 trillion for petroleum, Ugx. 1.15 trillion for diesel, Ugx. 520 billion for wheat. How, then, do we fund our budget for – roads, electricity, schools, medicine, security, etc.? There are items we do not tax – eg. Medicine, raw materials, etc. It is, therefore, not true that we tax everything.” Museveni said during his address on on Sunday May 22,