Minister Namuganza on verge of being thrown out of MP race over irregularities in ‘names’

Junior lands minister Persis Namuganza risks being disqualified from the Bukono County (Namutumba District) parliamentary race after a voter petition Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama, the chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), citing inconsistences in her names.

Namuganza is seeking to retain the Bukono County MP seat.

She has been an independent MP but is now seeking to represent the people of Bukono through the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) card.

On December 29, 2020, a voter from Namutumba wrote to Byabakama, asking him and his commission to investigate anomalies into the name changes undertaken by Namuganza

Through Haguma Law Chambers and Advocates, concerned voter Wilson alleges that Namuganza has two different documents on oath.

The first, Haguma Law Chambers and Advocates notes, is the one undertaken in November 23, 2015 — a year after Namuganza’s national identity card was issued.

That she was not contented because officials at the National Identification Registration Authority (NIRA) had captured her ‘princess’ title wrongly, thus her name coming back as NAMUGANZA PERSIS PRINCESS.

In a statutory declaration in November 2015, Namuganza changed her name to PRINCESS NAMUGANZA PERSIS.

Yet, according to the concerned voter and Haguma Law Chambers and Advocates, Namuganza has since 2015 been using the name NAMUGANZA PERSIS PRINCESS (which she dropped five years ago).

That even the declaration she made on oath on September 23, 2020, even confirmed this.

The concerned voter further alleges that in the deed poll made on October 05, Namuganza claimed she was changing her name from NAMUGANZA PERSIS PRINCESS to PRINCESS NAMUGANZA PERSIS.

The concerned voter’s lawyers of Haguma Law Chambers and Advocates say Namuganza committed fraud by making no reference to her earlier declaration.

The lawyers also fault Namuganza for lying about her father’s names.

They now want the EC to discontinue Namuganza from the race.

“We believe this is fraud and the candidate who was nominated was NON-EXISTENT at the time. It is our humble prayer that her name be accordingly expunged from the list of the contestants from the constituency,” the concerned voter’s lawyers wrote to Byabakama.

The EC received the petition on January 04, 2021.