EALA legal committee discuss member's misconduct

East African Legislative Assembly members of parliament who are part of the Legal, Rules and Privileges Committee are this afternoon sitting to discuss alleged issues of indiscipline committed by a fellow member Shy-Rose Bhanji from Tanzania. The session is taking place at Parliamentary Buildings, Kimihurura. According to some members of the Assembly, Bhanji is alleged to have verbally insulted several members and three East African presidents during a trip to the European Union parliament in Brussels early this month. Bhanji has also been accused of ‘embarrassing’ fellow parliamentarians and the region by getting intoxicated and causing havoc in a passenger plane during the return trip from Brussels to the point of being restrained by plane marshals. A section of MPs have vowed that normal house business will not resume until the issue they termed as ‘gross misconduct’ has been addressed. The first week of the Assembly’s sitting in Kigali last week ended on a low as debates and deliberations were adjourned twice in a row in the first ten minutes of sittings. The members said that part of the reasons for frustrating house business is that the speaker of the house, Dr. Margret Nantongo Zziwa has made no efforts to address the case of indiscpline. Bhanji has however denied the allegations against her, saying that they are part of a ploy hatched to damage her reputation and dissuade her from serving her Tanzanian constituents. “As an EALA MP I refute the allegations circulated against me. There is no truth, proof or reality to any. It is all lies to damage my reputation,” Bhanji wrote on Twitter, the social media platform. She added that the witch-hunt against her could have come from a section of members aiming at impeaching the house speaker, Margaret Zziwa. She said that the allegations were however not a surprise as she had been vocal in protecting her country’s and the region’s interest making her unpopular amongst the house members.

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EALA legal committee discuss member's misconduct