The Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LoP) Joel Ssenyonyi has indicated that his dissidents will boycott President Museveni’s State of the Nation Address on Thursday.
Ssenyonyi said the decision followed a closed-door shadow cabinet sitting convened in the opposition boardroom at parliament on Tuesday.
President Museveni is due to address the nation on June 6 at the Kololo Independence Grounds.
“The Shadow Cabinet has held a meeting and we have agreed not to attend the State of Nation Address and budget Speech,” Ssenyonyi said on Tuesday.
The lawmaker also claimed that Museveni’s addresses are “predictable- and therefore no merit necessitating opposition attendance.”
“The State of Nation Address consistently has become ritualistic. Museveni comes to speak to the nation and he is regurgitating the things in 1990, early 2000s and so on. I have actually prepared my response to the State of Nation Address because in our rules, the LoP is supposed to provide a response. My response was ready as of last week and you know why? Because I know what he is going to say,” Ssenyonyi told journalists on Tuesday.
He also used the same media engagement to notify the country that his team will equally boycott the unveiling of the 2024/25 national budget passed in a May 16 plenary sitting chaired by Speaker Anita Among.
The event is usually characterized by a budget speech, with this year’s event set for next week at Kololo.
“We laid on table your ministerial policy statements that feed into the budget. We [also] tabled our minority report which was pointing to what the budget needs to focus on,” Ssenyonyi noted.
“Our views were disregarded. We are saying [that] can we reduce our consumptive expenditure while service delivery gets to suffer,” he added.
Almost every year, opposition lawmakers boycott the State of the Nation and budget addresses despite the fact that the events carry on.