Delegates of the 64th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference take a break off meetings and set out on a tour of various sites, including Lubiri Palace and Bulange.
Delegates who are in the country attending the 64th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Munyonyo have hailed Uganda’s central government for allowing a smooth operation of cultural and traditional institutions in the country.
The comments were made by the delegates during a tour at Buganda Kingdom where they visited the kingdom palace and its establishments.
The delegates were welcomed by Buganda Kingdom (Katikiro) Prime Minister Charles Peter
Mayega who took them through Buganda’s history as well as its relationship with the central
government.
Qionibaravi Adilitia Qoliwasawasa, a legislator from the Parliament of Fiji appreciated the kingdom of Buganda for nurturing a strong
traditional system of governance as well as working collaboratively with the central government.
Qionibaravi said that the co-existence between the
cultural institutions and the central government shows a good relationship and proves that people still love and cherish their culture and tradition.
“I am so challenged, this is so interesting and commendable and I am seeing this for the first time; I commend the government of Uganda.
We had the system in Fiji but it collapsed since the traditional institution wanted to run a parallel
government,” Qionibaravi said.
The leader of the delegation and Johor State Legislative Assembly Speaker Suhaizan Kayat
appreciated the government for successfully combining the modern system with the tradition
system.
“We appreciate the country on the success to customize the combination of modern system and traditional system, we appreciate and hope that we
shall find more time to visit Uganda”.
“He appreciated the Kingdom for preservation of heritage, transformation of livelihood of its people as well as sustaining the kingdom”.
Responding on the comments, the Prime Minister
noted that it’s the belief of the kingdom that the
Westminster model shouldn’t be replacement to
the traditional systems.
“The Westminster model is commendable, of
course democracy is important because people
must have choices and freedom must be
supported, even modernization in its fullest sense
is important to embrace the world as it was is
very important but we must not abandoned our
starting point,” Mayega said.
Mayega added that, “If you want to build a strong
country, you must start from the basics which
don’t start with the arrival of the Europeans,
actually they came because of the basics, the
culture, the history which characterize the people
and this attracted the colonial masters to come
and explore as well as finding resources.”
He noted that there is need to maintain the
tradition systems as well as embracing the west
minister model at the same time.
“That is why we are pushing for a Federal system
of government; we want to operate a modern
Kingdom in a modern country which preserves its
system and we believe Federal would help us
achieve that.”
