Kampala:  Lawmakers who represent constituencies in northern Uganda have flattened their colleagues from the rest of the regions coming in first position as the most outstanding debaters on the floor of Parliament.

The ranking is contained in a report assessing the collective performance of Members of Parliament done by the African Leadership Institute (AFLI), a Kampala based think tank. The report, which was officially launched by Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi yesterday, reveals that "on average" MPs from the north "perform best" in the plenary followed by MPs from the east with the central following while MPs from Western Uganda record a tail end position.

Prof. Nsibambi found moment to praise the think tank for its scorecard report which assessed MPs performance in the third session from June 2008 to May 2009 and said: "It is clearly a good instrument." This is the third report issued by AFLI since 2007.

Of the top 10 debaters on the floor, northern Uganda claims at least four places with Youth MP Dennis Obua leading the pack. Included on the list are MPs John Odit (UPC, Erute South), Livingstone Okello Okello (UPC, Chua) and Kassiano Wadri (FDC, Terego County).

Investigating MPs performance at committee level, the report concludes that MPs from the east perform better than all the others while in constituencies, the east and central MPs "tie for best performance."

By political party representation, the report concludes that opposition members "on average" do better than ruling party MPs on the floor of Parliament. "However, opposition and NRM MPs tend to perform equally well in Committee, and NRM tends to do better than all other parties in constituency on average."

Research methodology

However, Prof. Nsibambi expressed reservation over the methodology used by the researchers and faulted the report for missing out on what he said were key parameters to correctly rate the performance of individual MPs.

He said the report was silent on who takes the credit for a statement read on behalf of the government or opposition, and failed to capture situations where some MPs sign attendance registers but fail to sit in the House for the entire duration of the plenary.

"The capacity for Hon. members to stay and complete work is very limited," said the Prime Minister. "Some make excellent points and then they disappear."

He also faulted the report for not considering behind-the-scenes lobbying on various issues in Parliament, a key activity in the House which he said must be an element for MPs assessment.

In the report, a sample 20 MPs were asked to assess the performance of the rest of their colleagues, a matter which Prof. Nsibambi queried, questioning what method was used to select the sample.

AFLI Chairman Elly Karuhanga said the sample 20 MPs were picked randomly and were a fair representation of Parliament. Speaking on behalf of the donor community who aided the scorecard report, Netherlands Ambassador Jeroen Verheul said the scorecard would serve as a critical tool to provide citizens with impartial information upon which they can make up their own minds on the performance of their own MP and hold them accountable.