Kampala — President Museveni on Friday rallied his Cabinet behind the embattled Security Minister Amama Mbabazi and directed that they do whatever it takes to save him from censure in Parliament over his role in the National Social Security Fund controversy.

The minister's troubles stem from the Shs11 billion transaction in which he and business partner Amos Nzeyi sold land to the Fund.But Mr Museveni admonished his ministers for tearing each other apart, warning that such in-fighting could ultimately hurt the ruling NRM party.

In the Cabinet meeting that lasted from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. inside State House, Entebbe, Mr Museveni was reportedly firm with some ministers who tried to dissent.

According to some ministers who attended the meeting but did not want us to name them because Cabinet proceedings are confidential, the President reportedly told the meeting that he had studied the majority and minority reports written after Parliament's Committee on Commissions, State Enterprises and Statutory Authorities carried out an eight-week investigation into NSSF's purchase of more than 400 acres of land from Mr Mbabazi and businessman Nzeyi.

Mr Museveni said he had also studied the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority Act and found out that the matter was an investment and not a procurement. This has been a contentious point as one of the allegations against Mr Mbabazi and Finance Minister Ezra Suruma, under whose docket NSSF falls, is that they went ahead with a deal that flouted public procurement regulations. "There is politics in this matter but you must watch out against betraying the NRM principles," Mr Museveni reportedly told his ministers.

He also reportedly reminded them that the Opposition Uganda Peoples Congress party that has ruled the country twice remained strong because it always defended its members. "The UPC party never let its members down; it has remained a party up to now because of that," a source quotes Mr Museveni as having said.

Mr Museveni, who was once a UPC youth winger has, however, in the past disparaged UPC as a dead party. In the Friday Cabinet meeting, Mr Museveni reportedly dominated the proceedings. In what sources described as a direct instruction, the President reportedly told his ministers "to ensure that they do their best to make MPs adopt the minority report and throw out the majority report".

The majority report signed by 14 of the 20-member committee and now before Parliament pins Mr Mbabazi and his colleague Dr Suruma for peddling influence, conflict of interest, and further accuses them of violating the Leadership Code Act. It recommends that they either vacate office or be sacked. But the minority report, written by six dissenters under circumstances that have since come under the spotlight with allegations that Mr Mbabazi tampered with its authorship, exonerates the accused ministers of any wrongdoing.

This presidential support is even more significant as it is the second time Mr Museveni was being categorical about the controversy. On October 11, he told NRM MPs on the investigating committee that the moves against Mr Mbabazi were a direct attack against the party. He said then that he would not sit back and see the party destroyed.

It is not clear whether Mr Museveni's reported determination to defend his ministers who stand accused of corruption-related transactions, will not contradict his earlier public utterances that his party has a zero-tolerance stance against public graft.

Some ministers like Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire and Ms Janat Mukwaya reportedly dissented during the meeting telling the President that the NSSF deal was a procurement and more so, a personal transaction not a party matter.

But their colleagues particularly General Duties Minister Adolf Mwesige and Aston Kajara, who is in charge of Karamoja Affairs put up a spirited defence of Mr Mbabazi arguing that NSSF transaction was mainly an investment. "The President said it was an attack against the party," one minister said, " He is the appointing authority and we had to go by collective responsibility although deep in our hearts, some of us are very bitter."

Maj. Gen. Otafiire on Saturday told Sunday Monitor that "it was a normal Cabinet meeting. We disagreed on certain issues and agreed on others but these are Cabinet affairs and I don't discuss them in the press".

Sources, however, said Maj. Gen. Otafiire tried to rally his colleagues against the President's proposal but Mr Museveni prevailed. Reportedly, after Maj. Gen. Otafiire was subdued, no other minister raised any objections.

However, another battle is expected tomorrow during the NRM parliamentary caucus meeting which Mr Museveni is expected to chair. Sources say the President again wants to prevail over dissenting party MPs. Some of the MPs are, however, preparing to go for the security minister.

"He is going to [force] it down our throats but we will definitely move ahead and put the matter [on] the floor of Parliament," an MP said, adding that, "let it fail on the floor of Parliament but the mood among most MPs now is that Mbabazi must be censured regardless of what Museveni does."