A Cabinet meeting last Friday agreed to support Security Minister Amama Mbabazi and his counterpart at Finance, Dr Ezra Suruma, over their conduct in the controversial NSSF-Temangalo land deal.

Details emerging from the meeting chaired by President Museveni indicate that Cabinet has decided to reject the main report produced by the parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises which found the two ministers culpable, in favour of a minority report by six MPs on the 20-person committee which exonerated them.

In order to effect the Cabinet position, Members of Parliament from the ruling National Resistance Movement party have been summoned to meet today and are expected to receive instructions on what line to toe when debate on the report starts later in the week.

Cabinet's position on this matter is unsettling and smirks of an attempt to pervert the course of justice. The two reports on the investigation are meant to come to the floor of the House where MPs will have an opportunity to pick through the evidence as well as the recommendations and decide on an appropriate course of action.

Up to this point, the investigation has been bipartisan with NRM MPs among those who feel the two ministers- as well as the management of the NSSF- committed some errors for which they ought to be held accountable.

The attempt to ring-fence National Resistance Movement MPs around a common position therefore appears like a cunning attempt to ensure that the debate is still-born by framing it as a contest between the Opposition and the NRM which enjoys a comfortable majority in the House.

If Cabinet ministers believe that the issues raised in the minority report are valid, they should make their case in an open and free debate in the House and help shape a common position on the matter. Important matters such as this investigation, which could determine the political fates of two ministers and the way workers' money is managed in this country, should not be decided in dark smoke-filled rooms, but in the open and transparent forum provided by Parliament, free of undue influence.

By agreeing on a position and then handing it down to the NRM Caucus, Cabinet has chosen damage-limitation over transparency and accountability. President Museveni might win the battle to uphold the minority report in the NRM Caucus and in Parliament.

However, in the absence of a free hearing of the two reports, he, Cabinet, the two ministers, and the NRM will lose the war of credibility in the wider court of public opinion.