MPs to Museveni: Honour pledges

Museveni wants patience. President says it is a matter of time and the pledges he made in 2010 will be fulfilled.

A group of female MPs has asked President Museveni to fulfill his pledges to communities affected by the Lord’s Resistance Army war in northern Uganda.

The legislators, under the Uganda Women Parliamentarians Association, observed at the weekend that Mr Museveni’s failure to respect the promises to the already-depressed and needy communities amounts to “foolery and total neglect”.

The MPs, while visiting peace committees in Omot Sub-county in Agago District - one of the sites of the heinous massacres by the LRA rebels in Acholi sub-region where 28 civilians were hacked to death in 2002 - observed that the survivors could only be made to forget their woes when the government fulfills its earlier ‘vital’ and developmental pledges to the communities.

While in Omot in 2010, the President pledged to build a boarding school at Wanglobo Trading Centre, to cater for orphans and other victims. It is alleged that victims were allegedly ‘cooked’ in pots by Kony’s rebels during the LRA war.

Ms Judith Franka Akello, the Agago Woman MP who led the legislators to the area last week, said the community has now lost hope in the sitting government because it has been making ‘good’ promises that have not come to pass.

Letters without replies
She said: “A promise should always be fulfilled, I have written several letters to the President to this effect but there has been no response.”

Her counterpart of Nwoya District, Ms Lilly Adong, who is also the chairperson of peace building committee under UWOPA, observed that “the most affected people should instead be prioritised in reconstruction efforts.”

Agago District Speaker Bostify Oweka, who lost seven relatives during the massacre, observed that “orphans of the massacre, widows and widowers always come to my office following up on the pledge but I have always been having no answers.”

But President Museveni, during his recent visit to Kitgum District, asked the people to be patient.

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