FDC suspends leader for attending NRM meeting
Tough. Mr Saulo Maate, the FDC chairman for Kasese District, who suspended his vice Catherine Muhindo for allegedly attending a meeting with NRM members without authorisation from the party. PHOTO BY MORIS MUMBEREY
What you need to know:
Operation Wealth Creation is a government programme aimed at improving people’s incomes and livelihood through improved production and value addition. Government distributes farm inputs to farmers as a start-up.
Kasese. The Kasese District Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party chairman, Mr Saulo Maate, has suspended his vice chairperson, Ms Catherine Muhindo, for allegedly attending a meeting with National Resistance Movement (NRM) members without authorisation from the party.
Ms Muhindo is said to have represented the FDC chairman at a meeting in Kasese Town at the weekend where participants had convened to append their signatures on the Kasese Investment Plan as requested by the National Coordinator for Operation Wealth Creation, Gen Salim Saleh.
Speaking to journalists at his office on Monday, Mr Maate explained: “We turned down the invitation to attend the meeting because it was not serving the interests of FDC party. The members of the political structures (FDC and NRM) had no right of lying that they will work for the people yet leaders who were voted to lobby for the locals are there.”
Mr Maate added that the NRM chairperson, Mr Police Businge, had earlier persuaded him to attend the meeting but he rejected the calls reasoning that it was aimed at weakening the FDC structures.
However, Ms Muhindo said: “Mr Saulo Maate has no clear reasons of suspending me since I had attended the meeting that is aiming to develop the district. It is one of the reasons why I was elected.”
Ms Muhindo added: “I was in that meeting as the secretary for production and marketing but not as the FDC vice chairperson.”
She said she will meet Mr Maate and the FDC district executive members to discuss the matter.
Kasese District is the FDC’s stronghold in the whole western Uganda.
Last November, Mr Maate said: “Kasese is still very intact, we know the objectives of the FDC party and we can’t be shaken.”
It is now more than four months since Gen Saleh pitch-camped in Rwenzori Sub-region.
He arrived in the area on August 26 last year to preside over a fundraising for Rubona Church of Uganda in Bunyangabu District. He left but returned and pitched-camp in Fort Portal where he met several parties, especially local governments and among others signed a memorandum of understanding with them.
Since September 2018, Gen Saleh has met district and urban authorities in Kabarole, Bunyangabu, Kyenjojo, Ntoroko and Bundibugyo districts. In December 2018, he shifted camp to Kasese District where he has also met different leaders.
He is reportedly trying to make the Rwenzori Sub-region a pilot project for OWC Phase II from “funding to financing”.
About OWC
Operation Wealth Creation is a government programme aimed at improving people’s incomes and livelihood through improved production and value addition. Government distributes farm inputs to farmers as a start-up. Gen Saleh believes financing individuals and institutions can achieve better results. However, his camping in Rwenzori area is seen by some political analysts as a step to re-shape the political landscape in the region that had somehow tilted to the Opposition since the 2016 General Election and the subsequent age limit debate that even drew the top religious leaders in the region and elders to weigh in about the issue.
