Museveni to Masaka: Vote leaders who can access me

President Museveni. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

The cost. President says NRM party members, who would lobby for the development of greater Masaka, are never voted.

Greater Masaka is under-developed because the sub-region votes for only opposition leaders, President Museveni has said.
Speaking at the installation of the Greater Masaka Born Again Bishop, Leonard Sserwadda, at Liberation Square on Sunday, Mr Museveni said most NRM party members, who would lobby for the region, are never voted.

Much as many MPs from Masaka are Opposition, others such as the Vice President, Mr Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi and the Kalungu East MP who is also Minister for Agriculture, Mr Vincent Ssempijja, are NRM members.
“Parliament is just like a place for all to talk. It’s like a bus park but real things are allocated somewhere else. If you look for an independent, he will never reach me,” he said.

The President made reference to how Mr Augustine Ruzindana reportedly failed to develop the constituency in his tenure before Ms Janet Museveni was elected to replace him.

Mr Museveni criticised Opposition leaders who dress in red.

He also commissioned the ground-breaking of the Nyendo-Bukakkata Road, a project promised three decades ago.

A loan was secured in 2012 from the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa and the OPEC Fund for International Development to finance the project.

The 41 kilometre stretch connects residents from Masaka to Bukakata and Kalangala. The road will help boost the fisheries, farming and tourism sectors.

The government has already secured two ferries for the lake managed by Kalangala infrastructure services.

A taxi driver on Bukakata Road, Mr Samula Lumala, told Daily Monitor poor roads have been delaying them for so long.
Finance minister Matia Kasaija had earlier informed that government’s attempts to have the road upgraded stopped due to failure of the contractor to submit excellent performance. The Executive Director of Unra, Ms Allen Kagina, however, attributed the delays to selfish politicians.

Since last year, there have been promises from Unra to stretch the Nyendo-Masaka town road by 13km though it was not indicated in the budget.

The Municipality Mayor, Mr Godfrey Kayemba Afaayo, recently suggested to the Masaka District roads committee to divert funds from the Uganda Support to USMID Project to work on this stretch but this proposal was rejected.
However, Mr Museveni said it shall be worked on.

USMID Project
The development objective of Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development Programme Project for Uganda is to enhance the institutional performance of Program Local Government to improve urban service delivery.
The Government of Uganda requested the additional financing (AF) to scale up the successful impacts of the programme, both within targeted as well as new localities.
As part of processing the AF, the program is also being restructured to : (i) extend the geographical coverage of the program to eight additional municipal local governments.