Why Nwoya leaders want RDC dismissed

The Nwoya Resident District Commissioner (RDC), Mr Christopher Omara, has detailed why the district technical staff and political leaders want him out of the district.

A motion to dismiss Mr Omara was blocked by the district council speaker, Mr Tonny Okello, on Monday afternoon at a meeting at Nwoya District council hall over lack of evidence.

In the meeting attended by more than 25 councillors in Anaka Town on Monday, Mr Kenneth Odong, the councillor for Alero Sub-county, rose to table the motion to seek the council approval to remove Mr Omara from the district.

Mr Odong said: “The Local Government Act CAP 243, part IV, Section 30 provides very clear guidelines and mandates of district councils. We discovered that our current RDC, Mr Omara has faulted in a lot of ways and I request the council to recommend to the appointing authority his removal from Nwoya.”

Mr Odong also alleged that the RDC interferes with local revenue collection of the district. “Our revenue officers are always chased away on the orders of the RDC each time they visit some of the investors and commercial farmers,” he said.

He added: “The behaviours are not only unacceptable for a serving government employer, but also cause disrepute to the staff and district that we cherish and wish to develop to desirable heights within the shortest time possible.” 

However, the speaker blocked the councillors from debating the motion, citing lack of evidence, making it null and void.

“By the power given to me as the speaker, I defer this motion to the next council meeting on March 31 while waiting for the mover of the motion to provide the particulars of the motion. As we wait, let us keep quiet as district authorities and politicians. Let the RDC also keep quiet but work together with the others,” Okello said.

Mr Okello also asked Mr Omara to apologise in writing to the council for abusing them in statements at funerals and other gatherings as well as withdraw his statement about the councillors stealing bicycles.

On Sunday, the Local Government Minister Raphael Magyezi reportedly held an abrupt visit to the district to attempt to convince the councillors not to proceed with the petition since it lacked merit.

Mr Magyezi asked the councillors to wait for his official visit on March 31 to meet with the councillors to resolve the RDC matter.

Mr Okello also said Mr Omara’s open fights against corrupt officials in the district had given Nwoya a negative image.

“Yesterday (Sunday), we met Minister (Magyezi) over this, Nwoya now has the worst name in the country and that is scaring investors and NGOs away. All of us here are corrupt and I ask the RDC from now to keep quiet but go slow with his fights,” he said.

Anticorruption fight

Meanwhile, Mr Omara was denied to speak during the council sitting but in a separate interview he told the Daily Monitor that he did not owe the council nor any official an apology since he did not offend anyone.

At his office, Mr Omara showed Daily Monitor a document detailing how each delegate who travelled for the President’s meeting in Gulu City last month signed for their facilitation.

He said the allegations levied against him were fabricated and meant to derail him from his efforts to secure Nwoya out of corruption and to deter him from recovering the Parish Development Model (PDM) funds they allegedly mismanaged.

“This is blackmail, the councillors are being used by the district technical officials to fight me because I have been fighting their corrupt tendencies. They intend to boot me out because I am stopping people from eating money,” Mr Omara said.

A month ago, Mr Omara had kicked off an inquiry into the alleged misappropriation of Emyooga funds.

“The Emyooga you know very well, I have found that the secretary in the RDC’s office is also a secretary of the saloon operators’ group, how can someone from the office of the RDC be a group member, and they are relatives,” he said.

Background

This newspaper understands that when the Nwoya RDC, Mr Christopher Omara, ordered the arrest of officials who failed to return Shs208 million meant for the Parish Development Programme (PDM) in September 2022, it was the beginning of his turbulent reign as the President’s representative in the district.

Six district technical officials were arrested and ordered to return more than Shs170 million meant for the implementation of the PDM programme in October, which they allegedly misappropriated.

The government disbursed Shs417 million as a start-up fund for the implementation of the PDM programme activities such as administrative costs, salaries, procurement of equipment, and revolving fund to approved groups in Nwoya.

Of Shs262 million meant for the revolving fund for 44 parishes, only Shs104 million was deposited.

At least Shs60 million was meant to pay the salaries of parish chiefs but investigation revealed that Shs99 million was spent and that equipment such as computers were given a budget of Shs49 million but it was discovered that no equipment was procured.