Journalists and media activists grateful to Museveni

By Ahmed Kateregga

MASAKA-UGANDA/ NEWSDAY: I am grateful to President Yoweri Museveni for retaining me Deputy Resident City Commissioner in my home Masaka City, this time, in charge of Kimaanya Kabonera City Division.

l am also grateful to him for having appointed a reasonable number of

journalists and media mobilizers, l coordinate under Office of

National Chairperson NRM and NRM Journalists and Media Activists

Network, as RDCs and Deputy RDCs, among others.

 As Baganda say, Tusiima bwongerwa (We are grateful and ask for more) especially as full RCCs and or RDCs.

l join other peace loving Ugandans to pay condolences to the country for the  loss of the Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, which obituary l wrote about last week, and l congratulate comrade Annet Anita Among for being elected Speaker and Hon. Thomas Bangirana Tayebwa for being elected deputy Speaker last week.

When President Museveni appointed me and nine others as Deputy

Resident City Commissioners in the 10 new cities, in June last year, we started preparing to move to our stations. As we were organizing this and that, Hon.Anita Among contributed to us a startup and l

personally, on the next day, moved to Masaka city.

 l had not solicited for it and it was a surprise and l think it was the same with the rest of my colleagues. It passed through one patriot that is a member of

Central Executive Committee of the ruling National Resistance Movement.

So, l am hopeful that with that kind heart and patriotic duty, the 11th Parliament and the rest of Uganda will benefit much from her and her office and the same from her deputy. No wonder she has promised to sponsor one of the late Oulanyah’s children studies in Canada.

There is mixed reaction and historical and veteran members of NRM as

to why converts from Forum for Democratic Change inculiding Speaker

and Deputy Speaker, eat big in NRM Government when the historicals and

the veterans are there.

Similar questions we raised after the reshuffle of RDCs and RCCs when

some were poached from the Opposition especially NUP. Some NRM leaders

especially in Greater Masaka raised an alarm. But on a talk show on

Radio Impact in Masaka on Friday evening moderated by Frank Bwekumbule, l reminded them that when NRM/NRA formed an Interim Government at Kasese with Al Haji Moses Kigongo as Chief Administrator and Maj. Jacob Asiimwe as Permanent Secretary, many of the commissioners, as interim ministers, were called, were Democratic Party MPs including Gerald Ssendawula who was the Minister for Finance and planning and who organized exporting coffee from Masaka Cooperative Union via Rwanda.

Upon capture of state power in 1986. NRM broad based government was

full of DPs led by Dr. Paul Kawanga Ssemogerere who started as

Minister of Internal Affairs and later Deputy Prime Minister, and UPCs

like Anthony Butere, CPs like Mayanja Nkangi, and many others. Many of

these ended up in NRM and retreated to their respective parties.

As for Masaka City, l have been fortunate, as Deputy RCC, to serve under three RCCs, Mr.Fred Bamwine, who was in October, moved to Nakaseke, and replaced with Jjuuko, Kasiita, who was also in the same month moved to Kyankwanzi and replaced with Mr.Steven Asiimwe and we collectively contributed to end of bijambiya saga. I am now seeving under my new RCC Mr.Ronald Katende Kinene, whom l worked with in Office of National Chairperson, Kyambogo.

In addition to managing security, overseeing and monitoring government

programs and political mobilization, we shall focus more on popularizing poverty alleviation programs especially Emyoga and Parish Development Model as the city is undergoing road rehabilitation and

street lights in addition to other infrastructure developments like

two modern markets.

Masaka city, was though denied having Bukalasa minor Seminary, Katigondo National Seminary, primary and secondary schools and cathedral at Villa Maria and Bwanda convent now still in Kalungu District, and Nkoni palace that is still in Lwengo district, it has

rural areas that were inherited from Masaka, Lwengo and Kalungu

districts which should be zoned for agriculture. Intensive organic

mixed farming is the way to go using St. Jude’s Agricultural Research

Center at Busense under Mrs. Josephine Kizza and a fish farming project will be launched soon. A beef factory at Lukaya the president promised in 1996 elections, a glass factory, and restoration of a

fruit factory are some of the unfulfilled presidential promises that were going to be fulfilled, God willing, in this term.

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