Bugiri leaders petition govt on stalled road rehabilitation works

Bugiri, (UG):- A section of leaders in Bugiri municipality have petitioned higher offices especially the local government to intervene and implement their decisions of having rehabilitation of Trukundsi road to tarmac road standard as it is reflected in their work plan.

The leaders say there is a plot to oppose the resolutions by the council to include road maintenance instead of rehabilitation to be tarmac.

On Monday this week, a section of leaders in the municipality turned rowdy and conducted a demonstration accusing their technical staff of not following the administrative decisions which were reached during their council meetings. They also accused them of mishandling the shs1 billion road funds which were given to the town by the government.

Led by the Mayor Bugiri Municipality, Mr Ayub Kisubi, the leaders in disappointment noted a number of roads in bad condition in the municipality especially Trukundsi road, showing dissatisfaction for failure to utilize the money for road rehabilitation, something which calls for its return to the consolidated fund.

This prompted police to intervene and the Mayor was arrested along with the NRM chairperson for municipality Mr. Sayid Kagere.

The speaker Bugiri Municipality Council, Prince Mutumba Rashid said they petitioned relevant offices in Kampala to help them in effecting their council decisions by rehabilitating the road. He said on Monday they agreed and programmed to implement tarmac in road rehabilitation after passing the work plan, emphasizing tarmac in the urban center of Bugiri and contested the decision of some technical to include murram roads in the highway town.

“We are not happy with what the implementers are putting in place, from the word go when we received news that we were going to get shs1b to rehabilitate and maintain roads, we welcomed the idea and programmed and the work plan was passed. We’re ready to implement tarmac roads in the municipality and murram roads should go to rural areas,” Mr Mutumba told this publication.

The leaders quoted that Trukundsi road is one of the busiest in the municipality and whoever enters the highway town ought to travel on it, something which prompted them to demonstrate that the road which is currently in bad condition can be renewed by tarmacking. They were also concerned with the arrest of their mayor and municipal NRM Chairperson who were later released unconditionally on the day of arrest.

Responding to the demonstration and arrest of some leaders on that day, the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) for Bugiri district Mr Paul Kalikwani condemned the behaviors exhibited by the leaders saying they didn’t consider guidance from the District Police Commander (DPC) and ended up involved in unlawful demonstrations.

“Some of the demonstrations are outside the law then definitely it puts the security of the area at risk. So I want to confirm that two of the ring leaders of this strike have been arrested because they didn’t take heed to the guidance of the DPC, nor did they seek official clearance for their lawful demonstration to take place,” Mr Kalikwani said.

He also appealed to the general public saying in verbatim “whenever you have elements of dissatisfaction and you feel like you want to show dissatisfaction, you seek clearance from the relevant officers so that you are guided but once you act outside our guidelines you frustrate activities and businesses and it interrupts and inconveniences even other people outside your arrangements.”