President has expressed disgust with the situation in the NRM party where he has been left alone to be the one to find resources to run party activities as if the party doesn’t have other members and leaders.
Sources say that during the Sunday night meeting in Entebbe State House with NRM district chairpersons, Museveni furiously responded when Hajji Kiganda Sonko (who chairs the forum uniting all party district leaders) read out a long list of the promises he made to them that remain unfulfilled up to this day. The major demand on the list was the promise made many years ago to buy vehicles for NRM District chairpersons, motorcycles for the Sub County chairpersons and bicycles for parish-based party leaders. Museveni furiously responded wondering where he is expected to keep getting all this money. “Now apart from the Shs8bn you get from the electoral commission, your party has no other known source of funds. Everything is always waiting for Museveni the national party chairman. If I don’t fundraise, nobody else brings in money,” said Museveni in the same speech where he discouraged reliance on money to win elections by NRM party candidates.
He said what is okay is for people to be given basic facilitation to do campaign work, for instance transport but the idea of people being given money to bribe their conscience isn’t good and must stop to prevent the party from incurring unnecessary expenses. We spoke to Sonko who defended the memorandum he read out saying it simply represented members’ views. He said they aren’t asking for too much because the vehicles once allocated will be maintained and fuelled by party district chairpersons, which he said doesn’t amount to asking for too much. He said some district like his have as many as 300 villages which in the long term will require much more expenditures on fuel than it will even cost to buy the vehicles. He also defended other demands such as being prioritized to sit on boards of government MDAs situated in their areas. “If there is say a government school in my sub county, what’s wrong with my membership on the governing board being prioritized if I qualify and pass the proper and fit person test?” Sonko wondered in a phone interview this news website. He also laughed off some disgruntled district chairpersons who left State House bitter claiming he didn’t allow them to talk and be able to shine before the President. “That is really not right. The president is a busy person and there is no way we could have more than 5 people speaking during the plenary and that wasn’t my decision,” said Sonko daring those dissatisfied with his leadership to come out and contradict him openly rather than speaking anonymously. He also warned his members to be careful and avoid saboteurs who want to ride on the Lumumba-Tanga differences to ferment rifts in the forum uniting district chairpersons for the party. “That will be a very dangerous path and we indeed implored the President to reconcile these two leaders; the EC chairman and the SG,” Sonko concluded. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755.
