By John V Sserwaniko
The newly appointed RDCs and their deputies will have to wait and continue to endure joblessness up to September which is roughly three months away. This was one of the many decisions arrived at during a stormy planning meeting President YK Museveni convened today Sunday at State Lodge Nakasero. The meeting started midmorning and ended at 2pm. In attendance was President Minister Ester Mbulakubuza Mbayo, RDC’ Secretariat head Martha Asiimwe, PPS Molly Kamukama and Museveni who chaired the meeting. A few other State House departmental heads attended it too. On the agenda was the embarrassment the presidency endured a few days ago when it emerged that some dead NRM cadres had been appointed and their names included on list of new RDCs. This caused the presidency to be ridiculed on social media with many wondering if this wasn’t proof of a fatigued Museveni presidency.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
During the Sunday meeting at Nakasero State Lodge, a furious Museveni sought to understand what happened and his handlers, specifically PPS Kamukama and belligerent Minister Mbayo, had to explain. It emerged that, despite being the line minister, Mbayo hadn’t made adequate input in the list as many of the cadres she considered to be very good mobilizers were left out. Examples include outgoing Butaleja RDC Richard Gulume and Luuka RDC Steven Bewayo. Coincidentally Mbayo, who is widely understood not to be doing well on the ground as MP, is the legislator representing Luuka as District Woman Representative. Many factors have eroded her popularity including her failure to concede Speaker Rebecca Kadaga’s political supremacy and submit to her as a senior figure from Busoga. This has rapidly emboldened her political adversaries in Luuka where Bewayo has always been perceived to be the one holding forte for Mbayo in her absence as she serves nationally in Kampala. This is why Bewayo’s dropping from the RDCs’ list is taken to be something that has greatly injured her politically in her Luuka backyard. So during the Sunday meeting, Mbayo implored the President to permit her to revisit the list and come up with comprehensive proposals on how to strengthen it. Her argument was that many experienced cadres had been left out because of her ministry’s inadequate input yet she is the line minister. “That won’t happen. I’m the President of Uganda and I’m standing my ground. That list isn’t going to be recalled. If there are mobilizers that you say were inadvertently left out, let’s have them on the waiting list. We shall consider them for the new districts that are going to be created. If not we shall find for them something else,” sources quoted Museveni as firmly saying during the State House meeting. Having heard from Mbayo clearly saying she didn’t have much input in the list, attention shifted to Molly Kamukama who members tasked to explain and account for the public embarrassment the Presidency suffered as a result of dead persons being appointed RDCs. “Your excellence we have been having a very long list of people who you have been promising deployment over the years. Their records have been with us for long. Everything is on file and what we did was to get names of those you had promised jobs and we put it together. We didn’t know who had died and who hadn’t. That is how it happened,” sources quoted Kamukama as explaining. Some members felt it was improper for the Presidency Minister not to have had the last word on the RDCs’ list and consensus at the meeting was that this should never happen again.
FOCUS ON LC1;
Museveni decreed that members move on and the RDCs’ list be left the way it is. In what betrayed his anxiety regarding the possibility of NRM being trounced by the opposition groups in the upcoming LC1 elections, Museveni said any confusion engulfing the Presidency at this time would be very bad because it’s supposed to coordinate political mobilization to ensure majority LC1 chairpersons elected in the more than 60,000 villages are NRM. He referred to intelligence reports which show that the opposition has quietly been mobilizing and NRM shouldn’t take things lightly lest they get humiliated in the 10th July polls. “In fact that’s why I’m directing that let all those newly appointed RDCs wait. We can’t have new people taking charge in the districts on the eve of such a very important election. It’s too near and by the time the voting day comes, those new RDCs will still be on orientation still learning the geography of those districts and that is why I’m directing you [Mbayo] to ensure that the incumbent RDCs occupy office until the LC1 elections are over. Let them [new RDCs] be doing voluntary mobilization wherever they are and prepare to report for work in September,” Museveni reportedly directed bringing what had started as a very stormy meeting to an end. Sources maintained that Mbayo, who came expecting the President to be very furious at his PPS Molly Kamukama, left the meeting very much subdued after her expectations weren’t met. Besides the Molly Kamukama debacle, Mbayo also flopped in her endeavors to get the President reverse the RDCs’ list so that cadres she considers good mobilizers, including her two political pillars Richard Gulume and Steven Bewayo, could be included. For comments, call/text/whatsapp us on 0703164755.
