In separate phone interviews, KCCA top officials downplayed the chaos that this news website’s reliable sources maintained has been sparked at City Hall (headquarters of KCCA) over the curious manner in which Geoffrey Rwakabare was recently recruited to serve as manager youths affairs. Critics and disgruntled insiders, who feared speaking on record fearing reprisals from Jennifer Musisi, told this news website that Rwakabare, who is the husband to Lands junior minister Parcis Namuganza, was not properly recruited. Critics also question the motive behind his recruitment with many of them maintaining that he was brought to propagate Musisi’s proxy wars against workaholic Director Gender Harriet Mudondo who has lately not been on best terms with ED Jennifer Musisi. Some also say the posting was meant to win for Musisi a new Cabinet ally in Namuganza in her ongoing battles against Kampala Minister Beti Kamya.
However, Julius Kabugo (aka JK) the very powerful Director Treasury services disputed this narrative as totally untrue. “Whoever is trying to create a wedge between the ED and Ms Harriet Mudondo is an enemy of development at City Hall and won’t succeed. Those two ladies are best friends and they even pray together,” said Kabugo who critics say is currently the most influential Musisi subordinate at City Hall along with Ag Director Legal Charles Ouma who replaced Micheal Okuo who left cursing the day he accepted being wooed by Musisi into City Hall. On his part, Rwakabare, who critics say has been used to effectively sideline Mudondo and weaken her Gender Directorate by taking most of the budget, denied any wrong doing. Sounding rather very disturbed, the former Kawempe Town Clerk said “what honestly does my employment at KCCA have to do with my spouse? Please leave her name out of this.” He then said: “I haven’t been used to sideline anybody because I’m not in the Gender Directorate. I’m a senior member of top management and I’m part of the ED’s office. You had better call Mr. Peter Kauju for a more official comment because I didn’t recruit myself in that office.”
MUDONDO OVERWORKED?
Kabugo, who has strong institutional memory having working with Jennifer under the new KCCA from day one, further rationalized Rwakabare’s posting on grounds that the current staff in the Directorate led by Mudondo are too busy and overworked to sufficiently attend to the very demanding youth component. “We had declined in the performance of the Youth Livelihood Program [YLP] as Kampala and the youths weren’t repaying the money because our colleagues in the Gender Directorate are too busy with the rest of the mandate. This is why we required an officer specifically handling YLP and in the last one month, results have started to show,” Kabugo said. “Because of increased focuss on them and things like supervision by the new officer, the youth attitude towards the ED and City Hall has greatly changed and recovery rates [for the YLP funds] have improved and it can only get better. It’s important that we recover the money because each time our youth pay back, it creates opportunity for other groups to borrow the money and that’s good for everybody and not just that gentleman [Rwakabare].” Kabugo further explained that at Rwakabare’s prompting, the ED recently met the over excited youth which demystified previously held view that the ED and the entire bureaucracy at City Hall is very contemptuous of them. He implored critics to allow Rwakabare time adding that the good results he is posting will be good for KCCA as an institution and not just the ED Jennifer Musisi as a person.
A top source at the Gender Ministry seemed to corroborate Kabugo’s utterances by saying: “Yes its true KCCA’s performance in the recovery of YLP funds has improved. That one we can confirm as the ministry of Gender but as to whether it’s because a new officer was recruited, that one we don’t know because we aren’t part of KCCA.” To comment on this story and other Mulengera news stories, call or text 0703164755
