By Mulengera Reporters
President Museveni has once again overwhelmed and taken pundits and his second guessers by surprise by renewing the contract of Mzee Waiswa Bageya to continue serving as the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Works & Transport.
This means that the seasoned technocrat from Busoga will remain in charge at the Port Bell Road-based Ministry through the 2026 electioneering period and beyond.
This move has taken many by surprise because it was taken at the time many thought the President was finally done with the old man and was going to bring in his brother Gen Salim Saleh’s blue-eyed boy Eng Samson Bagonza.
It had widely been expected that Eng Bagonza was coming back in the elevated role of PS because of the role he had played rendering the two powerful brothers all manner of technical advice to guide on the rationalization which resulted into the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) being wound up and it’s multi-trillion mandate transferred back to the mother ministry.
The thinking was that Museveni would bring in Bagonza to champion the transition because the collapsing of the UNRA mandate means that the Works Ministry will be having a lot more work than has been the case before. Pundits thought this would make Museveni favor Bagonza since he is more energetic and younger than the elderly Bageya.
Indeed, many Bagonza’s supporters had already started jubilating having convinced and deluded themselves into thinking that Mzee Bageya was merely warming the seat for their man to come and take charge once the UNRA reintegration is completed.
Museveni acted differently and Mzee Bageya is going to be the man in charge at least for the next three years. He will have to oversee lots of public infrastructure across the country relating to bridges, airports, roads and railway lines for both the standard gauge and the meter gauge.
These projects will see him oversee the utilization of trillions of Shillings in the next 2-5 years. Gen Museveni has already signaled that he wants the railways network revived to ease the movement and transportation of both peoples and goods. It’s also true that Gen Museveni is always cautious not to move or transfer people around government MDAs on the eve of a major election that the 2026 is threatening to be. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
