Chaos broke out during the Kayunga District council meeting when a section of councilors protested the refusal by the district chairperson, Andrew Muwonge, to sack two members of district executive, who had been arrested by the police over alleged acts of extortion of money from job seekers.
The Friday council meeting, which was presided over by the district Speaker, Mr Saleh Bulinsoni, had started well with councilors deliberating on various issues.
However, hell broke loose when Ms Rehema Namulondo, the Kayunga Town council female district councilor, raised her hand and the Speaker gave her a chance to make her submission.
“Mr Speaker Sir, I stand here to inform this House that some two members of the executive are thieves and are using their offices badly and because of this they are now in court battling charges of obtaining money by false pretense,” Ms Namulondo said.
“This is portraying a bad image to all of us (councilors) as people are looking at us as thieves,”
Councilor Namulondo was referring to Mr Fahad Kamanda the secretary for Education and Mr Ivan Kayemba the secretary for production, who were both recently arrested by the police on charges of obtaining money by false pretence. Mr Kayemba was later taken to Kayunga magistrate’s court where he was charged with a count of obtaining money by false pretence.
He was remanded to Ntenjeru prison for a couple of days before being released on court bail.
Mr Kayemba was also arrested by police and released on police bond on the same charges.
There has been an uproar among residents over allegations of selling jobs by the district officials, something Mr Badru Ssentongo dismisses as false.
Each of the implicated councilors is alleged to have extorted over shs8m from job seekers with a promise to help them get jobs, which they failed to do prompting the job seekers to demand a refund of their money which they refused to pay back.
Mr Joel Kayiira the Galilaaya sub-county district councilor later stood up and demanded that council censures both councilors implicated in the fraud. Both
“We didn’t come here to steal, they have also missed a number of council sittings, we should censure them,” Mr Kayiira said.
But Mr Kizito Ntege, the district councilor representing male PWDs asked councilors to give the implicated officials a fair hearing.
He was supported by Mr Andrew Muwonge the district chairman who accused all councilors except Mr Ntege of being “unclean”.
All of you councilors apart from Ntege, even those baying for the blood of the two councilors are not clean.” Mr Muwonge said.
This, angered the National Unity Platform (NUP) councilors, who seemingly had come to council prepared with their placards to stand up and start waving their posters in protest.
“We are tired of selling of selling jobs. Many of our people are poor and sell their property to educate their children and in the end you ask for bribes to give them jobs,” Mr Kayiira shouted as he waved his placards with inscriptions denouncing corruption.
“We should stand firm and fight for our people of Kayunga. Enough is enough. We are tired of corruption,” Ms Namulondo shouted.
The rowdy councilors walked near the Speaker in an attempt to grab the Mess but the Sargent at arms paced and picked it before they could take it.
Chaos engulfed the council hall as some of the protesting councilors banged tables and threw water bottles, prompting the Speaker to flee the council hall.
The NRM leaning councilors looked on in excitement and seemed to support their colleagues in spirit and not action.
Mr Muwonge and his vice chairperson also fled from the hall.
After an hour of recess, normalcy returned and the Speaker returned to the council hall and the meeting continued.
Seemingly succumbing to pressure, Mr Muwonge announced he had sacked the two executive members implicated in acts of corruption.
He announced that Mr Kizito Ntege is the new secretary for health while Mr Michael Nganda is the new secretary for education.
“People’s power has won” Mr Kayiira said after Muwonge announced the changes.
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