The Citizens' Manifesto Takes off in Kamwenge.

It all started during the 2010/2011 Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government election campaigns when the concerned citizens of Uganda decided to break the jinx of leaders presenting to them their ‘Manifestos’ this time around it was the citizen’s presenting a manifesto to the aspiring candidates. Indeed that did go well to some candidates who did not make it to their desired positions. It came true in Kamwenge district as the LC V chairperson recalled how some leaders were made to account for their time while in positions of leadership “ somebody I will not mention was made to account for his time while we were campaigning in Kahunge sub county, Kamwenge District during the last election”

In Kamwenge it was not business as usual while each of the leaders castigated the corrupt leaders who do not mind the needs of the people. “why do you preach to the people of Kamwenge anti-corruption while your MP from Kasese stood in court and accepted to have misused the Constituency Development Fund” Deputy RDC-Kamwenge asked the Director of KALI. The Deputy RDC was responding to the Top Ten CM national Priorities during the leaders training workshop in Kamwenge. The participants at the training realized that the CM agenda was a tool to help the leaders deliver on their manifestos as long as they involved the grassroots citizens in the planning and budgeting processes.

The leaders of Kamwenge who participated in the training were prepared to take on the CM agenda to the local lower governments. In the 09 action points that included: Taking the CM agenda to the citizens, Planting of Coffee as a cash crop, planting of Trees to avert the looming deforestation and developing a frame work of the Local governments to work with Civil Society Organization, the Deputy RDC Kamwenge, finally broke the silence when he said “ You arrange the Neighbourhood assemblies on Saturday (s) and invite me, I will be there to talk to the citizens, I know the citizens have issues on the Naads, UPE and USE but they don’t talk because you leaders to go them” that action was welcomed by all the participants and Kahunge subcounty shall host the very first peoples parliament in Kamwenge.
Its upon these actions that leaders shall realize the need to localize government flagship programs as opposed to the top-down planning that is on agenda in most lower local government because of the limited resources.
RWECO shall continue to support citizens driven action to bridge the gap between the elected leaders and the ‘bataka’. It was all smiles when the participants realized that the Citizen’s manifesto was facilitating them in their mobilization of the citizens on defining each ones role and place of action. That was after one of the participants Hon. Justine from Kicheche had asked why the Local Government Staff continue to call councilor unskilled and not technical on matters of project work.
The CEWIT Coordinator Mr. James Mwirima, gave the participants hope that they were the employers of the LG staff and therefore ought to give tasks to the technical staff and reminded the leaders of the LG Act (1997) which ably spells out the roles of the Councilors and the technical staff. He further reminded the house that before approving any budget, the technical staff should give the small details before hand otherwise if they approved a budget, that was money approved and shall be spent.
Kamwenge leaders were informed by the LCV Chairperson Mr. Kamashamba that the district had identified coffee to be promoted as a cash crop in the district and challenged the leaders to be the role models, “ while making my field trips, I will begin by visiting homes of the leaders of that particular sub county that would ensure that my colleagues are not only talking the walk but walking the talk”

I therefore invite well-wishers to join RWECO, KALI, and RICNET on 24th May, 2012 at Kahunge Primary School to witness yet another peoples parliament that shall be graced by the RDC-Kamwenge.

HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR TIME?

At the end of every calendar year, right from the household up-to the public sector, we are all busy accounting for our time. What does this mean, make a call to your friend whom you spent the other month hanging out with, the most likely answer is “ I am busy with end of year report” believe me you, this is a critical moment for both parents and managers. Shop keepers are busy making endless journeys to Kampala looking out for the most recent design on market, what about the tailors, the machines are on rampage what has happened, Christmas or end of year. All this is in the name of Christmas and welcoming the new year 2012.

While I was in Holland, I witnessed how the Dutch welcomed the year 2010. It was real spending, don’t mind about the financial crisis making headlines in the Euro zone, The Americas and sub Saharan Africa, orders for fire works to usher in the year dominated the media. One senior citizen wondered if all the money spent on fire works was put in a pool and spent on food security in one of the sub Saharan African countries how many hungry children would be saved? This alone reminds me of how we spend our time and money during Christmas without caring for the next neighbor walloping in abject poverty, never mind we spend our time debating and arguing advancing theories on causes of poverty.

In the name of meeting targets, members of Civil Society Organizations, and Government departments will certainly break for Christmas, but ask how all these civilized citizens will be spending their valuable time. Don’t get surprised to hear somebody mention, ‘I did not finish my end of quarter report, I have comments from my donors to respond to, my boss was not around I will be having a meeting with him/her’. What about the family? With such kind of working, what happens to the children who needed to go out to the beach to make fun with the busy parents?

Again in the Hague, new year is spent in style, imagine temperature at negative two degrees, then you jump into the North Sea! I saw for myself on January 1, 2010 brave people of different odds jump into the North Sea, and I have already received invitations for the ballistic event to be at Schevinengen a famous beach in Den Haag, The Netherlands. Wow, don’t forgot the famous Christmas lights lit allover the streets in town and in public places.

While reviewing my agenda for this year 2011, I realized, many local governments were supposed to have council meetings and budget conferences, but wait a minute, as a concerned citizen, I took time off to review my agenda if I had ever attended any of the consultations by the honorable councilors to collect our views. All I read in the news paper of Monday 12, Dec. 2011 page 9, was “Kasese swimming in Poverty” I was struck by this statement and when I made analysis of the budget for Kasese district, I could not locate money on wealth creation save for the Naads funds which is only benefiting the Naads staff instead of the poor farmers who are swimming in poverty. Did you hear Kasese Municipality passing a supplementary budget of UGX 800M on 15^th December, 2011? It all focusing recurrent expenditure what about the garbage in town? Be as it may, if we don’t plan for garbage collection in Kasese MC, Mpondwe-Lhubiriha TC, our leaders might answer for the cholera cases in hospital, simply because somebody plans to arrest those dumping garbage.

What can as CSO activists do to bring the plight of the poor on the political agenda? Its our constitutional mandate to take off time and engage with the leaders to change the statue quo of the flagship programmes like Naads , UPE, Immunization, environmental conservation among others. Its un believable for a government flag ship programme like Naads to allocate 60% of its total budget to administration? Isn’t this another wastage of public funds if we must spend our time profitably then we need to take stock of our priorities. Why are farmers swimming in poverty don’t they spend their time wisely or somebody is working to bring them down?

Following the trends in the 9^th Parliament of Uganda, one can now believe that, the power of numbers is working and the spirit of nationalism is back on the political agenda. The news of one of the senior ministers resigning her position paving way for investigations into mismanagement of Uganda Broadcasting cooperation (UBC) was greeted with missed feelings on the evening of December 14^th , 2011 (New vision 15^th December, 2011 page 13, Why I resigned). While my eyes were glued on the 8 pm UBC news, I swear, the said Hon. Minister read out her resignation and did not welcome any questions from the blue eyed journalists of this country. This is perfect and nice way of spending time other than wasting tax payers money on another Adhoc committee to investigate whether the Hon. Minister really spent her time wisely while holding the Information docket. Wamma, Hon. Minister, you are a ‘Heroin’ come the next generation you will be remembered for giving way.

As we celebrate Christmas and usher in the new year on Sunday 1, January, we are all called to spend wisely and think of the little child who had nothing to serve on Christmas day because their parents were caught up attending to another child in hospital.