The Minister of Defence and Veterans affairs who is also a Member of Parliament Bunyangabu district Hon. Adolf Mwesige on 12th January 2019 was hosted on ToroDev’s supported weekly talkshow ‘’Orukurato’’ on Hits Fm to give accountability for his constituency and also elaborate on the proposed Master plan for Tooro region.
Hon Adolf Mwesige started with elaborating on the proposed Tooro region master plan that it will supplement the existing development works in the region as well as helping the region to take off. He said the master plan will benefit 8 districts of Kabarole, Ntoroko, Bundibugyo, Bunyangabu, Kamwenge, Kyenjojo, Kyegegwa, Kasese and Fort Portal Municipality plus all other municipalities in these districts.
The Minister said that, the national coordinator for Operation Wealth Creation Mr Salim Saleh has been in the region for over 4 months now and his purpose is to make consultations at district level on how best the proposed master plan will be implemented.
Hon Adolf Mwesige ,Minster of Defence & Veterans Affairs
Hon Adolf Mwesige said, focus is on establishment of industrial parks, tourism, dairy farming, airport construction in Kasese, refurbishing Kilembe mines among others. The total budget for the whole master plan is 649 billion shillings which funds have been confirmed as available by the Minister of Finance Hon. Matiya Kasaija while officiating the Tooro Region Master Plan MoU signing ceremony on 8th January 2019 in Kabarole district. Allocation of funds has been done based on the size of the district, population and proposed projects to implement. The biggest amount for a district is 59.8 billion shillings for Kasese while the least district which is Bundibugyo will get 52.5 billion shillings and implementation of the master plan is expected to commence in the next financial year that start in July 2019.
‘’We believe the main idea behind this Master plan of increasing income at house hold level, improving road network for easy transportation of goods and services and supporting private sector businesses especially those in Agro processing will be achieved’’, Said Hon Adolf Mwesige. He further said the equivalent of Two hundred eighty nine billion shillings (289 bn Shs) to support private sector business is earmarked to help them improve quality of their produce.
During the 2 hours radio discussion, Hon Adolf Mwesige, the Minister for Defence and Veterans Affairs who at the same time is a Member of Parliament representing people in Bunyangabu district gave accountability to his electorates highlighting his contribution on the construction of Katugunda vocational school for students and those that dropped out of school to learn vocational skills and reduce unemployment in the country. Hon Adolf Mwesige showed it that he started Bunyangabu Revolutionary Farmers Association (BRFA) to improve banana farming in the district. ‘’ I have worked to improve value addition projects and so far 2 factories to improve the quality of coffee and 1 apiary factory have been established in the district and orders for coffee are coming from countries outside Uganda and our farmers in apiary are supplying honey in supermarkets within the district and outside’’, Said Hon Adolf Mwesige.
The Minister said despite the challenges in extending services to the people, there are key plans that he was looking forward to and lobbying from other people to implement them for example; construction of Kiyombya, Nsura and Rwimi secondary schools in their respective sub counties and work at Kiyombya secondary school will start effective next financial year that start in July 2019. We plan to have Industrial parks at Rwimi and Kibiito Sub counties, irrigation scheme worth 43 billion shillings to supply water to the entire district will be done to improve on water supply challenges prevailing especially to our farmers. Kiyombya, Buhesi and Rwimi Sub counties their road network is not good and we shall work on their roads soon to ease access and transportation of people and their goods.
On electricity, the minister said at least 75% of the entire district has been connected with electricity however we are working with private sector and other government agencies like Rural Electrification Agency (REA) a body responsible with extending electricity in rural areas to connect areas of Mitandi and Bunaiga such that people can start mini- industries to improve their income levels.
During the 2 hours radio discussion, callers were given opportunity to participate and some of their concerns included; the increasing debt burden for the country, what plans are in place to extend water and electricity to areas that lack them? and also improving on the bad roads in the district which concerns were raised by Baguma Dan, Kisembo Joshua and Jane Kunihira respectively, all from Bunyangabi district.
While responding to the citizens concerns, Hon Adolf Mwesige said, the increasing debt burden for the country is due to the government programs to develop the country and lack of enough funds to run the budget for the country which forced government to borrow money for development work for example money that was used for the construction of roads like Fort-Portal –Lamia road, Fort- Portal – Kamwenge road, Kyenjojo- Fort Portal road, Mbarara-Kabale-Kisoro road, etc was loaned to the government and since we needed to work on these road, we could not avoid it.
The Minister said he will co-ordinate with the district to make sure they do their work for example improving on the roads in the district and those projects that are beyond the district as a minister and area Member of Parliament he will lobby for them such that people can have improved services in the district and country as a whole.
We thank all our development partners SIDA, NED, CIPESA/ICT4DEM and many others for the financial and technical support to run these programs.
