Leaders promise extension of water to parts of Rwimi Sub County

On 11^th July 2015 Mr. Ngomayondi Abel the chairperson LC 111 for Rwimi Sub County in Bunyangabu county Kabarole district pledged to extend water services to the villages of Kanyamukale,Kagoro, Kyakatabazi, Kigungo & Mirambi. Safe & clean water will be extended to these villages in this financial year 2015/16 having lobbed and confirmed with the district chairperson who promised to extend the  Karambi gravity water scheme to these villages.

As leaders, we have worked tirelessly to improve the education system in the sub county by adding on more grades from 2 first grades in 2005 to 118 super first grades in 2014, as a council bought a transformer to ease the electricity problems in his sub county and opened all access roads in the sub county which are awaiting murraming.  Mr. Ngomayondi said this while appearing on the ToroDev supported ‘Orukurato Program’ that is aired every Saturday 8:00pm-10:00pm on Hits fm a local radio station in fort portal, Kabarole district.

While commenting on the wealth creation program that was initiated by the government of Uganda to replace NAADS, Mr. Ngomayondi said, ‘’Am a model farmer with 5 acres of mango trees, I also grow bananas, tomatoes and maize. Since mangoes have 2 seasons in a year, I get between 45-55 million     Uganda  shillings in a year’’ Mr. Ngomayondi said he holds a certificate of the most visited farmer having hosted 12 districts from within Uganda.

During the two hours live radio discussion, Mr. Ngomayondi said the wealth creation program or new NAADS as people know it replaced the old NAADS and as we talk it does not have structures. When materials for distribution come, they are kept at the town council or sub county headquarters before they are distributed.

 There are challenges with the wealth creation program because, they deliver little items yet farmers mobilized to receive items are so many, they deliver late sometimes when the season is off and only one person is in charge of a whole county which is quite not easy to mobilize and monitor  these farmers.

We have an association of farmers called farmers revolution that was formed after an exchange visit we had in Mbarara that was sponsored by Hon. Adolf Mwesige. We learnt a lot and now as farmers in Rwimi Sub County, we support each other through digging, from one farmer’s garden to the other in every parish of Rwimi including the town council. Through this association, we have also helped families to improve their domestic hygiene, improving the house hold income levels, constructing a farmers market in Rwimi, & through lobbying from Hon. Adolf Mwesige, him & his friends have pledged 30 million shillings that will be used to complete the market in order to sell our products, said Mr. Ngomayondi.

Mr. Ngomayondi encouraged farmers not to look at price fluctuations because that’s expected in agriculture products but focus on the available market by continuing to grow both food and cash crops & only advocate for value addition produce and improved storage facilities.

During the discussion, callers were given time to participate through call-ins & sms; ‘’tomato farmers have increased , although prices are low, we can still manage paying fees for our children in different schools, said Betty a caller from Rwimi,’’ ‘’ value addition of our products should be advocated for by our leaders if we are to benefit more from our produce’’, said  Stella Tumuhairwe from Rwimi, ‘’we people of Kadindimo we have a problem of water and we do not have electricity, our leaders should look into that’’, said Immaculate from Kadindimo, ‘’ ‘’ Sub county NAADS coordinators used to visit us at sub county level but the UPDF are not visiting us why is this so’’, asked Musa from Rwimi’’, ‘’ Government should help us and look into the prices of agricultural inputs due to fluctuating prices of agricultural products’’, said Mama Bashir.

 The program was moderated by Mr. Kasigazi Willy Donanto and is supported by ToroDev in partnership with NED, DRT, SIDA, SPIDER & ICT4DEM