Citizens urged to support elections of Local council one (LC 1)

Citizens including local leaders need to embrace the elections of LC 1’s due to their roles in our communities. Uganda last held elections of local council one chairpersons about 15 years ago yet they play a big role in our communities including keeping security, community development works, supervision, etc hence need to advocate for faster processes from electoral commission to conduct LC 1 elections in the country.

These and more were words from Hon Moses Ikagobya the district vice chairperson and also district councilor representing Buhesi sub county in Kabarole district when he was hosted live on ToroDev supported ‘Manya Ekiragiro Kyawe’ program that is aired live every Wednesday 8-10pm on Krc Fm. He was hosted on 1^st March, 2017 to give the district status report in line with service delivery and also give the work plan for the district for the next financial year.

Hon Moses Ikagobya Kabarole district Vice chairperson

‘’ Uganda last conducted LC1 elections in 2001 which means that the mandate of these leaders expired in 2006. Even those in offices can be legally challenged in case one wanted to do so because they are given much delegated authority by government when actually they are not legally constituted. Local councils play critical roles in community/village development and improving service delivery that is where we need to advocate for their elections to immediately take place’’, said Moses Ikagobya the district vice chairperson Kabarole and district councilor representing Buheesi Sub County.

Mr. Ikagobya said we need to build back a strong leadership which has been missing in the last 16 years starting with our villages. As government plans to play its role of making sure free and fair elections are held, duty bearers should work as a team in support with other stakeholders to reduce poverty and bring development in communities and also expand services to equitably coordinate & solve problems that affects people at household level.

 The core role of decentralization was bringing services nearer to people and also development at community level but to some extent we have not achieved that because key sectors like education, health, economic development are still struggling to become better something that has affected service delivery. These sectors need to be embarked on positively such that they can create employment opportunities and also plan and allocate resources where citizens can be granted authority to make independent decisions to ensure better control and supervision of resources at all levels in order to bring development and improved income levels at household level. As a district we are implementing government programs as well as improving service delivery in education, health, economic development, etc we have worked on a number of roads, clean and safe water is being extended to communities that luck it like Kicwamba and Harugongo sub counties and also working to extent the power grid so that many of our people can access electricity and then begin businesses to improve incomes at household level.

 The two hours live discussion at krc listeners engaged  through calls in and sms platforms and more than 30 people discussed ,“The government should start up a secondary school at kabahango because our student walk long distances  to reach them and this has resulted into increased dropouts of students in schools and they should also work on water system for the people of Kabahango,” said life from Kabahango,”Education sector should change teaching syllabus which is theoretical to practical’s starting from primary to tertiary institutions  if they are to improve development and house hold incomes in Uganda’’, said Noel from Kagote Kabarole district, “why does the district close primary schools and yet government aided schools are far  they should support them instead of closing them’’, said Mugisa from Kabarole, ‘’more youth and women groups need to be supported to access funds to increase their house hold income if we are to fight poverty and unemployment’’, said Margret Kateba from Karambinsub county in Kabarole district.

We take a great pleasure to thank SIDA, NED, SPIDER, ICT4DEM, CIPESA  & all who have supported us both technically & financially to run these programs live.