Masaka residents take government to court over denial of city status

Residents of Masaka district through their political leaders have dragged government to court for refusing to grant Masaka municipality a city status.

These claim that Masaka was over looked while granting city status to districts of; Arua, Gulu, Jinja, Fortportal and Mbarara, despite having all the necessary requirements to have a city.

According to their lawyer Jude Mbabaali, the Masaka residents have made an application which was under the local government Act for creation of cities, for which Masaka qualifies having; the required population, water source and commercial viability.

“Masaka has all the qualifications, we are more than 500,000 people in population and have two water sources in Lake Victoria and River Nabajuzi on which water for National Water and Sewerage Corporation is found, we are commercially viable because we produce at least 40 per cent of coffee Uganda exports,” Mbabaali said.

“We were shocked that cities that don’t qualify, those with far lower population than Masaka were granted city status. We need to know what criteria was used,” he added.

These have therefore dragged the Attorney General and Local Government Minister Tom Butiime to court seeking explanation why Masaka is not on the list of city elevations.

This follows recent protests from residents of Mbale who demanded that government declare their municipality a city this year or forget.

Police was forced to fire tear gas and disperse the youth who were carrying placards displaying different messages and chanting; “we want a city’.

Last week, cabinet approved the creation of nine cities, five of which would become effective by July 1.

The cities included; Arua, Gulu, Jinja, Fortportal and Mbarara which would get an elevation from municipal status to city status while Mbale in particular was pushed for elevation in 2021.

A budget of Shs 130 billion was set aside for the operations of the cities after meeting all the requirements. In February, a technical team led by the commissioner of urban administration from the ministry of Local Government, Justinian Niwagaba on a mission in Fort Portal noted that all regional cities will have two divisions.