Owino market saga: NRM mobiliser accuses minister Namugwanya of witch-hunt

Susan Kushaba, an NRM mobiliser working under Gen Salim Saleh’s sister-in-law, Kellen Kayonga, has accused the minister of state for Kampala Benny Namugwanya Bugembe of fighting her to the point of wanting to have her arrested.

Kushaba told Nile Post that Namugwanya had directed KMP Commander Moses Kafeero to ensure she gets arrested because she has been addressing the media while criticising her for messing up the President’s recent directive on markets.

Genesis

In his 25^th September letter, Museveni directed the Kampala Minister Betty Amongin to ensure that KCCA repossesses ownership, control and management of all city markets.

Museveni also directed that KCCA registers all the vendors and organise elections to enable them elect their own leaders replacing self-imposed leaders like Owino’s Godfrey Kayongo who had stayed in office for decades while claiming to be protecting NRM interests.

Museveni took this stance after intelligence reports indicated such vendors’ grievances were part of the reason NRM doesn’t perform well in elections in Kampala.

Amongi directed her deputy Namugwanya to handle Owino as she works with the KCCA ED Dorothy Kisaka to handle the other markets.

Trouble starts

Under Namugwanya’s supervision, Owino traders are supposed to have a general assembly at the beginning of January to elect their interim chairman and the executive to run the market for six months when more competitive elections will be organized.

KCCA is supposed to use the 6 months to develop proper guidelines and bye-laws under which the new order will operate in the markets.

Much as the Museveni letter makes him ineligible, we have been told that Kayongo has his proxies who he wants to be in the interim executive for 6 months.

It is these that are now facing off with a faction led by Kushaba, who wants to bring Kayongo's reign to an end.

Kushaba and her group have previously addressed press conferences claiming Namugwanya is biased in favour of the Kayongo faction.

They have been petitioning the President too about the same through Betty Amongi. They are already mobilising to ensure none of the Kayongo faction members ever gets elected to the new interim executive, a process Kushaba now says Namugwanya is very uncomfortable with.

“That is why she is using her position as the minister and political head of Kampala to direct the KMP bosses at CPS to detain me in Kitalya on trumped up charges,” Kushaba said.

 

Kushaba said Namugwanya is practicing double standards.

“The actual reason why I’m being hunted for arrest on orders of Namugwanya is because I reported to the President the fake investor they recently brought to him from Yemen purporting to be the one with money to re-develop Owino market. The other reason is because Namugwanya knows I’m influential in organising fellow vendors to ensure Kayongo’s people don’t get elected into the interim executive early next year.”

A diehard Museveni supporter and mobilizer, Kushaba is the one through whom Kellen Kayonga has been rallying support for President Museveni’s re-election among market vendors in Kampala and the arcade traders downtown.

She said she isn’t going to be intimidated into silence because keeping Kayongo and other old guard members in leadership positions in Owino and other markets will only frustrate the President’s support base in these markets.

Efforts to get a comment from Namugwanya were futile as she did not return our calls.