Mpigi district leadership threatens to walk to work over fuel cuts
The leadership of Mpigi district has threatened to resort to walking to work over cuts on their fuel allowances.
“The public should be informed that any time they see us walking to work on using boda bodas , they should know that we have no fuel. In order to serve them we shall walk or use boda bodas to go to offices and return home,” said Martin Ssejemba, the Mpigi district LC5 chairman.
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Addressing journalists on Wednesday, Ssejemba said whereas in the previous term, the leadership used to get enough allowance for fuel, the same has been cut by 60% a situation he said has seen their work crippled.
He cited the previous LC5 chairperson who used to get shs2 million as fuel allowance but the same has now ben reduced to shs800,000, whereas the allowance for the vice chairperson was reduced from shs1 million to shs500,000.
On the other side, the fuel for the district speaker was reduced from shs1 million to shs500,000 whereas the district secretaries current get shs400,000 as fuel allowance from the initial shs600,000 they previously received.
“As new leaders of the district, we are experiencing technical sabotage to limit our reach out to the people and the field where service delivery is implemented. Whereas the speaker is supposed to coordinate the works of the district council, to benchmark from other district councils and also coordinate activities of the lower local government councils allover the district, the six months we have been in power, the office has not been provided with a car,” Ssejemba said.
Politics at play
The Mpigi LC5 chairman however blamed the current situation at politics that he said is play between the National Resistance Movement and the National Unity Platform.
“This is all ii comparison to the previous NRM regimes. In the current NUP regime, incentives in the office of the district chairperson and the speaker were diffused by the office of the Clerk to the district council,” he said.
The district leaders said despite the fuel allowance being meagre, matters were made worse when they were further reduced.
“We are now resorting to boda bodas and walking on foot to move from home to district headquarters and back daily.”
