"Stop the blame game on event organisers, do your work:- DP tells police

Opposition Democratic Party (DP) has blamed security for failure to thoroughly assess the event that was organized at Freedom City that led to the death of 10 people including juveniles during a stampede.

Uganda Young Democrats (UYD) president, Ismail Kiirya who addressed the media on behalf of the party said all event organizers passed through guidelines of the security and they were required to clearly give guidelines on how their events were to be organized.

“But because our security is more political than its profession, they just concentrate on the fees which these people pay them. On that very note we would like to stand with those who passed away during the new year’s events. It's really absurd to wait for the new year and pass away at the climax of the event,” he said.

Kiirya said they listened to all the reports from the security and all were only doing blame games on the organizers and the event managers.

The remarks come at a time as Police widened its investigations in a bid to further join dots in the new year stampede at Freedom City Mall that left 10 dead.

On Tuesday, Abbey Musinguzi alias Abitex, the event promoter was arrested and arraigned before court over negligence that led to the death of nine people.

In a bid to get more information about the incident, Police investigators have summoned more people including the proprietor of the building and city businessman, John Ssebalamu to record statements in regards to the incident on New Year’s Day.

“We have now summoned for questioning; the proprietor of the venue (John Ssebalamu), the managers, other organizers of the event, the masters of ceremony, ushers, bouncers and private security guards who were dedicated to the event,” Enanga said in a statement on Wednesday morning.

Enanga noted that the force will soon release a list of comprehensive guidelines on various aspects of planning and managing events to be followed in order to avoid a repeat of such tragic incidents.

Early this week, Police said preliminary findings indicated that whereas its team had inspected and cleared the venue for the concert, four of its five entry and exit points were later closed by the organizer in a bid to maximize profits by avoiding gate- crashers.