UPC calls for national dialogue

By Moses Mulondo

The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) for a national conference to be convened to resolve on a roadmap for a new Uganda agreeable to all the stakeholders.

Speaking  during their last press conference for 2012 on Wednesday, the UPC leaders said the situation in Uganda is a time bomb which should be denoted in a national conference to avoid the disastrous consequences of its explosion.

“Uganda is a broken country which needs urgent healing. Beneath a seemingly normal situation, with the streets of Kampala and other towns dogged with cars and entertainment events being crowded with people, the country is teetering on the brink of a political explosion,” said the UPC Vice President Joseph Bbosa.

He observed that 2012 has been a year of shocking levels of corruption in the various government ministries and departments.

“In this ending year, we have witnessed those who should be at the forefront of investigating and bringing to book those involved in corruption doing their utmost to block, disrupt and frustrate investigations and prosecutions. We have seen mock and staged trials where the accused are acquitted and set free to continue with the plunder of our country,” Bbosa lamented.

UPC also defined 2012 as a year where government has failed to satisfactorily respond to public queries on abject poverty, poor state of the roads, high road carnage, poor state of hospitals, poor state of education institutions, federal system of governance, violation of human rights, land conflicts and transparency in conducting oil business.

“We propose that all Ugandans from all the political parties, religious leaders, civil society groups and influential individuals to come together to jointly come up with solutions to the problems which have bedeviled our country. That is how Uganda will be healed,” Bbosa stated.

The party’s special envoy, Ambassador Harold E. Acemah, said at the beginning of the year, an Inter-Party Organisation for Diolague (IPOD) conference had resolved that a national dialogue be convened before the country’s golden jubilee but government did not give it priority.

“Ever since the lanchestor conference in 1962, Uganda has never had another stakeholders’ conference to agree on how we stake together in harmony. We cannot continue to pretend that everything is okay. We need a fresh start,” Acemah said.

Asked how UPC can propose healing for the nation when the party also needs healing from the internal wars, Bbosa said, “We have this failed to be united but it is one of our targets in the first half of next to unite all party members so that we can one united force and be at the forefront of heralding a new political dispensation.”

The party leaders called upon police to swiftly investigate and produce its report on the causes of the death of Butaleja woman MP Cerinah Nebanda.