Intrigue is killing the NRM party - Mukula

National Resistance Movement (NRM) party vice chairman for the eastern region, Mike Mukula, has said the biggest challenge to the party is intrigue and the high desire for materialism.

He said the NRM as a whole was not bad as some opposition leaders try to portray it although, he said: "it is true that there are some individuals within the party hierarchy who acquire wealth and forget about people at the grassroots.

Some people go up and think they are great and forget the ordinary people who they use as ladders to achieve their goals".

"This has created hatred for the party because people are poor and keep on complaining, but nobody listens to them," he added.

Mukula was speaking at the victory party of Local Council 1 chairman for Kisenyi Central Zone in Kampala, Charles Oboth, an NRM party supporter who contested as an independent candidate.

Oboth, from Tororo, was sponsored by Singh Katongole's family, having lived with them as an adopted child and beat eight other contestants to the seat.

Mukula who is a former state minister and MP for Soroti Municipality claimed he recently rejected a ministerial appointment, but declared that he would work from outside the executive to build a strong party.

"The NRM is a good party although there are mistakes, but they are committed by individuals and not the party," he said.

Mukula told the gathering that the NRM had a masterplan to rejuvenate its roots in Kampala and Wakiso, and turn its attention to the ordinary people in garages, vendors in markets, boda boda riders and uplift their wellbeing.

People want fairness

He told the gathering that one of the biggest challenges with the NRM party was that "some few people benefit from the national wealth".

"We have a few people in government who are bad but we need to fight them. We should also stop the habit of few people benefiting and leave the poor to suffer," he added.

Mukula challenged the newly elected leaders to ensure they collect people's ideas and demands and take them to President Yoweri Museveni for consideration. 

He applauded the voters for having elected someone from Tororo, which he said was a good indicator for democracy and that Oboth would be a unifying factor in the area.

He said despite repeated allegations that the NRM rigs elections, the just concluded local council elections were free and fair and no incidents of rigging were recorded, because the exercise was conducted in the open and the party swept over 80 percent of the seats.                                   

Enumerating the NRM's achievements, Mukula said the party had registered fundamental achievements including turning Mulago National Referral Hospital into a modern facility, giving a facelift to Entebbe International Airport, construction of the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway and that were plans to build a dual carriage road between Bwerenga and Mpigi.

According to Mukula, Uganda has attained the best road network in the region, with all the border to border roads across the country now tarmacked.

He said peace and stability was another achievement for the NRM, including disarming cattle rustlers in Karamoja and defeating over 14 rebel groups including ADF and the LRA of Joseph Kony.

"Our biggest development challenge is unemployment of the youth, poverty and backwardness," he said.

Mukula however appealed to people to lower birth rates, saying Uganda had one of the highest fertility rates in the world, which he said was a major cause of poverty.   

He appealed to the Kampala Lord Mayor, Erias Lukwago, who was represented by Kampala Central II councillor, Moses Kataabu, to install more street lights in Kisenyi to enable the people work at night.

Kataabu however told residents that although he had been instructed by Lukwago to map areas for vendors to operate in after 5:00pm, the proposals were rejected by the KCCA executive director, Jennifer Musisi.