FDC opposes EC recruitment of election supervisors

The opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has opposed the decision by the Electoral Commission (EC) to recruit parish and sub-county election supervisors in preparation of the 2021 general elections.

The party demands that the electoral body should wait for the electoral reforms to be passed and this should be in consultation with other stakeholders.

The EC through a public notice carried by the media announced a process to recruit 10,057 supervisors to manage the 2021 elections at parish and sub-county levels.

EC data indicates by June 2018, Uganda had 1,671 sub-counties and 8,386 parishes requiring 10,057 vacancies that need to be filled. 

However, more villages, parishes and sub-counties have since been formed which may necessitate more than the number if the criteria remained one parish, one supervisor or one sub-county, one supervisor.

Addressing journalists at a weekly party press conference in Kampala on Monday, FDC party spokesperson Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, insisted; "These recruitments are supposed to be done after the necessary electoral and administrative reforms have been undertaken."

"FDC would like to warn the EC chairman not to involve himself in organizing another sham election. There will come a time in future when these individuals that are messing up the country, will personally have to answer for their crimes no matter how long it will take," he added. 

According to the EC, the supervisors will are charged with a number of tasks and they include updating the voter register, issuing voter location slips and conducting voter education in the sub-counties and parishes. 

Other responsibilities will range from taking charge of election equipment and materials within their jurisdiction and election materials reaching every polling station in time.

The Supreme Court recently ordered the government to table electoral reforms in Parliament within one month. 

According to the EC road map, electoral reforms should have been enacted by January 2019, but they have since delayed as stakeholders continue to pull ropes.

Relatedly, the party expressed concern about the ongoing countrywide tour by President Yoweri Museveni to mobilise for wealth creation, saying that the money used on the arrangement should instead be committed to supporting farmers directly.

"Affording additional funding of sh17.5b appropriated by Parliament as a supplementary specifically to finance the tour was a wastage since the President is already allocated about sh30b to fund the President's travel inland under State House vote 002," Nganda said. 

The party labelled Operation Wealth Creation a failure.

"The country knows that OWC which the President declared on June 9, 2014, and now is five years, has been a failure as it was with other campaign slogans such as Entandiikwa, Modernization of Agriculture and Prosperity for All (Bonna Baggagawale). 

"This is because the aim was never to help the population out of poverty," Nganda noted.