14 million eligible to vote in 2011

Jan 29, 2010

THERE will be about 14 million eligible voters by June this year, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS). The number of registered voters is 10.5 million as of October 2009.

14 million
voters
By Mary Karugaba and Catherine Bekunda

THERE will be about 14 million eligible voters by June this year, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS).

UBOS executive director John Male Mukasa told journalists yesterday that according to the population projection, a total of 13.9 million Ugandans will be 18 years and above by June 2010.

According to the Electoral Commission’s roadmap, general elections will take place between February and March 2011. Uganda’s total population, according to Mukasa, will be 32.9m people by that time.

He said the figures are projections, arrived at by calculating the birth and death rates and adding a small number of migrants.

“We can project the voters in 2011 because we know the death and birth rates. These figures are scientific undertakings,” he said.

According to the Electoral Commission’s website, the number of registered voters is 10.5 million as of October 2009. Asked whether they have furnished the Electoral Commission with the statistics, Mukasa said: “The EC has access to our statistics. In case they want anything, we shall give it to them since it is public information.”

The NRM Secretary General, Amama Mbabazi, recently told a party meeting that out of a target of 9.5 million registered voters, the party had registered 7.9 million members.

Mukasa spoke to the media after he and his team had appeared before the parliamentary committee to answer queries raised by the Auditor General in his reports for the financial years 2003 to 2008.
The committee, chaired by Ssebuliba Mutumba (DP), asked the officials whether they were ready for the up-coming national population census.

Mukasa said out of sh20b required for the census, only sh1.6b has been released so far. But he said he was not worried since most of the funds will be required in 2012 when the census takes place. The statistics bureau plans to recruit 60,000 numerators for the exercise.

The officials were also asked to explain why they flouted the procurement rules when buying computers, furniture and GPS equipment. The institution spent over sh200m on procurement between 2003 and 2008.

The committee also heard that the board met only once, in 2003. This, the committee said, was irregular and provided loopholes for management to abuse the institution’s finances.

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