Bukedi Region Launches the Regional Manifesto
Citizens and leaders from the Bukedi region have today the 27th January 2016 launched the Regional and National Manifestos as a basis for their five year mutual accountability agenda. The event, organized by the Pallisa Civil Society Forum with support from the Uganda National NGO Forum, brought together more than 300 political leaders, aspiring candidates from the different political parties, religious leaders, youth and women and specialized citizens’ formations from across six districts of the region.
Speaking at the opening of the meeting, Mr. Wilberforce Makeri, the coordinator of PACONET underscored the fact that the Citizens’ Manifesto seeks to create an opportunity for citizen to work towards addressing the challenges and confronting the hard realities that Ugandans face collectively as a people and therefore hold their leaders accountable.
The launch was presided over by the Deputy Resident District Commissioner of Pallisa District, Mr. Batekana Bakari Sadic who applauded Civil Society for coming out to refocus the future of this country and also emphasised the need to revive the cotton marketing union to improve the benefits from cotton growing in the region.
Political candidates who spoke at the launch decried the current state of public services and pledged to work jointly with the citizens to improve the welfare of the people. Asked about the status quo and how she would fight the scourge of corruption as demanded in the Bugisu Manifesto, Ms. Achola Catherine, the FDC candidate for the Pallisa Women Member of Parliament Said: “the challenge of corruption in Uganda is deepened by the lack of political will by the leadership to fight it, that’s why it is imperative that we put the government to task to act accordingly.”
Citizens implored the candidates to move from making promises to the electorate, to committing to the most pressing issues in the community. “We are tired of politicians’ campaign promises, what we need is a complete shift from those promises to real commitment to our demands so as to positively impact the citizens of Uganda.” Mr. Olombo Paul Mwanyi, a senior citizen in the Bukedi sub region.
This launch is part of the countrywide regional launches of the National and regional manifestos to disseminate and popularize the manifestos across the country and muster the political will of the different actors to implement the demands enshrined in the Manifestos.
