Controversial Kampala Junior minister Christopher Kabuye Kyofatogabye has blasted the move initiated by his senior minister Hajjat Minsa Kabanda to schedule a meeting with President Museveni so that he listens to hundreds of traders affected by floods which resulted from the ongoing development on Nakivubo channel drainage.
Minister Kabuye insists that some of the traders who are set to meet the President are not the original traders affected by floods but street vendors who want to use the ongoing political campaigns to get money from the President.
“I’m told that stopping those people from meeting the president will be disorganizing his victory in Kampala city but when you look at them, they are not voters of Kampala, some are from Bulenga and other surrounding areas,” Kabuye stated
According to sources, the president is expected to meet the said traders this week at his Kisozi country home and currently, Minister Kabanda and the President’s aides are scheduling the right date and time.
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Sources said that the minister has been pushing the meeting for a month and she used last week’s Kampala Business Forum to smuggle a section of the affected traders led by John Kabanda the national chairperson of the Federation of Uganda Traders Association (FUTA) into the forum to raise their concerns.
When the President Museveni started addressing the gathering at Serena hotel Kampala, he asked whether KACITA leadership were present to tell him why they are still importing goods and products from abroad yet all the products they fetch from abroad are manufactured in Uganda.
Museveni explained that it is the reason why his government put huge taxes on those products and goods.
As Museveni was waiting for KACITA’s response, Kabanda and Godfrey Katongole who is also a leader for traders in the city jumped onto the microphone and thanked the President for helping them to finish KACITA who they accused of being parasites.
They boasted that currently, all city traders are under FUTA.
“ Our father your excellency, when we met you at Muyenga, you promised that we will have a meeting with you to discuss with you the hard economic situation we are going through. We are pleading with you our father to accept our prayer and have a meeting with us before the end of these presidential campaigns,” Kabanda said.
In response, Museveni directed his aides to arrange a meeting with Kabanda team at his Kisozi farm at 7pm and since then, Kabanda and the line ministers are in touch with Museveni’s aides to have a meeting on Friday this week because the President will be campaigning that side of Buganda.
Kabanda told Ono Bwino online that they want to implore the President to help them to speed up the compensation process of all traders who were affected by the Nakivubo drainage channel floods and waive on the conditions put in place by the Prime minister’s office, KCCA and other government agencies.
Daniel Muhumuza Nuweabine the KCCA spokesperson said that they have confirmed that over 1621 traders will be compensated and advised that each one of them should be in possession of a Tax Identification Number (TIN), a trading license, proof of income tax payment, and a tenancy agreement.
Kabanda insists that many of the traders don’t have these documents even though they lost their goods.
Sources said that Katongole also wanted to plead with the President to intervene in their case which they filed at the the Civil Division of the High Court against controversial tycoon Hamis Kiggundu claiming that his actions of blocking the channel while building on top of it resulted into traders losing their businesses.
“Katongole miscalculated his move by dragging the businessman to Court. He thought that he was going to panic and plead with them to settle the matter out of court but the man has stood his ground and his lawyers are ready to proceed with the matter in court,” one of the trader’s leaders said.
But Kabuye insists that traders who are supposed to be compensated should have documents confirming ownership of their lost businesses.
He adds that those they are taking to the president are fake and want to fraudulently get money from the President because of the presidential campaign pressure.
Other sources said that Kabuye being a close friend to Kiggundu is very scared that the traders might tell the President that the man lied to him.
“No, I’m not scared at all, Kiggundu is still following the plan he presented to the president. We should only wait to see when the project is done,” Kabuye said.
