President Yoweri Museveni has on Sunday commissioned ‘Yellow’ Bicycles for Village NRM chairpersons in all the 68,700 villages.
Museveni, also NRM National Party Chairperson was joined by top party members at the Party Headquarters on Kyadondo Road where he flagged off the distribution of bicycles. According to Museveni, the bicycles will help facilitate the movement of NRM LC1 chairpersons ahead of the 2021 general polls.
“We are here to flag off bicycles for village NRM chairpersons. All the over 68,000 village chairpersons from NRM will get the bicycles. These bicycles should be able to make mobilization easy,” Museveni said. He added that this bicycle project has always been in the plan of NRM Party but it has been delayed due to unresolved issue of funding among political parties. Annually, all registered political parties are entitled to Shs10bn from the government to facilitate their activities.
“We (NRM) have been managing with difficulties; some of our NRM offices have not paid rent, staff have unpaid arrears. However, we are working on this and we have agreed that political parties should be given more money. We want to increase this money from Shs10bn to Shs30bn or even more in the next Financial Year,” Museveni said.
He said that procurement of bicycles for NRM LC1 chairpersons has been made possible due to donations and fundraising from party members. He urged party members and well-wishers to continue donating to the Party to allow them procure motorcycles and vehicles for all NRM LC3 chairpersons and NRM District chairpersons respectively.
“Every month, I contribute 20% to the little salary that you people send to Mama Janet's account. I get Shs3.2m and about Shs700,000 goes to the party. These bicycles were as a result of contribution from party members and in the same way we are going to fundraise for motorcycles for NRM LC3 chairpersons and later on buy vehicles for NRM district chairpersons,” he added.
Through fundraising and donations from well-wishers, Museveni confirmed that NRM has finally bought the property that houses the Party Headquarters at $1.9m and that he will announce new plans for when am addressing NEC next week.
Similarly, State minister for ICT Peter Ogwang, who also attended the function, revealed that government through the Ministry of Local Government has also received funds to procure bicycles and motorcycles for all LC1s and LC3s respectively. He added that whereas the yellow bicycles will only benefit the NRM LC1s, the bicycles from the Ministry of Local Government will benefit all LC1s irrespective of their political parties or affiliations.
NRM Secretary General, Justine Kasule Lumumba thanked the President for ably leading the country during this COVID-19 crisis. She also commended his leadership for availing the necessary technology that has so far enabled them conduct election related activities.
