GERALD BAREEBE
Kampala
First Lady Janet Museveni has spoken out about her appointment to Cabinet saying the assignment while daunting was handed to her by God and she promises to do her best at the job.
In a letter sent to Sunday Monitor yesterday in response to public comments in the media and elsewhere about her getting the job, the Ruhaama MP said the challenge of, and in, Karamoja had exercised her mind for more than a decade—an admission that suggests that she has long had Karamoja on her mind and relishes the challenge.
In June 2006, President Museveni appointed Col. (Rtd) Tom Butime to the Karamoja Affairs docket, but he rejected the offer, suggesting that he considered it a demotion. Mr Aston Kajara later took up the assignment until recently when he was switched to the investment portfolio.
Despite being rich with mineral deposits like gold, limestone, marble, uranium and granite, Karamoja has remained one of the poorest and most primitive regions of the country where some citizens still walk naked and largely depend on primitive nomadic cattle herding for livelihood.
But it has often given overwhelming political support to President Museveni’s NRM during election time. It is difficult to know if Ms Museveni personally requested that she be handed the Karamoja docket. “I have had development projects in different parts of Karamoja for a long time,” she says in her letter.
“I am happy that I now have been given an opportunity to take that part of our nation a step forward in terms of development and to begin to unlock its enormous potential.”
She, however, never disclosed the nature of development projects she had undertaken in Karamoja.
Ms Museveni, a first-term lawmaker, was until her Ruhaama campaign known mostly for her charitable activities, including her work as founder and patron of Uweso, the local agency that supports women and orphans. Barring her recent condemnation of Security Minister Amama Mbabazi’s reported role in the NSSF-Temangalo Shs11 billion scandal, she has stayed out of tempestuous political debates, and is also known to be a devotee of the Pentecostal Christian faith.
Ms Museveni said in the letter that she takes her new appointment as a matter of divine calling. She had also said as much when she ran for the Ruhaama seat in 2006.
“Beyond this presidential appointment I see an assignment given to me by God,” she says in the letter. “It is not me who has to change Karamoja; no one person can perform such a feat single-handedly.
“It is God who, using my availability, willingness and whatever ability I may have to bring change and development for the Karamoja region.
“For me, the Minister for Karamoja Affairs is not a prestigious title. It is merely a task to be executed.”
And it appears a huge task indeed given that past attempts by government to lift the sub-region fell flat. During the early days of NRM government, Anthony Butele was appointed Karamoja affairs minister and despite the fact that huge sums of money was pumped through the then Karamoja Development Agency (KDA), the Karimojong realised little, if not nothing.
Education standards remained poor, armed intra-ethnic clashes were daily occurrences and basic infrastructure like roads, health care services, power, clean water remained a distant dream in that part of the country as the residents remained largely rooted to their cultural believes .
Even when the son of the soil, Peter Lokeris was in charge of the Karamoja docket in Cabinet, the area had little to smile about.
