The Minister for Kampala Beti Olive Namisango Kamya has railed the Lord Mayor to ‘mind his business’ and to stop ‘operating through the media’.
Kamya’s outburst follows a media briefing by Lukwago yesterday, in which he said the Kamya had compiled a report that implicated three army generals of interfering in the management of commercial motorcycle (boda boda) industry.
According to Lukwago, Kamya’s report linked Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho aka Salim Saleh, the Inspector General of Police Gen. Kale Kayihura and the Security minister Lt. Gen. Henry Tumukunde to the meddling in the boda boda industry in the city.
But Minister Kamya said that in an October 3, 2016 letter she instructed the Lord Mayor to enact what would help regulate the boda boda industry in Kampala to no avail.
“He did not do it until yesterday when he said that he will initiate a bill pertaining the re- organization of boda-boda cyclists,” Kamya told journalists at the Media Centre today.
She also accused the Lord Mayor of supporting illegal activities and also abdicating his ceremonial duties.
“He continues to support vendors who operate without permits; businesspersons who worked in ungazzetted markets like Park Yard market yet the law is clear about. His other work is receiving visitors and dignitaries, we have received many who have come for the marathon but a have not seen him doing so,” she charged.
Minister Kamya also said that as the representative of the President, she is the Lord Mayor’s supervisor.
“According to law, the city shall be governed by the Head of State and I am his representative in Kampala, so I am his (Lord Mayor’s) supervisor, he should know and interpret the law,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Minister ‘clarified’ President Yoweri Museveni’s recent remarks about boda boda cyclists, in which he said that security personnel should ‘sort out’ cyclists they suspect of trailing them.
“He did not mean shooting them; misquoting him has instilled fear among them and they are planning to act,” she said, adding that since the remarks she has met different groups of cyclists to explain to them what the President meant.
“As I talk I have met different boda-boda groups such as 2010, Century boda- boda cyclist about the same issue however, they have organized themselves and plan to lynch anyone who will touch their colleagues,” Minister Kamya said, and called upon the media to help sensitise the cyclists about the issue.
