City Residents Sell Covid19 Relief Food

The Minister of Local Government Hon Raphael Magyezi, who was tasked to monitor and supervise relief food distribution to vulnerable people in Kampala Central Division, has revealed that one of the challenges they have discovered is that vulnerable people are selling off the relief food they received from Government.

“We have a challenge of some beneficiaries selling food. It has been reported that there are some people who come, they say they are badly off then they sell some of the food. We think that they need sensitization. They also need to be cautioned. We are just about one week in the second phase of lockdown. We still have 2 weeks. So, don’t make a mistake. This is for your own benefit and your family,” the minister told reporters yesterday.

The Office of the Prime Minister, according to Magyezi, is still faced with food shortage especially beans.

Kampala Central has 20 wards, and 136 villages and Magyezi say they have currently supplied food to about 50 villages out 136 and hope to have completed the exercise by the end of this week.

“We should be able to conclude the exercise in Kampala Central by the end of Saturday this week,” he said.

Some of the wards that have reviewed food include Mengo Kisenyi, Kagugube, Bukesa, Nakivubo among others.

Kampala Central has a population of about 84,000 people.

Meanwhile, the State Minister for Kampala Benny Namugwanya who was tasked to supervise food distribution exercise in Rubaga Division which has two constituencies (Rubaga North and Rubaga South), 13 wards and a total population of 423,524 people said they have encountered a challenge of families inflating the number of people in the household in order to get more food.

“I want to request that we make sure that we don’t inflate the numbers as it has been the case in some areas. Because if you inflate, it means you are getting more food than planned for you and then you are denying the needy person food to eat. I want to call on all of us to be fair and sincere,” she said.

She reported that in Rubaga North, all zones in Nakulabye parish have been covered and yesterday, they took up Kasubi and also part of Rubaga South beginning with Kabowa.

On the issue of riots in Namungoona over failure to get relief food which led to the arrest of two people, Namugwanya said beginning today, Wednesday, they will receive food.

“I want to confirm to them that beginning tomorrow, we shall be in Namungoona. We need a little bit of patience. We do appreciate that they are hungry, they need food, we are trying to increase the speed at which we are doing our work to make sure that we are there,” said Namugwanya.

Kyaka South legislator and Deputy Attorney General Jackson Kafuuzi who supervises Kawempe Division that has 17 parishes and 96 villages with an average of 400,000 people reported that out of 96 villages, 48 have so far been covered.

The Minister of State for ICT Peter Ogwang who supervises Makindye Division which has two constituencies (Makindye East and West) with a population of 390,000 people, 20 parishes reported that parishes of Katwe 1 and Katwe II, Nsambya central, St Paul’s, Bugonya 1 and Bugonya II have been covered in Makindye West while in Makindye East, Wabigalo parish has so far been covered.