Kabale: Chairman Accused of Stealing Government Face Masks

Erick Karemera, the LC 1 Chairperson of Bugongi road village in Kabale municipality is on spot for allegedly stealing government distributed face masks intended at fighting the novel coronavirus.

A fortnight ago, the Kabale district Task Force led by RDC Darius Nandinda received a consignment of 190,7000 face masks from the Ministry of Health to be distributed to all residents in the District.

At total of 20,194 face masks were handed to the Northern Division of Kabale municipality.

However, a section of angry residents from Bugongi road village in this division have now come up accusing their village chairperson Karemeera of hanging on to the face masks assigned to them.

Residents including Besigye Benon, Turyatemba sam, Niwandinda Ruth and many others accuse the village committee team of diverting face masks from residents to NGOs.

Besigye, a concerned resident of Bugongi road village says he was shocked to see other neighbouring villages in Northern division having government face masks but no one in his village has the masks.

He adds that he contacted the area chairperson on the matter, who told him that masks were finished, yet no one received any in the village.

Turyatemba Sam another concerned resident and a land lord of more than 15 tenants says all of his tenants were registered by the village chairperson but no one has received a mask.

The locals are now calling on the district leadership to intervene in the matter.

Robert Turyamubona, the village secretary says the village received only 300 face masks and 200 were distributed among residents while the rest were distributed among Maries Stopes Uganda and Kihanga Mparo Sacco Staff.

He condemned his chairman LC1 for giving NGOs the masks which were meant for the residents.

When contacted on the matter, Karemeera said that his team gave 10 masks to staff at Kihanga Mparo Sacco and 30 to Maries stopes Uganda because they were also registered as the residents of Bugongi road village.

He also noted that the number of face masks was small compared to the number of people living in the area.