Africa-Press – Uganda. The newly-elected city and division mayors of Fort Portal have pledged improved service delivery.
Fort Portal tourism city has one city mayor and two division mayors for North and Central divisions.
In the recently-concluded elections, Mr Edson Asaba Ruyonga (NRM) was elected mayor of Fort Portal City while North and Central divisions elected Mr Joseph Kiiza (NRM) and Mr Richard Muhumuza (NRM), respectively.
Mr Asaba, who is serving a fourth term, said he would ensure residents get value for taxes.
“We need our people to have better services such as roads, schools, health facilities, and others and ensure that there is value for money. We need openness, accountability and transparency because this government belongs to the people,” he said.He said infights had crippled development under the tenure of outgoing mayor, Mr Muhanga.
Mr Asaba said when he was the mayor of Fort Portal Municipality (2001-2016), the town used to be clean, adding that he would ensure that it gains its past glory.
He tasked the youth to utilise government programmes such as Youth Livelihood Programme and emyooga to improve their livelihood.
The completion of the headquarters of the central division administration block, that has stalled for more than eight years, is one of the tasks ahead of the new leaders.
Mr Muhumuza said he would open up new access roads in lower Fort Portal City Central Division.
“…We had many roads which we had planned to be worked on under the USMID programme, we shall begin with them,” Mr Muhumuza said.
He also pledged to ensure that garbage is collected in the city on time. “Previously, we had a challenge of collecting garbage in town because we had one vehicle and at times it could be grounded but now we are a city, we shall request government to give us more vehicles to collect garbage,” he said.
He added that what has been affecting services is that some people who were awarded tenders were failing to pay money to the council.
“… but now this time, we shall not allow that to happen, anyone who will default will be penalised,” he said.
Mr Kiiza said his council would petition the central government through the Ministry of Lands to ensure that they provide land titles to people.
“…We heard government bought land for the people, we shall petition the government to ensure that they provide land titles to our people, if they fail they provide certificates of occupancy to the people,” Mr Kiiza said.
He added that he would lobby the Fort Portal City council to allocate 75 per cent of the USMID funds to the North Division to work on roads.
“Majority of roads are impassable and we need to work on those roads… We shall have a Shs6 billion market that will be constructed at Karago to help our farmers sell their products and also ask OWC to supply technologies to farmers,” Mr Kiiza said.
Fort Portal has been implementing the USMID programme since 2013. The roads constructed under this project include Rukidi III, Nyakana, and Mugunu Lorry Park.
