Masaka Municipality MP Mathias Mpuuga has hit back at President Museveni, after the head of state branded the legislator “mad” for saying that Operation Wealth Creation would never defeat poverty.
At the weekend, Museveni used a thanksgiving event for vice-president Edward Ssekandi to call Mpuuga a “real madman [and] a typical liar”. Museveni was reacting to Mpuuga’s terse criticism of the government’s OWC on December 2, when the president opened a Shs 13 billion market at Nyendo in Masaka municipality.
But speaking to The Observer on Monday, Mpuuga said Museveni’s statements were an attack on his vice president. He argued that if government programmes worked, Bukoto Central constituency, which Ssekandi has represented for 20 years, would not be drowning in ‘stinking’ poverty.
“Insulting me cannot solve the problems and issues I am raising but will further expose his inherent inability to solve the problem of poverty and underdevelopment because he is preoccupied with politics and power,” Mpuuga said.
Mpuuga joined Parliament in 2011 as independent MP but was re-elected as a DP candidate. Museveni told his audience in Kyannamukaaka that it is politicians like Mpuuga who have failed DP, a party the president belonged to in the 1960s. Museveni said DP dominated Masaka by rigging elections.
MPUUGA WHO?
In a signature attempt to put down the MP, Museveni said that when he saw Mpuuga speaking at Nyendo, he did not readily recognise him.
“I had never seen him but I was later told that he is the man I had been hearing about…had I known, I would have responded in equal measure,” Museveni said.
From his tone and choice of words, it was clear the president was offended by Mpuuga’s attempt to tie the 1980s NRA guerrilla war to the collapse of Masaka Cooperative Union, which had kept Masaka’s economy afloat.
“When we were in Masaka, that young man, Mpuuga started talking about the Masaka union especially there in the public,” Museveni, mixing Luganda and English, said.
In February’s elections, DP swept all parliamentary seats in Masaka except Ssekandi’s Bukoto Central, with voters later also rejecting NRM in local government elections. At the weekend, Museveni blamed Masaka voters for electing “wrong elements” like Mpuuga.
“You must know that electoral politics is not something to joke about…now, I never see Mpuuga…that was my first time, I have never seen this young girl [Mary Babirye Kabanda, Woman MP] who is here today, that time in Masaka was the first for me to see her,” Museveni said.
But Mpuuga suggested Masaka voters are too smart for Museveni’s NRM: “I agree with him, politics is not a joke. That is why the people of Masaka will never vote for the kind of jokers that he promotes. Masaka will continue to vote for people with a clear understanding of their history, journey and destiny.”
FRUIT FACTORY
On his Facebook page on Monday, Mpuuga declared a new fight against OWC. He said that in distributing oranges to farmers, the masterminds of OWC got the district’s priorities wrong in Masaka.
“Tonnes of mangoes, passions fruits, pineapples are rotting away, we can’t add oranges…I don’t know [of] any coffee or bananas rotting away! I’ll fight this confusion as long as I live! We need disease-free banana stems, coffee seedlings, cows for zero grazing, pesticides, hand-irrigation pumps; not citrus fruits; stop the confusion, stop misleading our people,” Mpuuga wrote.
In his interview with The Observer, Mpuuga also challenged Museveni to deliver the fruit processing plant he promised during the 2001 presidential campaigns.
Kyannamukaaka, where Museveni spoke at the weekend, and the neighbouring Buwunga sub-county produce plenty of pineapples and passion fruits.
Said Mpuuga: “Many pineapple and passion fruit farmers are stuck because their fruits are rotting without anyone buying. If Ssekandi is his friend, why doesn’t he deliver the fruit processing plant?”
sadabkk@observer.ug