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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
Arua: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Richard Kamugisha Baabo, the acting secretary of the electoral commission (EC) said some years back, the commission asked districts to avail land for construction of their field offices.
Arua district was one of the few districts that offered land for this purpose and the EC team led by the then returning officer Rose Ayaka Atima followed up the pledge closely.
However the commission could not proceed with the construction of the offices due to limited budget for capital development.
Kamugisha said for a long time the government allocated sh200m annually to the EC for capital development.
That money constrained the EC to renting facilities for its operations apart from the warehouse in Ntinda, a suburb of Kampala.
Two years ago, a financial windfall came along with budget enhancement that saw the EC capital development budget jump to sh2b and the construction of the first permanent regional block kicked off.
The National Enterprise Corporation Construction works and engineering services, one of the subsidiaries of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces commercial arm undertook the project.
The regional office and warehouse will help the commission manage the electoral process in West Nile.
Justice Simon Byabakama, the chairman of electoral commission, said to exercise the mandates vested in the commission under Article 60 of the constitution -to organize regular, free and fair election- it is imperative for the EC to have its own home void of rental expenses.
It is the first permanent regional office of the commission that runs eleven other regional offices from rented facilities.
“It is our hope to have similar facilities in all the regions. We also have presence in all the districts to facilitate conduct of elections,” emphasized Byabakama.
He pledged the commission’s total commitment to play its role as the general election year draws ever closer, promising that 2026 will be a year of peaceful elections.
Currently the EC is carrying out display of the register in order to clean the register used in the previous election.
The exercise allows eligible citizens to check the particulars of their names, polling stations and also enables the display officials to remove the names of the deceased from the registry.
A clean register, according to the EC officials, underpins the conduct of free and credible elections.
However, Julius Mucunguzi, the electoral commission spokesman, added in an interview that a collective effort is needed from all the stakeholders in the election process to arrive at the desired end product of free, fair and peaceful elections.
These are the political parties, the candidates, voters and the electoral commission which he equated to a referee in a football match.
Mucunguzi also implored the public to value local council elections and rise above the apathy that usually sets in once the presidential and parliamentary elections take place.
“Local council leaders are the closest to the people. They are the ones signing your forms, presiding over your cases or constructing your feeder roads,” he said in reference to the importance of having leaders of people’s choice at the lower echelon of governance.
“At all levels, we need to ensure that there is collective effort to encourage mass participation because if you do not participate, those who perhaps shouldn’t be your leaders become leaders due to your non-participation,” he explained.
