While addressing mourners at the burial of slain Arua municipality Member of Parliament (MP) Ibrahim Abiriga on the 11th of June 2019 at Rhino camp sub county in Arua District, President Yoweri Museveni urged the deceased’s vast extended family, for whom Abiriga was the sole bread winner to form a clan savings and credit cooperative (SACCO), to which he pledged 50 million shillings.
But 10 months down the road, although the SACCO was eventually formed, it is yet to receive the President’s pledge, the cooperator has learnt.
Yusuf Buga, the deceased’s younger brother told this publication that although they do not doubt the sincerity of the President’s pledge, the procedures for receiving it have proved intractably tedious. “For example, we were told to get the letter of administration which we are still struggling with,” he said. A Letter of administration is a legal instrument that authorizes one to administer an estate or property of a person who died without leaving behind a will.
When contacted, the chairperson LC111 Rhino camp sub-county, Mr. Gabriel Andima confirmed to the Cooperator that the Abiriga SACCO members are yet to receive the President’s pledge, but said that as a sub-county, they could not be of any help. Instead, he advised that the members refer the matter to the Arua District Leadership.
In the past, the President’s pledges have been the subject of much political debate, both for their scale and failure to meet them. In 2013, a report by the Parliamentary committee on Government Assurances revealed that the President had made 817 pledges all over the country worth a whopping shs.12.9trillion, all of which remained unfulfilled.
However, the Arua District Deputy RDC Alice Akello dismissed fears that the President’s pledge to the Abiriga SACCO would not be fulfilled, and called for calm among the relatives of the fallen MP. She said that the fact that state house is helping take care of the slain MP’s family was evidence that the President remained committed to fulfilling all the pledges he made to the Abiriga family. “We expect the President to come to West Nile soon, and when he does, we shall use the opportunity to remind him of the unfulfilled pledge,” She said.
The Late Ibrahim Abiriga served as RDC for Arua and Yumbe districts, before being elected as MP Arua Municipality in the 10th parliament. On 8Th June 2018, he was shot and killed alongside his bodyguard by unknown gunmen riding on motorcycles, as he approached his home in Kawanda, along the Kampala – Gulu Highway.
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