Condolence Message

Democratic Party commiserates with the Orthodox community and Ugandans at large for the death of the Archbishop of the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Jonah Lwanga. He was one of the few religious leaders who openly condemned injustice in whatever manner it presented itself whether from the state or otherwise, he stood up against the violators of human rights. We shall miss him as a country.

Security

Democratic Party continues to grieve with the people of greater Masaka, especially those who lost their loved ones to machete-wielding terrorists. We strongly believe that the best way to secure people and their property is through a bottom-up approach, here information and strategies are generated from the community and fine tuned by the security organs to address the insecurity at hand. This is achievable through a good working relationship between the community members and the men and women in uniform.

It is evident that Ugandans no longer trust the security organs, this arose from the unprofessional conduct of security officers overtime. In Uganda today, police stations and posts have become havens of corruption, cumshaw and connivance to defeat justice. Most saddening is that, there are many men and women in uniform who have supplanted serving the people with the accumulation of wealth by stealing from members of the general public.

That coupled with the incessant violations of human rights by the security personnel has created a bad working relationship between them and the citizens, without a doubt this cannot allow the formation of the first line of defence manned by the community members.

The government must protect the lives and property of all Ugandans, therefore for each life that is ended the government fails on that duty, as such, the security apparatuses while executing their duties they ought to conduct themselves professionally.

Education

The Democratic Party is concerned about the prolonged closure of schools, our children have been deprived of education for close to two years now. This is unfortunate, we advised the government to open schools but hitherto they have not animated the education system to normalcy, all the learners should be in school.

The ongoing vaccination of teachers is a good thing, but, we cannot hinge the opening of schools on vaccination of teachers, after all, vaccination doesn’t mean prevention of transmission. Tough questions should be asked, for instance when teachers are vaccinated, won’t the learners transmit the virus to the other family members at home who are not yet vaccinated? I think this reason is self-defeating, let the government open schools for our children to study.

We must not allow COVID 19 to take away everything from us, it is already taking our lives, our economy is struggling, our worship centres are closed, it should not take our literacy.

Worship Centers

The foundation of our country is seated on the fear of God, unfortunately, the government is only focusing on the economy, schools, etc forgetting the spiritual enrichment of the citizenry, for instance, the government has never thought of vaccinating the servants of God, in the same manner, you are vaccinating teachers let the Imams, Sheiks, Priests and other religious leaders be vaccinated in preparation of opening the Churches and Mosques. It is no doubt that COVID 19 is here to stay, we should learn how to live with it.

Structure to keep COVID19 cases low

The Democratic Party continues to demand a well-structured plan from the government to keep the COVID19 levels down, we should not forget that we are still with the pandemic, by now we should be having ambulances with oxygen cylinders, oxygen facilities must be installed in all general hospitals in the country. We should emphasize testing whoever enters the country through our borders including tourists, as such, we condemn the suspension of testing of tourists at the airport, we advise acquisition of advanced equipment that can deliver results in a few hours other than exposing the country to the pandemic.

Okoler Opio Lo Amanu

DP Spokesperson