Joyce Namugambe
Following the challenges that the NRM District Election Officers DEOs are going through as they take on their work in the party, the 8months arrears is one of them. They say that this and other challenges have greatly affected their performance and they submitted such complaints to the party electoral commission seeking for resolutions.
During the meeting with DEOs aimed at drawing the roadmap for structural elections which took place at the party electoral commission offices, the party Secretary General Richard Todwong challenged DEOs not to be discouraged by the challenges they are facing but to stay focused towards serving their party.
He noted that out of the 4.5 million leaders of NRM, some of them are paid monthly, others are on contract and others are not paid at all but they serve their party whole heartedly. However he promised that plans to clear their arrears are underway.
He challenged NRM leaders especially those from Teso and Lango to work hard towards resolving their internal conflicts since they don’t take the party anywhere.
The party Chairman for Electoral commission Tang Odoi promised to work on the challenges that affect the DEOs and warned that the party is yet to start dismissing members who misbehave so that they suffer the consquencies of their misconduct and at the same time act as an example to others who intend to misbehave.
Mr. Tang Odoi also warned them of engaging in early campaigns as it will lead to disqualification of such candidates. However Odoi warned the leaders in top positions to desist from intimidating NRM staff at different levels especially during elections but to let them perform their duties as expected. He promised to protect his staff against any kind of intimidation.
The chairman for NRM district registrars Patrick Kamulindwa appreciated the NRM Secretary General and the Electoral commission chairman for positively responding to their challenges as submitted in the writing. However, he emphasised that they are willing to serve their party irrespective of the challenges.
During this period when their term has been extended to two more years, the DEOs presented challenges such as taking long without resolving internal conflicts, lack of offices to perform their duties, lack of identification cards, intimidations from leaders in top positions, continuous internal conflicts among others, that they say affects their performances towards serving their party.
