OMORO DISTRICT: Only members of district and city executive committees in the Acholi sub-region will be able to attend an emergency joint sub-regional council meeting to honour former Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah because of money.
The joint council meeting to be held on Thursday in Lalogi Sub-county in Omoro District will also be attended by members of the local council governments from Lango and West Nile Sub-regions.
During a meeting last month, the district chairpersons from the region under their umbrella group, the Joint Acholi Sub-Region Leaders Forum, agreed to hold a special meeting to honour Oulanyah.
Alfred Okwonga, the Gulu City Mayor, who is also the coordinator of the Joint Acholi Leaders forum, says that the meeting was supposed to be attended by all councilors, but the plans have been affected at the last minute due to limited finances.
Okwonga says they have now restricted only district executive committee members from attending the full council meeting to enable easy facilitation from respective districts. He says that at first, they thought the government would pay for the council meeting.
According to Okwonga, the local organising committee for the burial of Oulanyah had sought about 72 million shillings to facilitate the emergency council meeting.
Christopher Obol Arwai, the chair of the Kitgum LCV, says they will only help the district executive committee members get to the joint council meeting.
Arwai, on the other hand, says that they hadn’t yet met with the Chief Administrative Officer to figure out how much money they should spend to help the members.
We haven’t yet received information about the budget cut from the government on facilitating the joint council meeting. In any case, there is no budget. We shall sit as a district to see how to fund our members, “Arwai said.
Christopher Opiyo Ateker, the chair of the Gulu LCV, slammed the government for not paying for what had been planned to honour the former speaker.
Ateker says that even though the government doesn’t give them any money, as a district, they will raise money to make sure their members can come to the joint full council meeting.
Seven members of the district and city executive committees are expected to be drawn from each of the respective administrative units in Acholi for the joint council meeting.
Oulanyah’s body is expected to be flown to his former constituency in Omoro County after a state funeral at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds on Wednesday. He will be buried at his ancestral home village of Ayom Lony in Lalogi Sub-county on Friday.