BUKWO DISTRICT: The Bukwo Resident District Commisioner and LC V Chairperson have recovered a coffee huller and a generator worth Shs500 million. An unknown official reportedly hid the two machines in a bush house in Kabei sub-county in Bukwo district with plans to sell them to Kenya.
The huller is used to peel pre-dried coffee beans. Julius Chelimo, the Bukwo District LC V Chairperson, says that they recovered the machine with the help of a whistleblower. He explains that the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries, and Fisheries delivered the coffee huller and generator to the district in 2013.
He, however, says that despite the fact that the machine was never installed, the district wrote to the ministry in 2014 claiming that it had been installed. “Since the huller machine was brought to Bukwo, it has never been tested to work. “We are wondering what was going on with our previous leaders,”he said.
According to Chelimo, there is no reason for the people of Bukwo to complain about the government for not supporting them, adding that many things were delivered to the district for public use but the public was never informed. This is the time Bukwo officials are recovering government property being hidden with the intention of selling it in Bukwo.
On July 3rd, 2022, the Bukwo Resident District Commissioner, Samuel Hashaka Mpimbaza, and LC V Chairperson, Julius Chelimo, recovered a grader hidden in the home of a civil servant with some missing parts.
In the same month, the officials discovered a milk cooler and a generator valued at Shillings 300 being kept at the Uganda-Kenya border in Suam with the intention of being sold to Kenya. Mpimbaza says that many government properties meant to help improve the well-being of the community in Bukwo have been sold off by individuals.
“We are following all that equipment slowly by slowly and we urge the community to give information to the RDC and LC V’s offices on whatever they see hidden,” he said. Calvin Chemusto, one of the residents and coffee farmers, wondered why they had been suffering with their coffee yet the government had sent a coffee huller to the district.
“It is really hurting most of us, the people of Bukwo, when you see how government officials are messing up with everything that the government sends to help people in Bukwo. Sometimes I ask myself whether it was necessary to have Bukwo district, “he said.”
