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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
ARUA: Sunday, October 12, 2025
It was a slew of yellow on the streets of Arua city on Saturday as fired up youths and women chanted patriotic slogans ahead of President Yoweri Museveni’s campaign in the City slated for Monday afternoon.
At the helm of the mobilization was the state minister for youth, Balaam Barugahara and the Arua Central Division Member of Parliament, Jackson Atima.
They were joined by seasoned politicians, Huda Uleru, the State minister for Defence and Veteran Affairs and the former Gender, Labour and Social Development Minister, Zoe Bakoko Bakoru.
The march concluded with rally at the Office of the Prime Minister Grounds in Arua City.
“We are here to monitor impact and get you out of sleep with testimonies from recipients of the government poverty alleviation funds under the different promgrams,” Barugahara declared.
He said president Museveni loves the young people and supports their course to get out of poverty but often times the youths complain against him for no reason.
“You young people want free money. We need to change our ideology and stop thinking that free money will make you rich,” asserted Barugahara.
The minister listed some of the reasons why free cash handout cannot cause transformative results in youths as drug abuse and spending of the money given on alcohol and extravagant spending on romantic escapades with loved ones.
Barugahara explained that when Museveni came to power in 1986, Arua was inaccessible from Kampala and journeys would take up to one week due to insecurity on the roads and there were frequent ambushes on buses and trucks plying the Arua-Kampala road.
“Now you take only six hours to drive to Kampala, Arua is a City and the second populous in Uganda, You have electricity and the road is tarmacked up to Oraba border with South Sudan,” the minister pointed out and added “support Museveni and support NRM flag bearers.”
His speech ushered in a plethora of testimonies from youths and women who have turned around their lives with support from the government wealth creation funding.
Among the testimonies that impressed the officials was that of Grace Ayakaka, a visibly excited resident of Driwala parish in Pajulu who multiplied a sh1m seed capital from the Parish Development Model funds to a multimillion piggery venture in two years.
Ayakaka received the money in November 2023 where upon she acquired two hybrid pigs at sh800,000.
The female pig (sow) gives birth to piglets three times in a years. In under two years, her two pigs multiplied to 30. But they were being kept under a mango tree since Ayakak lacked the knowledge of modern piggery.
This year, she received a visit from the City staff who advised her to sell some of the pigs and construct a house for them. She decided to sell and construct not only for the pigs but also for herself.
She sold pigs worth sh17m and constructed a four-roomed house for pigs and is currently constructing her own residence having bought the iron sheets, cement and stone aggregate.
Other recipients have invested in to vegetables like tomatoes, poultry, briquette making, tailoring and brick laying among others.
However there were also complaints registered from disgruntled residents who alleged malpractice and malice by local officials in allocating funds, which minister Barugahara directed th resident district commissioner and the police to investigate.
Jackson Atima, the Central Division Member of Parliament thanked the people for turning up to grace the occasion, to voice out their delight and also frustrations to which the technocrats who implement the development programmes were assembled to give answers.
