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BY RICHARD DRASIMAKU
OBONGI: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2025
Zumura Maneno, the Obongi district Woman Member of Parliament is rallying the residents to improve their housing as promises to connect the district with electricity begin to pick momentum.
“We are tired of grass thatched houses,” she said. “This is why I came up with a project of decent housing where the women contributed money and as MP I support with the iron sheets,” explained Hon Maneno.
She made the remarks in an interview shortly after being nominated to defend her parliamentary seat on Wednesday.
The legislator who is also the National Resistance Movement flag bearer underlined that the people cannot expect to connect electricity to their homes when the houses are still grass thatched.
Obongi district alone with Buvuma Island are the only districts where the national electricity network has not reached.
However government officials including President Yoweri Museveni have assured the people that a World Bank loan has already been secured to finance the connection of the duo to the electricity network.
The process is said to be at the procurement stage. “This is why I’m urging my people to improve the status of our houses. Let us graduate to at least Mabati (iron roofed) houses,” Maneno insisted.
She observed that the decent housing program has been embrace by the women in the sub counties of Itula, Aliba, Ewafa, Palorinya, and parts of the town council.
She however decried the apparent lack of participation of men in the decent housing initiative.
“It is unfortunate that men have not joined us on this journey of decent housing. Let us not just leave it to women alone, let us join hands and work together and we improve our housing, we need decent housing
She reiterated her commitment to work with stakeholders to protect development gains achieved in the 40 years of the NRM in Obongi, asserting that her personal manifesto would complement the manifesto of the NRM.
“Obongi was not a district before, now we are a district and that why I am a Woman MP. Obongi has primary schools in the parishes, we are having health workers who are doing their best,” she said.
Maneno however recognized that some components in terms of infrastructure and equipment are still missing in the health sector in order to realize improvement in the service.
She for instance said Obongi health center IV should be upgraded to a general hospital and the health centers in Itula, Aliba, Gimara should also be uplifted to provide better healthcare to the residents who share the services with the refugees in the expansive Palorinya settlement.
The Adjumani-Obongi-Yumbe road is the only road that has not been put on the national budget for tarmacking and the murram roads really need to be maintained to facilitate people’s movement she urged the engineering department, noting that the road equipment for the district is still available to do maintenance works.
“If you can send your leader, more especially Maneno back to the parliament, I will work with relevant stakeholders to ensure that Obongi gets a hospital. I will give a brand new ambulance as my personal contribution to help our people,” said Hon Maneno.
