Arua Chamber of Commerce members warned against chaos

By Andrew Cohen Amvesi

ARUA. The members of Uganda national chamber of commerce and industry (UNCCI) in Arua city have been warned against chaos during their planned election on Monday.

The election of Arua city chamber leaders will be held at Heritage Courts hotel in Arua city. This is after the November 1, 2023 election flopped due to failure to follow the required procedures.

Jobel Ayiko, the Arua city commercial officer said this time round, every process has been followed to allow the election to take place without fail.

“As a process, we have already displayed the voters register which consists of 220 members who are eligible to vote. Besides, in any case you have not registered, we shall not entertain you. We will go by the register which was issued to me by the office of the RCC which came directly from the President of chamber of commerce at the national level,” Ayiko said.

Ayiko noted that they will follow the guidelines of the election as communicated by the chamber secretariat.

“The criteria for voting shall be; one, you should be a fully paid-up member, you must have paid membership fee, you must have paid subscription and you must also have a registered business. Another criterion for leaders to be elected is that you must be somebody of integrity to lead the business community,” Ayiko guided.

Ayiko observed that in the guideline, they have 13 positions of which 8 positions are for members who will present key sectors of the economy while the 5 positions are for the executives like the chairperson, vice, secretary, treasurer and the coordinator.

He, however, warned the members of the chamber not to think of causing chaos instead of promoting peace on the voting day.

“To the voters, we need peace and this is the time when you will exercise your rights to vote for the candidate of your choice. Come all, don’t miss it because this is the opportunity to reorganize the private sector,” Ayiko said.

Emmanuel Rose Munduni, the sitting secretary UNCCI Arua also warned that those who are planning to cause chaos on Monday will be managed properly by the security team.

“We want to ensure that this election is done harmoniously and once it is done, we are going to call for another chamber meeting in which we are now going to fill gaps in regard to membership of the various committees,” Munduni said.

“This time everything is set. We have money for the venue, we have paid money to the office of the commercial officer for logistical arrangements. The ground is well leveled,” Munduni added.

He called upon all registered members to come and participate in electing their leaders.

“We want to grow businesses, we want to ensure that we go very far, we want to ensure that we are bigger than all other branches in this country and we want to ensure that we get all the benefits which we can easily harvest through chamber,” Munduni stated.

The race for Arua city UNCCI chairpersonship is currently between Dr. Ronald Debo, the Director of Rhema Group of Companies and Caesar Trinity Draecabo, the President of Arua city development forum.