Your petition against RCC Akello was in bad faith, Arua Central Division Speakers told

By Andrew Cohen Amvesi             

ARUA. Locals in Arua City have responded to the recent petition filed by the two Speakers of Arua Central Division demanding for the transfer of their Resident City Commissioner (RCC), Alice Akello.

They said the petition was in bad faith and purely out of malice because the allegations labelled against Akello lacked evidence.

In their earlier petition, Rasul Osuga, the Arua Central Division Speaker and his deputy, Victor Lomori led a team of youths from the central division to the office of the Regional Internal Security Office (RISO) accusing Akello of failing to preside over unfair allocation of road funds to the Central Division, the irregularities in the recent recruitments in the city and condoning corruption.

The team demanded that the Minister of Presidency transfers Akello elsewhere, a request which has now faced resistance from former leaders and residents of Arua city who love the work the RCC is doing especially in promoting unity, maintaining peace and security in the city.

“RCC Akello has a cordial working relationship with people, even most of the development partners here have a good working relationship with the RCC. She is a very humble woman, a woman who respects others and that is why I look at her as the custodian of peace and order here in the city,” Herbert Afidra Justine, a resident of Mvara Ward in Arua Central Division said.

“Besides that, the RCC works with two deputies; the deputy RCC for Ayivu Division and the deputy RCC for Central Division, so some of the matters raised by these Speakers should have begun with the deputies and it is later forwarded to the RCC. But I think somewhere, the Speakers of Central Division defaulted by not honoring the position of the deputy RCC in charge of Arua City Central Division,” Afidra, also a senior NRM mass mobilizer added.

According to Afidra, the petition filed by the speakers was totally irrelevant and not in good faith.

“Their petition to me is irrelevant, it was done purely out of malice and not in good faith because these are Speakers who have the capacity to call council whether it being extraordinary council, they would have done it, they have the capacity. They left the members here but because they were close to the Member of Parliament (MP), they decided to organize themselves in three or four and move with him to meet the Minister for Presidency, so to me that was an abuse of office,” Afidra said.

Moses Amati, a resident of Ayivu Division, also the former Arua City Mayor aspirant on NRM ticket, said the petition against Akello didn’t qualify to go that far because the allegations contained in it were not backed by facts.

“First of all, before you come up with a petition, there must be some technical people who should guide you, but for this case, the allegations labelled against Madam Akello were merely baseless. These are generally technical issues, if you talk about the issue of allegation of road funds, I think we have the City Engineer who is there. There must be a parameter as to how they allocated these funds, before you go to attack the RCC, I think they would first go to the Town Clerk’s office then meet the technical people to ascertain as to how they allocated the funds. I see attacking RCC Akello on that matter shows our backwardness in fact,” Amati advised.

The opposition leaders in the city also rubbished the petition on technical grounds, saying it lacked merit to pin a leader of RDC or RCC caliber.

Nezma Ocokoru, a resident of Mvara ward said the issue of resource allocation is not the mandate of the RCC but the work of the council.

“I’m aware that when it comes to allocation of resources, they look at the disadvantaged local governments and, in this regard, they looked at the two Divisions of Central and Ayivu and gauged which one is the most disadvantaged and after doing that the grants definitely will go to the most disadvantaged Local Government because of their population and land coverage among other factors, so to blame the RCC on this ground is uncalled for,” Ocokoru also the former Arua Hill Division Chairperson said.

Ocokoru further said as women, they are happy to see their own holding such a big position in government, adding that personally, she has seen Madam Akello has helped and accommodated everybody regardless of their religion, tribe and political affiliation.

Swalley Mayor Buga, the former Arua district secretary for social services who doubles as the National Secretary for Defence in FDC said the appointing authority must disregard the petition and leave the RCC to continue with her good work.

“That petition has no basis; it will not even move an inch and I request the Appointing Authority to disregard that kind of petition because the allegations are hear-say kind of things. Maybe these leaders were simply used by some politicians,” Buga said.

In her earlier response to the petition, Akello simply said her hands are very clean and that she leaves those fighting her in the hands of God.