Regina Bakitte retains Nansana municipality mayoral seat

Wakiso, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT | Regina Nakazzi Bakitte has retained the Nansana Municipality Mayoral seat.

Bakitte was a former member of the Democratic Party-DP but crossed and joined the National Unity Platform-NUP.

The Wakiso District Returning Officer Tolbert Musinguzi on Tuesday declared Bakitte winner with 33, 007 votes, defeating the National Resistance Movement-NRM party candidate Hamindu Nsubuga Kizito who got 13,395 votes. 

Democratic Party’s Lawrence Kibirige got 4,789 Votes while Gamba Bukahri, an independent candidate polled 1,815 votes.

Bakitte says that in the next term, she will improve on the road infrastructure, the health sector and education and also, fight corruption in the municipality divisions.

For the past two years, leaders of the municipality have been on the spot over failure to fight corruption.  

Last year, the Anti-Corruption Court remanded, Jimmy Ambrose Atwoko, the former Town Clerk of Nansana Municipality and three other officials to Kitalya government prison for abuse of office. The others are Hadijah Ssengendo Mukasa, the Principal Assistant Town Clerk Nasana municipality, Agnes Nakabugo, Senior Accountant and Senior Accounts Assistant, Florence Nayiga.

They allegedly authorized the payment of 15 Million Shillings to Vince Tours Uganda Limited for providing transport services in disregard of the proper procedures.   

The State House Anti-Corruption Unit also investigated the allocation of over 300 Million Shillings to purchase a piece of land. 

Last year, the Local Government Minister, Raphael Magyezi expressed dismay over the inadequate local revenue collection and rampant corruption in Nansana municipality. 

According to Magyezi, the 6.1 Billion Shillings collected by Nansana municipality is very insufficient.  He argued that Nansana municipality has the potential of increasing its local revenue collection to as much as Shillings 20billion without revising the current tax rates. 

He also said that misappropriation of public funds in the municipality was one of the vices killing it and called for increased vigilance and supervision of technical staff by councillors.    

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