A congested Coronation Road in Gulu City on Thursday. PHOTOS/ TOBBIAS JOLLY OWINY
Ms Winnie Alum beams with a smile while standing by one of the VIP tables as the Speaker of Parliament and her entourage arrive for the launch break on August 29.
Ms Alum is the proprietor of Weenso Hire Decoration and Catering Services Ltd, a Lira-based events company that Parliament recently contracted as a service provider for the three-day Parliament sitting in Gulu City that ended on August 30.
MPs attend Parliament at Kaunda Grounds.
For more than 10 years that she has been managing events, Ms Alum says the biggest event she had managed before the Parliament deal was Nation Media Group’s Farm Clinic.
“I will never feel small as a businesswoman. I feel so connected that I can manage any national event in any part of the country. I feel elevated to a higher level,” Ms Alum says. She supplied 20 200-seater tents and a set of 200 dining tables, including their decorations.
Ms Winnie Alum in front of the tent she decorated.
Ms Alum was one of the local service providers who provided meals, refreshments, seats, tents, and decorations. Other service providers included Yendo Catering Services-Lira and Gulu Women Mobile Catering Services (GWMCS).
“It is a blessing that we were contracted to provide food and refreshment during the entire sitting. That means a lot regarding the trust and support the government intends for us, that money will help us to expand and build our capacity to handle more national events,” Ms Santa Obwoya, the director of GWMCS, says.
President Museveni (right) arrives at Kaunda Grounds where Parliament sat.
Beehive of activity
The past two weeks were a beehive of activity as Gulu City prepared to host the first of four regional sittings of Parliament. About 90 percent of high-end hotels and apartments were filled up with guests who participated in the plenary, according to Mr George Aligec, the spokesman of the city’s business community.
Several local dance troupes were available to entertain guests at the hotels where the MPs resided. This was at Acholi Inn and Bomah Hotels in Gulu City.
The decision by Parliament to declare Gulu as a venue for north Uganda in May caused the city’s administration to invest Shs448m in the repair of 162 non-functional solar streetlights.
For more than two years, the street lights had been destroyed by vandals while others developed technical challenges, providing a breeding ground for thugs and violent street goons in many parts of the city.
On Tuesday, Mr David Ongom Mudong, the Aswa West regional police spokesperson, said all CCTV cameras in the city were repaired to improve security surveillance during the sitting.
By last month, 75 percent of the cameras in the different spots of the city were reported to have broken down.
“Both police’s foot and motorised patrol have been enhanced and police have also rectified all the defunct CCTV surveillance cameras across the city ahead of the sitting,” Mr Ongom said.
With hundreds of parliamentarians converging in the city, there was a visible increase in traffic. Some roads had to be closed to the public.
For instance, Walter Opwonya Road, Vincent Opiyo and Oola Lubara Road, Jomo Kenyatta Road, and Erinayo Oryema Road were all closed to the public since they go around Kaunda Grounds, where Parliament sat.
Although not quite heavy, some traffic jam was experienced on some streets. This was especially in the morning and evening rush hour on Queens Avenue, Acholi Road, and Coronation Road, as motorcades of ministers and the MPs left for the Kaunda Grounds or the hotels.
The nightlife
On Thursday, Parliament held a dinner gala at Bomah Hotel where hundreds of guests joined in.
Whereas beers and sodas sold between Shs3,000 and Shs10,000 at the hotel, the prices outside went up higher than they normally cost.
At bars and nightclubs on Coronation Road, Queens Avenue, Acholi Road and Ulia Road, the prices went up from Shs2,000 and Shs4,000 to Shs3,000 and Shs6,000 for sodas and beers respectively.
But not all residents were impressed by the presence of the more than 300 MPs that turned up in Gulu.
Mr Augustine Ojara, a resident of Corner Layibi in Bardege-Layibi Division, says the decision to hold regional sittings is a bad one. He says government should have dealt with the more pressing issues affecting the country such as underemployed health workers and the disaster in Kiteezi in Kampala.
“In the case of the protesting [medical] interns, the Health ministry needs only Shs18b to deploy all the interns, including the 1,000 that are stuck. Unfortunately, all concerned parties are mute now. Even though it was planned for [the regional sitting], it shows that the government lacks focus on what is too important,” Mr Ojara says.
Ms Lorna Akello, a mobile money vendor on Queens Avenue, says, “It’s funny to measure the impact of the sitting by saying food vendors benefitted. It’s wrong since it is a one-off.”
She says the impact of the sitting will be measured by how quickly the government repairs the Karuma Bridge, upgrades roads highlighted during the sitting as well as distributes tractors per sub-county in the region to enable mechanisation of agriculture.
“These were the issues raised during the sitting that our MPs always sing about in vain at Parliament in Kampala,” she adds.
Meeting the locals:
On Tuesday, Speaker of Parliament Anita Among made several visits, including one to her predecessor Jacob Oulanyah’s resting place Omoro District.
A medical camp was also opened at Pece PS in Gulu City where hundreds were treated for different ailments.
The Speaker also launched the construction of a wall fence around Kaunda Grounds to boost the standards of the place on which former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda and Pope John Paul II were hosted decades ago.
