The late Charles Engola
The Lango Parliamentary Group has urged President Yoweri Museveni to consider appointing one of its members as replacement of late Charles Engola, who was the Minister of State for Labour at the time of his brutal killing in May 2023.
The appeal was made by Judith Alyek (Kole DWR) whose term as President of Lango Parliamentary Group was extended for another two and half years.
“We lost one of our key members in May 2023, Charles Engola shot by body guard and in less than one year we lost two members. As far as appointments are concerned to replace Engola this is at the discretion of appointing authority, I know reshuffles will come, if he thinks he should make the position of Engola come from Lango, we have no objection because this is his decision as appointing authority, for us, we aren’t going to force him to appoint one of us to replace Engola, so we shall wait. We only wish that the replacement of Engola comes from Lango,” Alyek said while addressing journalists at Parliament after the Group’s annual general meeting.
It should be recalled that Engola was shot dead by his body guard in May 2023 and in early 2024, the group also lost Cecilia Ogwal former Dokolo DWR who lost her fight against Cancer in India where she had sought treatment. Alyek while commenting about the by-elections that will be held to elect Ogwal’s replacement said that the Lango Parliamentary Group will not take sides on which candidate or political party should replace Ogwal in order to maintain unity and cohesion with the Group.
Alyek explained, “As far as I know, the by-election that is taking place in Dokolo for us as Lango Parliamentary Group, we shall welcome anybody who will win that election. We aren’t going to say, we want this person, it will be people’s choice. So if there are divisions, outside there between the different political parties, I know they will be there because each one will want their candidate to win but if they have already elected anyone from any political party, for us as Lango Parliamentary Group, we will not say you are from FDC, UPC or NRM we welcome anybody in our group irrespective of political affiliation.”
During the press briefing, the Lango MPs in the 11th Parliament have picked priority areas of focus including development of roads, where the Group came up with a road master plan which covers all road networks in Lango subregion and priority has been put on five roads including the Lira-Kamdini Road, saying at the moment, Lango Region only has 3% of tarmac road network in Uganda, which is the lowest nationally.
Samuel Opio (Kole North) who doubles as General Secretary of the Group also called on Government to take up more roads in Lango region and inject more funds in the district roads saying, “In the last 10years, not a single kilometer of tarmac road has been constructed and completed in Lango region. We also hope that Government will continue to invest more resources in terms of district roads, this year, Shs1Bn has been provided to the districts to be able to maintain more roads but it is still insufficient for a place like Lango which ahs a very big percentage of swamp crossings that require a lot of money for the construction of bridges and crossing points for the community.”
The Lango Parliamentary Group also extended gratitude to President Musevebi for reconsidering the construction of Aki-Bua Stadium, after an earlier dramatic exclusion of the stadium from among the stadia meant to host the 2027 African Cup of Nations (AFCON).
She said, “I am happy that we really advocated together with other stakeholders Aki-Bua is going to be constructed because at a certain point, Aki-Bua had been excluded but last week, Minister of State for Sports, Peter Ogwang took an Egyptian contractor to begin the construction of Aki-Bua, so he was sent by the President, I want to thank the President for reconsidering the construction of Aki-Bua stadium, so soon or later, the construction is starting and I am hearing next week, they will go back to begin the process of construction Aki-Bua and probably it will host AFCON.”
Opio (Kole North) also commented on the latest development about the construction of Aki-Bua stadium noting, “We are also delighted that the pledge for the construction of Aki0-Bua Stadium that was made more than 13years ago finally ahs come to fruition. All this has been achieved in the last 2 and half years which is the first term of the executive of Lango Parliamentary Group in the 11th Parliament.”
The Lango Parliamentary Group which has a membership of 31MPs that come from the 10 districts in the region, also decried the low access to health services, citing the presence of only Apac Hospital as the only district hospital and this is being supplemented by Lira Regional Referral Hospital with Alyek saying foscus will now be put on advocating for the upgrade of 4 health centres to become district hospital so as to improve health service delivery to the people.
The General Secretary also urged Government to extend the same financial commitment shown towards COVID-19 to be replicated in Nodding Syndrome noting, “We want to see Government put more resources, COVID-19 came and Government invested trillions of shillings, nodding syndrome came, little money was invested and we are still struggling with it with nodding syndrome, yet it came in well before COVID-19. COVID-19 has literally gone down, but nodding disease syndrome continues to persist especially for those who haven’t been able to access treatment and nutritional support and rehabilitation. So, we expect to see Government invest more money effect next financial year in order to address some of these gaps.”
The election of the new Lango Parliamentary Group saw Alyek retain her seat as Chairperson, while Nelson Okello (Maruzi North) was elected Vice Chairperson, while Opio retained his seat as General Secretary, Julius Acon was elected as Treasurer, while Linda Auma was elected as Publicity Secretary and their term runs for 2 and half years.
