Muzaidi Khemis, the mayor of Central Division, defended the increase, explaining that the new charges were part of a local revenue enhancement plan approved by the council. He also assured that they plan to engage and sensitize drivers about the changes.
Since its establishment in July 2020, Arua City has struggled with political polarization along political, tribal, and religious lines, which has stunted its growth and development potential.
Grace Candiru, a former Ombokoro and Ambeko councilor explains that some unscrupulous individuals have taken advantage of the idle facilities to vandalize Items like metallic Latrine doors and solar panels.
In the lawsuit filed at the Civil Division of the High Court in Kampala, Oguzu explains that the acts and omissions of the Arua City Physical Planning Committee and National Physical Planning Board have infringed on his constitutional right to carry lawful business.
On Thursday, the disgruntled residents, carrying placards, stormed the office of the Arua Resident City Commissioner. They threatened to hand over the PDM files to Matua for implementation in the affected ward and accused him of undermining the NRM party's support within the central division while mobilizing support for the opposition.
According to the leaders most Ugandans have developed a mindset that funds channeled through government programmes like GROW, Parish Development Model (PDM) and others are political gifts for voting or free money hence defaulting the guidelines.
Statistics obtained from police indicates that Arua city recorded 418 domestic violence cases, 112 defilement case, 3 indecent assault cases and 10 rape cases last year.
According to the approved budget, the Education sector took the biggest share of the budget at 25.5 representing 51.7% followed by Health with an allocation of 5.67 billion shillings representing 11.5%.
Dan Ssekiboobo, the senior presidential advisor in charge of research, challenged the RDCs to collaborate with district leaders regardless of their political affiliations to effectively serve the people.
The latest Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) report for 2022 reveals that the infant mortality rate in the West Nile region is 54.9 deaths per 1,000 live births, the highest in the country.
Dr. Pontius Apangu, the principal health officer for Arua City explains that the suspected cases now under isolation are from Arua Technical Institute Ragem, and that they have also received alerts in some schools in Tanganyika ward, Arua Central.
Under the initiative, the vendors will be given a six-month grace period to settle in the main market to enable them raise enough money before they start paying monthly fees for the stalls.
Over the past years, secondary school ball games in the city and other districts in the West Nile region have been marred with cases of violent fights among students of especially rival schools which often results in injuries, destruction of school properties and sometimes loss of life.
Josephine Angucia, the West Nile Region Police Spokesperson, explained that the operations are meant to tackle the recent surge in cases of Insecurity within the city.
The new physical development plan for the period 2022-2040 was launched in September 2023. It was developed by the Global Green Growth Institute and Mott MacDonald with support from the European Union under “Greening Uganda’s Urbanization and Industrialization project.
Henry Musasizi, the Minister of State for Finance Planning and Economic Development highlighted that the temporary measure following a petition by the local leaders from the West Nile sub region.
The farmers under their umbrella body, West Nile Cooperative Union in the 2018/2019 finanicial year sold their tobacco to Continental Tobacco Company amounting to Uganda shillings 12 billion but the company only managed to pay about 2.4 billion shillings leaving a balance of 9.7 billion shillings.
Over the past years, confrontations between URA enforcement teams and the local community have led to the death of innocent civilians as well as URA officials
