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CBS closure hurting Buganda's finances |
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Written by Gloria Kuliva
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Monday, 26 July 2010 21:26 |
'The closure of the Buganda Government radio station, the Central Broadcasting Service (CBS FM) greatly affected the financial  wellbeing of the Buganda kingdom' the Buganda kingdom Information Minister, Charles Peter Mayiga said during a special sitting of the kingdom's National Assembly (Lukiiko) on July 20, 2010 at Bulange-Mengo. "CBS closure brought big set backs in terms of finance because now it is very difficult to mobilize people to participate indifferent financial activities like "Ekitobeero". The passing on of information to the people was also affected, announcements and adverts which fetched the kingdom with high finances are no more," Mayiga noted.
Mayiga noted that the central government owes billions of money to the Buganda kingdom but it has disinclined to pay up adding that government appear to be bad debtors. He noted that government should know that Buganda has survived all long and will continue with her activities minus that money but however shall continue demanding for it since it legitimately belongs to the kingdom. While presenting the draft of the kingdom budget for the financial year 2010/2011, the kingdom finance Minister Nagawa Mukasa noted that the kingdom experienced more expenditures than the earnings.
"This financial year's budget is based on the 2009/20010 budget since it was not fulfilled due to low earnings. We expected to earn UgShs 19.358billion but what we got constitutes to 40% and spent 51.8%," she said. She said that they expected UgShs9.65billion from the central government but they received nothing which greatly affected their budget.
Nagawa said that the tragedy which occurred on 10th/09/2009 (Kayunga tragedy) in Buganda kingdom, which included the stopping of the King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi to tour his county of Bugerere led to the deaths and closure of the kingdom radio station. This has made it almost impossible for people to respond to the kingdom's productive economic activities from which finances were obtained and yet much was spent in compensating the victims' families.
"We used to call upon people to buy the kingdom certificates so as to supplement on the treasury, we could also mobilize them to participate in activities like ‘Entanda ya Buganda, Ekitobeero, Enkuuka', among others where some good money would be collected but following the closure of CBS, all these are no more. We have no media on which we can announce and mobilize our people since all were prohibited from doing so," the finance minister announced.
She added that the Kasubi tombs inferno (16th/03/2010) also greatly interfered with the kingdom's budget as much is needed in the re-construction process. The kingdom, she went on, expects to earn UgShs 30,403.46 billions in this financial year.
In the same assembly, the prime minister of Buganda Eng. J.B Walusimbi said that people should be patient as far as the re-construction of the tombs is concerned. "People are complaining that the work for the re-construction of the main house Muzibu Azaala Mpanga has been carried out on a slow pace but I would like to inform you that this house has some cultural strings attached. There are some constructions which have to be built or set up before the construction of it," the Prime Minister J.B Walusimbi noted.
Walusimbi added more money is still needed to facilitate the re-construction of this cultural heritage, adding that they have so far received UgShs 425,335,940million for the re-construction process. So far the kingdom has spent UgShs 366,038,940 millions, on the construction of three buildings and these are; Bawenda, Kajjaga and Basimbiri. The Katikkiro also added that Buganda is waiting for the technical reports which were sent to UNESCO so that the rebuilding of the main house can begin.
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Sulaiman Kigundu`s death (1)
