Minister of Agriculture, Vicent Ssempijja.

Minister of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempijja, earlier this week was forced to rush to the Teso sub region to assess the situation.

Sempijja said he was in Teso for a fact finding mission on what exactly has caused the drought in the area where many people are starving because of food crisis.

The minister visited residents of Omariai Parish, Katine Sub-county in Soroti district and told him of the hard hitting famine in the area which needs government intervention.

Jacinta Achen and Joseph Okiring residents of Omariai told the minister that, several families are now having one meal a day while the less fortunate ones have been compelled to eat tree leaves.

Achen said that the starvation has affected mostly the HIV/AIDS patients and their babies.

Teso sub region is among the places facing food shortage in the country.

Authorities and residents of the sub-region blame the food shortage on drought which dried up all crops in districts of Soroti, Serere, Amuria and Katakwi.

Ssempijja said that cabinet on several occasions has received reports on the drought in Teso though they had not received evidence to that effect, adding that his findings will be given to the cabinet and they respond accordingly.
He also promised to give them quick maturing seedlings when the rains start.

Parliament while debating about the drought situation before the recent recess passed a resolution after a motion moved by the Member of Parliament for Ngora district, Jacqueline Amongin, urging government to urgently give emergency food to areas in the country which are severely hit by food shortage as a result of drought.

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Adoa beat Forum for Democratic Change’s Alice Alaso in the Febraury 18 elections to clinch the seat.

According the results by the Electoral Commission, Adoa polled 48,762 votes against Alaso’s 32,651 votes on the polling day.

Serere district returning officer, Atim Awori declared Adoa as the winner of Serere district woman member of parliament. Adoa beat Alaso with a big range of 16,111 votes.

However, Alaso logged a petition saying the elections were not free and fair and was marred by intimidation from state operatives who she said tortured her supporters.

While speaking to the media, Alice Alaso, the FDC vice president for Eastern Uganda, explained that the loss of the FDC at parliamentary level was not due to FDC’s waning support but the resistance it faced from the state machinery.

“Our supporters were tortured, beaten and killed by the state institutions including the military and police. This was done where the use of money could not work,” said Alaso, who lost the Serere Woman MP seat to NRM’s Hellen Adoa.

Alaso narrated that what the opposition was up against in Teso sub-region, for instance, was not just the ruling party but a combined force of the state machinery.

“When the campaigns started, there was a whole battalion of the army that was deployed here. But, a week to the end of the campaigns, another contingent was sent in. This army did not only intimidate our supporters, but they physically tortured opposition supporters,” she said.

Alaso added that her supporter Dennis Eyoru was killed on the eve to the election, and also spoke of pre-ticked ballots.

“We have evidence of a car from the ministry of gender that carried the pre-ticked ballots. This car moved with boxes of pre-ticked ballots and we could not do much as people. We raised alarm to the electoral commission but no one came to our help,” she said.

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