The family of the Former Arua Municipality Legislator, the Late Ibrahim Abiriga yesterday cried out to the government to fulfill the pledges President Museveni made on 10th June 2018 during the burial of the slain MP.
According to the family, President Yoweri Museveni pledged to them that the government will support the orphans and widows of fallen MP Ibrahim Abiriga and his late brother.
The President said the NRM government will always take care of the children and dependents of their fallen fighters.
“I will support the children and the widows. Abiriga was one of us and I will make sure his family is taken care of. I will also support his brother’s kids and wife” Museveni said as he gave his speech.
Arua Municipality MP Ibrahim Abiriga was gunned down in Kawanda as he returned home with the company of his brother Said Kongo who was also shot dead. Abiriga was laid to rest in Arua.
While addressing mourners at the burial of slain Arua municipality Member of Parliament (MP) Ibrahim Abiriga on the 11th of June 2018 at Rhino camp sub county in Arua District, President Yoweri Museveni urged the deceased’s vast extended family, for whom Abiriga was the sole bread winner to form a clan savings and credit cooperative (SACCO), to which he pledged 50 million shillings.
But 3 years down the road, although the SACCO was eventually formed, it is yet to receive the President’s pledge, the cooperator has learnt.
Yusuf Buga, the deceased’s younger brother told this publication that although they do not doubt the sincerity of the President’s pledge, the procedures for receiving it have proved intractably tedious. “For example, we were told to get the letter of administration which we are still struggling with,” he said. A Letter of administration is a legal instrument that authorizes one to administer an estate or property of a person who died without leaving behind a will.
They added that they have also failed to receive relief funds meant to take care of the family during this pandemic and implore the government to follow it up.
In the past, the President’s pledges have been the subject of much political debate, both for their scale and failure to meet them. In 2013, a report by the Parliamentary committee on Government Assurances revealed that the President had made 817 pledges all over the country worth a whopping shs.12.9trillion, all of which remained unfulfilled.
The Late Ibrahim Abiriga served as RDC for Arua and Yumbe districts, before being elected as MP Arua Municipality in the 10th parliament. On 8Th June 2018, he was shot and killed alongside his bodyguard by unknown gunmen riding on motorcycles, as he approached his home in Kawanda, along the Kampala – Gulu Highway.
