Successful Decentralisation Requires Clean Patriotic Leaders

{{Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has said local governments need to be led by patriotic and ideologically clear and clean leaders noting that if they are not, the local government can be even more dangerous than leaving power at the centre.}}

Museveni also the Patron of the Commonwealth local government forum was opening the 7th Commonwealth Local Government conference in Kampala, Uganda.

The conference will take four days running under the theme “Putting local government at the heart of development”.

He says the effectiveness of a local government, requires an educated population which can be able to vote in place the right people and demand accountability from their leaders thus the need for universal education.

He challenged the local government to add wealth creation on their programs noting that emphasizing service delivery alone was not enough to transform societies.

He said that local governments should be the main advocate of wealth creation since majority of the population live in the country side under the local government administration.

In his keynote address the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa said that local governance is the most functional expression of democracy and democratic practices.

The Secretary General of the East African Community Dr. Richard Sezibera thanked the local governments of East Africa for supporting the EAC integration process and appealed to all EA countries to remove all barriers that affect free movement of goods and services to allow business to go on.

He called for the putting in place a gender sensitive environment to enable the 70 million East African women utilize their potential and contribute to regional development.

{NV}