By Hanning Mbabazi
Kampala: President Museveni has expressed his regret for giving former Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) Executive director Jennifer Musisi an enormous budget at the expense of other public sectors.
The President revealed this while addressing teachers under Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) in a meeting held Sunday at the office of the prime minister. He said that he was mistaken to give Jennifer Musisi a lot of money thinking that she would be able to change the face of Kampala. The meeting was attended by officials from the Ministries of Finance, Education and Public Service to make a way forward and ensure that teachers call off their planned strike ahead of the second term that commenced today. “I paid Musisi too much money thinking that she will clean Kampala but she didn’t do it, but this is a simple sin. I can repent it and withdraw all those salaries of the City Council so that we fix your salaries (teachers),” Museveni said.
The President assured teachers that government will fulfill its promise of improving teachers’ salaries in the next financial year (2019/2020). He agreed to meet teachers again at the end of July if the strike is called off. Musisi resigned from her office as the KCCA Executive director in December last year and is currently working as a consultant at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership initiative in the USA. In 2011, President Museveni applauded Musisi for cleaning up the city which he said was so disorganized before her appointment.