President Yoweri Museveni has explained why he fired top Electoral Commission (EC) officials, including that of secretary Sam Rwakoojo and spokesperson Jotham Taremwa.
Others sacked were IT director and head of technical support services Pontius Namugera, Finance and Administration Director Joseph Lwanga, and procurement boss Godfrey Wanyoto.
Data Department chief Edgar Kasigwa, networks administrator Jordan Lubega and data section staffer Charles Musuza were also shown the exit door.
Although reports claimed these were fired over alleged corruption regarding the printing and storage of ballot papers for the 2021 elections, EC chairperson Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama said the reasons for their exit were “personal.”
Byabakama breaks silence on EC sackings
But Museveni has now revealed why he ordered Rwakoojo and others out of EC.
The president said these had frustrated his efforts to check vote rigging.
In a statement on September 07, he noted that a bio-metric would help reduce electoral malpractices since a “voter registers only once and if he or she tries to register a second time, the Central memory of the system will detect it and block it.”
He then described the fired EC officials as corrupt, further telling Ugandans that these had blocked the procurement of the bio-metric system.
“The corrupt team that was in the Electoral Commission refused to procure this system. It is, however, being procured now,” said Museveni.
“This will end this sad story of the anti-democratic forces at least as far as the problem of multiple voting and multiple registrations is concerned. It will also deal with the problem of ballot stuffing because the fingerprints digitally read must be equal to the votes in the ballot box.”
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