MBARARA – Mbarara District leaders have conducted a crisis meeting to find a quick way to resolve a situation that could escalate into conflict between Kiruhura and Mbarara districts because of pressure put on livestock traders and farmers operating in the Kyenshama livestock weekly market located in Kashare sub-county.
The two local governments started disagreeing when Kiruhura district established another livestock
market directly opposite Kyenshama weekly livestock market about five hundred metres away from Kyenshama trading centre in Kashare Sub-county in Kashari county, Mbarara district.
Mbarara district leaders lead by the district Secretary for Finance Mr Basil Bataringaya conducted a crisis meeting with the locals and sub-county leaders to lay a strategy to stop the operations of the new market where construction of temporary stalls was already underway.
Mr Basil Bataringaya, Mbarara district secretary for finance during the meeting said the standard procedure for setting up and operating a market is that a market should not be established near another, operate on the same days as the existing one or force traders into the market because this is a free economy.
Bataringaya on behalf of Mbarara district leaders warned the Kiruhura district to stop using police to force traders into their market saying if Kiruhura authorities cannot see this anomaly, they will also be forced to use high handed means.
Mr Deus Mugisha the Kashare sub-county chairperson said it is out of lack of respect and arrogance that Kiruhura district can establish a market neighbouring Mbarara’s without sanitary facilities when it’s within a water catchment area and around a water dam that serves both livestock and humans in the sub-county.
Kyenshama dam and the area where Kiruhura district leaders are trying to put a market have been earmarked by the ministry of water and environment for redevelopment to provide water for production and domestic use for the two districts and with this market, the project is now threatened, Mr Mugisha explained.
The district water officer Mbarara Eng Joseph Mucunguzi says when the rehabilitation and expansion of Kyenshama is completed it is expected to serve over 30,000 people and several livestock in the two districts.
However, the Kiruhura District Chairperson, Canon Samuel Mugisha Katugunda said he also wants development thus appealing to Mbarara district leadership to put their complaints in writing then they can respond and then the two districts can agree amicably.
