Arua District authorities have accused the local government minister Adolf Mwesige of failing to resolve the disputed over Ewanga area. In 2010, Arua and Yumbe districtst council created Ewanga and Ariwa sub counties respectively.
However, the sub counties failed to take off because of a boundary dispute.
As a result, Mwesige wrote to Arua and Yumbe district halt the operations of both sub counties pending his visit to the area to resolve the standoff. In 2011, Electoral Commission unknowingly conducted elections in the disputed sub counties. Now, Sam Wadri Nyakua, Arua District LC V chairman is accusing the minister of neglect of duty saying he failed to show up to resolve the dispute since he wrote to them about a year ago.
He says the minister should be prepared to take political responsible once residents in the disputed areas attack each other. Nyakua however, insists that the disputed Ewanga area belongs to Arua.
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He says the delay by the minister to come and address the dispute has left the elected leaders in the area redundant. Nyakua says that the local council leaders have not taken oath of office, which has made it difficult to serve the people who elected them. Despite the fact that Arua district has stayed the operationalization of Ewanga sub county, their counterparts in Yumbe has gone ahead to operationalize Ariwa sub county.
Yasin Taban, the Yumbe LC 5 chairperson says the district council decided to operationalize the sub county to take services to the people. He says the dispute was resolved in 2004 by the inter-ministerial committee that was appointed to resolve the border dispute. Taban says the committee report clearly shows that Ewanga sub county is within the boundaries of Yumbe district.
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But the decision by Yumbe district authorities to operationalize Ariwa Sub County has not gone down well with the elected officials of Ewanga Sub County. Sam Zablon Ezama, the councilor elect of Ewanga Sub County says that they have been left in confusion since the minister wrote halting the operation of their sub county. Efforts by URN to get a comment from the minister were futile as someone picked up his phone saying that meeting was locked up in a meeting.
