The NRM party secretariat is once again up in flames with Electoral Commission Chairman Tanga Odoi unleashing verbal missiles against the Secretary General Justine Kasule Lumumba.
The feud stems from Lumumba’s Tuesday announcement that the secretariat had resolved to lay off all its 419 workers including those who work in the electoral commission.
Earlier Tuesday, TrumpetNews broke the story how cash crunch had compelled Lumumba to sack the staff.
The secretariat’s top administration at plot 10 Kyadondo has for long been embroiled in ‘chicken fight’ with its juniors over salary related concerns.
The staff had run a seven month marathon without paycheque stirring industrial action but later they (workers) would be convinced to resume business.
Tanga Odoi, belligerent as he is known opposed Lumumba’s directive insisting that ‘his’ few workers at the commission will stay in office.
“I have 27 workers here at plot 13 while plot 10 has hundreds of workers,” said Odoi on Tuesday a little less than hours after Lumumba’s notice.
He said with his staff despite the cash crisis had managed to organise successful by-elections and the Secretary General’s announcement follows an upcoming Jinja East by-election.
“We have an election for our candidate Nabeeta and we must organise it and win. How then does she fire my workers? I can tell you they will be in office tomorrow,” he said.
It is at this point that he mocked Lumumba as a good mobiliser who excites voters by dancing for them to woo support but lacks administration skills.
“I was in Makerere I know how administration operates, but Lumumba was a DEO from there she joined politics and she doesn’t know how these things operate. I can tell you she is better off as a mobilizer,” Odoi described her.
He wondered from the time she succeeded Ex Premier Amama Mbabazi, Lumumba failed to establish a systematic infrastructure and well organised to be able to sieve ghost workers, “I then wonder why she keeps raising issues of ghosts up to this time.”
