According to the minister for disaster preparedness and refugees, 3.5 million Ugandans are in need of food aid. But the decision by the ministry to send food relief to the urban poor in Mbarara municipality and other urban areas including Entebbe has caused an uproar. Critics said, there were more deserving Ugandans deep in villages of north and eastern Uganda, who had starved to death and others who urgently needed food aid to keep skin and bone together.

“The first priority would have been given to people who were dying because people around Mbarara could actually afford to get what to eat”, said one of the critics.

In a letter early this week, Martin Owor the commissioner for disaster preparedness in the prime minister’s office recently asked the Mbarara municipality town clerk to receive a consignment of 600 bags of rice for the urban poor.

“Those categories of poor people, whether in a town or village, whether in Mbarara, Arua or in Moroto, their suffering was the same.” said Martin Owor.

The truck carrying the relief arrived in Mbarara on Thursday. The Mbarara Municipality town clerk stated that this consignment had come from the office of the prime minister and it was to help the vulnerable people in the municipality, mainly families headed by the children, the sick people living with HIV-AIDs and the poor disabled people.

However, some leaders in the municipality also held the view that the food should have been sent to those who were on the verge of dying of hunger who were not in Mbarara.

On Tuesday, the minister for disaster preparedness Hillary Onek said that he was not aware that food had been dispersed to urban areas, stating that even though he was in charge of the ministry, the decision to send to urban poor was not his and he was not aware who made that decision because the urban poor in Kampala were also worse off.

But commissioner Owor said that the distribution list was approved during the cabinet meeting that Onek and his deputy Musa Ecweru attended stating “The full distribution plan was approved by cabinet and later endorsed by parliament, to document their own record that the distribution plan was approved”.

Interestingly although minister Onek said he did not know the food that had been sent to urban areas, the statement he tabled in parliament stated that Mbarara, Entebbe, and other municipalities were beneficiaries. “I don’t think urban poor are part of our program, if you are poor you have to go to the village, because most of these urban people are from villages, so you go there and receive [relief] from there.”, stated Minister Hillary Onek.

Owor said, all municipalities in the country except Hoima had been allocated food relief. Mbarara got one truck, Soroti municipality got 10 trucks, Moroto municipality got 10 trucks, Kotido got 10 trucks. But that people were concentrating on where they had sent only one truck.

According to the amended distribution list, Makindye municipality had also received five hundred bags of rice, however, it’s authenticity could not be verified. Commissioner Owor stated that even the urban poor in Kampala would be considered and that Mbarara was to receive an additional 300 bags of rice and beans in addition to the six hundred bags of rice each of fifty kilograms.