Kampala Metropolitan Senior Minister Hajjat Minsa Kabanda has exclusively confirmed to theGrapevine that president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has directed the country’s intelligence organs and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to investigate the alleged invisible hand behind traders’ leadership.

She explained that preliminary investigations have established that some leaders of traders who are advocating for endless strikes are biased in their decisions because there is an invisible hand pushing them with an agenda of sabotaging the country’s economy and creating an ungovernable situation.

“We know whatever they are planning. Our people are on ground, so they should stand warned,” Kabanda said.

She revealed that President Museveni was shocked to establish that in Kampala city alone, traders have more than 30 associations and each one of them has command.

This has created suspicion and the need for an investigation to establish their true motives.

The development comes at a time when traders are threatening to go into a two months strike without opening their shops in the city center if president Museveni doesn’t address their demands including the banning of the Electronic Receipting and Invoicing System (EFRIS).

On 7th May 2024, Museveni directed Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to sit down with leaders of traders and sort out their differences.

The President guided that once these leaders and URA agree, they should make a joint report which they should read to him and other traders on 20^th of June 2024 at Kololo independence grounds.

However, before that meeting, Minister Kabanda has disclosed that Museveni is set to meet leaders of traders in the State House to have some issues sorted out noting that government is doing everything in its power to make sure that what happened on 7th May 2024 never happens again.

She explained that it was bad for traders to shout at the President and embarrass senior government officials to the extent of accusing some of corruption insisting that traders’ behavior sent a warning signal to government that there must be an invisible hand influencing and facilitating them.

theGrapevine has established that the leadership of Kampala City Traders Association(KACITA) led by Thadeus Musoke Nagenda, Federation of Uganda Traders Association(FUTA), Katukazane Shoe Dealers, Kampala Arcaders Advocacy Forum, United Arcarders Traders Enterprenuers Association,  Uganda Needy and Squatters Association have resolved to join hands and strategise on how to come up with a common voice before the President.

Highly placed sources in intelligence have revealed to theGrapevine that all eyes are on David Kabanda who is being investigated for working for some opposition bigwigs who promised him support in the coming elections.

Sources said that Kabanda wants to become the city councilor on Lord Mayor Ssalongo Erias Lukwago’s council.

However, veteran journalist and the Senior presidential advisor on media Joseph Tamale Mirundi advised Museveni not to take lightly statements made in the United Kingdom’s House of Lords that King Charles’s leadership should influence regime change in Uganda.

He explained that the western powers are going to use all the available means to sabotage Museveni’s leadership insisting that there is invisible hand in traders’ frequent strikes.

But a section of KACITA leadership told theGrapevine that there are people in President Museveni’s government who are facilitating the creation of endless traders associations with the aim of benefiting from them and fighting the unity among traders.

By Sengooba Alirabaki

Mukono Municipality legislator Betty Nambooze Bakireke has confirmed that the Municipality’s mayor Erisa Mukasa Nkoyoyo has been admitted to Mulago Specialised Hospital.

Nambooze explained that last week, she went to hospital to check on him and discovered that his health condition was worsening.

She said that Nkoyoyo needs very expensive medicine which he has to buy from one of the big pharmacies near the hospital because inside the hospital the medicine is not there.

She added that because of the expensive medicine, Nkoyoyo is buying it in piecemeal which places his life in more danger.

She disclosed that the Municipality has no money for his treatment.

Few months back, theGrapevine reported how Mukono Municipality town clerk Majeran Luboyera and other technocrats rushed Nkoyoyo to Butabika mental hospital but he was later discharged.

Friends and family members cited witchcraft in Nkoyoyo’s sickness claiming that his political competitors who want his office come 2026 are the ones who want him dead.

Luboyera confirmed that Nkoyoyo’s absence has created a leadership crisis in the Municipality because currently, it is like the Municipality has no mayor.

Since the day Nkoyoyo decided to attend the local government retreat at Kyankwanzi leadership training, National Unity Platform principal Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (Bobi Wine) him a betrayer.

The party leadership stopped Nkoyoyo from attending the said retreat but he defied them and attended.

Nkoyoyo later explained that his decision was based on his hunger to develop the Municipality and they could not achieve the development they wanted without working together with the ruling party.

By Grapevine Reporter

The mighty Grapevine can exclusively reveal that Rosemary Nansubuga Sseninde and Justine Mbabazi are in a secret fight over the National Resistance Movement (NRM) ticket for Wakiso District Woman Member of Parliament.

In the 2021 parliamentary election, Sseninde was defeated little known Betty Naluyima who held the National Unity Platform (NUP) ticket.

After the defeat, President Museveni dropped her as the junior Minister for Education.

However, because of the good relationship Sseninde has with the first lady maama Janet Kataha Museveni, she was appointed as a Director at NRM Secretariat in charge of mobilization.

When theGrapevine asked her whether she is coming back in elective politics, she only responded with “don’t wake them up”.

We have established that she is making clandestine mobilization to contest for the same seat come 2026.

But political observers in Wakiso told theGrapevine that Sseninde is going to find a hard task to secure the NRM ticket because Mbabazi is also interested in the same ticket and she is also doing clandestine mobilization.

“Mbabazi is on the ground, she always stands with people when it comes to the situation of challenges, especially on the land issues. Minister Sam Mayanja has also helped her to popularize herself because whenever he goes for a land matter, he has to go with her and praise her before the public as a very hard working lady and an NRM cadre,” one of the political observers said.

However, Sseninde is also not sleeping. She is using her position NRM director Mobilisation to hit two birds with one stone.

She is popularizing President Museveni’s achievements across the whole country and at the same time doing ground mobilization among the locals in Wakiso district.

Others interested in the seat are Rose Kirabira, Sylivia Namutyaba, Naluyimba is also coming back among others.

By Hadijjah Namagembe