Councilors Defer Arua City – MTN Clocktower Completion Deal

ARUA. Arua city councilors have deferred the motion in which MTN Uganda was seeking clearance to complete the construction of the clock tower at Arua Hill roundabout in Arua Central Division.

The councilors deferred the motion during a special council sitting at Arua city council hall on Monday, October 14, 2024, on grounds that they first need to see all the necessary documents concerning the project.

Reports indicate that MTN Uganda had initially entered into a secret agreement with the management of Development Infrastructure (DI) to construct the tower.

But after noticing that the project had stalled for years, MTN officials approached the city authority seeking for clearance to complete the project.

A meeting was later convened on Thursday, October 10, 2024, in which MTN officials presented their proposal to Arua city stakeholders.

During the meeting, it was agreed that a special council meeting be called to officially hand over the site to MTN Uganda which will in turn, be remitting shs10m annually to Arua city council inform of local revenue for ten years upon completion of the project.

However, when councilors turned up for the special sitting, they refused to pass the motion citing legal loopholes in the matter despite continued plea by the leader of government business, Millicent Inzikuru, to do so.

“Madam Speaker, on Thursday, this August House was briefed by the MTN team during the engagement on the partnership between MTN and Arua City. Madam Speaker, I plead, if we are not diverting on interest of other things, it would be good to have this document approved and give responsibility to the legal and technical staff to do their mandatory role of following up the documents related to this project,” Inzikuru, also the Arua city Deputy Mayor begged.

Her plea was, however, turned down by the councilors who insisted to first have all documents on table besides sitting to agree on the matter together with MTN, DI and Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) officials before handing over the site to MTN Uganda.

Sam Nda, the councilor representing the people of Ayivu North, said they shouldn’t waste time approving something which will in turn tarnish the image of the council.

“When MTN came in to agreement with DI, I don’t know whether the former council sat like this to approve it but as this council, I would say all these documents be collected and presented before this council and we should know that we are approving something which doesn’t have legal implication afterwards,” Nda argued.

“Madam Speaker, if only they could give us those documents, we go through them and we approve, we could have no objection. The only thing we are demanding is that we go through those documents so that we can come back and approve this deal,” said Joyce Dezu, the female councilor representing the elderly people.

The councilors got the courage when David Kyasanku, the Arua City Clerk, advised them to first look at the copy of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between MTN and DI, and scrutinize the ingredients of the agreement in order to make an informed decision.

“Have they disengaged, have you looked at the disengagement contract between MTN and DI because MTN was not party to this agreement. We have discovered that the council had agreed with the DI of the time to do this tower, now we need to see what is that agreement between MTN and DI and what are the ingredients in that agreement,” Kyasanku guided.

Godfrey Anguyo, the City councilor for Ayivu Division North also agreed with Kyasanku, adding that the issue of the tower shouldn’t be looked at in isolation.

Anguyo stressed that there is need to review the MoU of the stalled Arua Hill stadium and business park which was also reached between the then Arua Municipal Council and DI.

“My prayer is as we are going to have this engagement on the roundabout tower, we should not do it in isolation, the stadium must come in the bigger picture. Clearly, we need to review the terms in the MoU of the stadium. Now that DI has failed to perform and actually, that contract has ended by lapse of time, what is our position as far as the business of the stadium is concerned?” Anguyo asked.

After hours of deliberation on the matter, Teddy Gloria Yako, the Arua City Speaker, ruled that the matter of the tower be deferred to the next council sitting which will be held after thorough consultation with all the parties involved.