By Emmanuel Olinga
A group of women in Katakwi District staged a protest on Monday, March 10, 2025, accusing State Minister for Education and Sports, Hon. Peter Ogwang, of diverting a tractor that was originally donated to them by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni a decade ago.
The tractor, bearing registration number UAZ 809B, was handed over to the Usuk County Women’s Association on January 20, 2015, during a presidential initiative aimed at empowering single mothers, widows, and orphans through agriculture.
The donation was made during a community event held in Ongogngoja Sub County, with the goal of enhancing agricultural productivity and reducing poverty among vulnerable women.
However, members of the association now claim that the tractor was taken from them and later discovered impounded at Katakwi Central Police Station following a traffic incident.
The women allege that Minister Ogwang redirected the tractor for personal use on his private farm.
Frustrated by years of silence and inaction, over 80 women from the Usuk County Women’s Association took to the streets of Katakwi Town, demanding the immediate return of the tractor.
Holding placards and chanting slogans, the protestors accused Hon. Ogwang of denying them access to a vital tool that was intended to uplift their livelihoods.
Led by the association’s chairperson Loy Akori, treasurer Betty Isaasit, and secretary Mary Goretti Anyakoit, the women claimed they only used the tractor briefly before it was taken away.
According to them, the former minister’s campaign mobilizer, Mr. Ogele Gabriel Abuderi, came to collect the tractor from their storage facility in Okocho, Okulonyo Sub County, under unclear circumstances.
“We received this tractor from the President to help us fight poverty, not to support individuals who already earn government salaries,” said chairperson Akori during the protest. “We are requesting His Excellency to intervene and instruct Minister Ogwang to return our tractor.”
In a bid to escalate the matter, members of the association, including Teddy Opus, Natasha Prosy Akiteng, Oboliale, and Hellen Beatrice Adoa, stormed the office of the Resident District Commissioner (RDC), demanding that their complaint be forwarded directly to President Museveni.
“We want the President to know that his good gesture has been abused,” said one protestor. “We were supposed to benefit from this donation, but it has ended up enriching someone who is already in power.”
According to the Katakwi District Traffic Office, the tractor was impounded after being involved in a collision while transporting manure.
A source at the station said they later received a phone call from Hon. Ogwang requesting the tractor’s release.
When contacted by Katakwi Deputy RDC, Minister Ogwang denied ownership of the tractor.
“The tractor is not mine. I only got involved because it was being misused,” Ogwang reportedly told Deputy RDC Vincent Savior Okwi.
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