Mbarara municipality authorities have spoken out following the public and social media outrage over a new monument launched this week supposedly to replace the traditional “amahembe g’ente’ (cow horns) or Rusiina at the Airtel round about entrance of Mbarara Town.
The new erected design with metallic lighting symbols of moons, stars, and a cattle head which have covered the cattle statue at the roundabout is included under the Mbarara municipal Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID) project where roads are being renovated. This has costed over Sh10 billion in a general contract to the Abu Baker technical services.
It is alleged that a team of engineers from the district had to travel to Turkey to achieve the design of the new monument. Indeed, when they returned, they started the construction of the monument and the results were out rightly rejected by social media users and the public at large as soon as they launched.
A number of people took to twitter and Facebook to express their disgust;
Now, Mbarara municipal speaker Bonny Tashobya Karusya, says they have started meetings to have this demolished and remain with their initial resolution of renovating the cow. Mayor, Robert Kakyebezi says it will however take time, because they have to wait for the finished work.
Major towns in Uganda constructed monuments majorly on entry roundabouts to clearly spell out their culture or economic activity.
In Kabarole, Fort Portal town, there is a monument of a lion to represent Tooro Kingdom. In Insingiro, there is a banana farmer monument representing the ample supply of bananas/Matooke from the area.
Kabale is equipped with a gorillas monument as well as Kisoro to represent them as tourism hubs. Mbarara’s cow monument represented cattle keeping as an agricultural practice.
Jinja District also has a John Speke memorial monument to symbolise his importance in discovering the source of the Nile which is an asset in the district.
