Abim District-based musicians under the umbrella called Ethur Music Fraternity is in a bitter war with Abim District Covid-19 Task Force leaders over coronavirus sensitization song dubbed "Corona Virus'' payment.
Ethur Music Fraternity (EMF) is the only music platform that unites all celebrities (Artists, DJs, MCs, Comedians, radio presenters (etc) from Abim District.
This comes after Abim District Task Force has failed to pay the musicians money after they were promised to be paid for the song.
Speaking to the music group chairperson, Richard Oyugi aka Testimony, he said that they did a coronavirus song in early April and Abim District Task Force requested to use the song for sensitizing the community and promised to pay them later of which it is said that top officials ate the money.
"We did a song titled 'CoronaVirus" in early April and Abim district taskforce requested to use this song for sensitization of the community and promised payment after. They called us for the meeting at the taskforce where they accepted to pay us 8M but later called us back and revised the budget to pay us 6M which we all accepted. As time went on, EMF team leader Testimony kept in constant communication with RDC Mr. Mpimbaza Samuel Hasaka who is the chairperson Covid-19 DTF, he asked EMF to remain patient they will pay them, until when he came out and told the EMF chairperson on 21st Aug 2020 that "Abim district officials" whom he referred to them as "Mafias'' Stole the money meant for paying this music group/artists.''
According to Richard Oyugi, they are demanding the District Task Force 6 million and failure to pay the sum of the money, they are already to sue the district task force leaders to court.
"EMF is in the process of reporting Abim DTF to court for failure to pay them their money for using their song as earlier agreed," he said.
Statements from Abim District RDC Mr. Mpibaza Samuel Hasaka "At the beginning, we were stuck because unlike other districts we didn't have any music to sensitize people about Corona.
EMF timely came to the rescue of the district by composing music on Corona which we used. We had agreed that the EMF team should be paid using part of the 165 million shillings given to Abim by the government to fight Corona the way other districts did. Unfortunately, the district leadership disregarded the directive of the council led by the speaker Hon D'bekas of involving the task force in how to use the money. The district leadership used the money the way they wanted.
When we inquired about the EMF money they told us it was gone. Some leaders ended up paying themselves huge allowances yet they didn't even Carry out any activity. I have evidence of some of the leaders who signed for the money which should have been given to EMF.
Let me send the voucher and you read yourself".
The Abim District RDC went ahead and exposed some of the top corrupt officials who went on and swallowed the money meant to pay the music group. These are their names of the officials; Hon. Ochero Jimmy - LC5 chairperson Abim district, Mr. Olwit Nelson - DAS ( aspiring MP Abim district), Omara Godfrey -DHE, Among Jennifer -DHN, Auma Penian -A/NO, Olee David - A/NO, Caroline Oceng - SEC.HEALTH, Okengo Okuda Anthony - DHO and Onen Peter Abraham - ( His position at the district not mentioned).
