Public to play key role as search for more national heroes begins

The Chancellery of Heroes and National Orders and Decorations has initiated a new research aimed at collecting public opinions to identify more national heroes.

Thursday, July 11, 2013
Ignatius Kamali addressing the press conference. The New Times/Timothy Kisambira

The Chancellery of Heroes and National Orders and Decorations has initiated a new research aimed at collecting public opinions to identify more national heroes.According to the Executive Secretary for the Chancellery, Ignatius Karegesa Kamali, the exercise is aimed at recognising people who have done exceptional acts in society. "We have come up with questionnaires that are being circulated around the country for people to name personalities they consider as heroes,” Kamali told a news conference on Wednesday. Benchmarks The criteria involves identifying a person regarded as a patriot, has proven integrity, someone who has given up on self interests for the sake of advancing public interests and someone with a vision and able to understand the truth which is not open to the public.Other benchmarks include being exemplary, honest, generous and humane. "This is a preliminary research which will be followed by a detailed one that will mainly be about investigating in-depth what the public would have given us and verifying facts. We will then compile a report which we will forward to the Chancellery Board,” added Kamali.He explained that the Chancellery may or not make changes before forwarding the report to the Cabinet for approval. "Still the Cabinet reserves the rights to make any changes and the final report of the heroes will then be published but this won’t be the end of the road, we will continuously carry out this activity,” Kamali said. He also pointed out that the tentative timeline for the research is five months but subject to change.