Barbara Among's Weblog

Bujagali dam project faces 7-month delay

2011-12-09T01:22:00.002+03:00

East African (Kenya), by Barbara Among / Wednesday, 07 February 2007
Uganda’s crippling energy crisis is expected to continue for at least another half-year, following reports that the construction of the new 250-megawatt hydropower dam at Bujagali, will delay by seven months. Sources familiar with the project — which is at the heart of major efforts to end the power shortage — say the delay is due to a failure to complete bidding for the dam. Negotiations with various parties, including financiers is also said to be behind schedule. This means that the construction of the dam, to be built on River Nile and which was expected to join the national grid by January 2010, will start at the end of the year, if there are no further hiccups.
Original plans for meeting the country’s electricity needs specified that bidding for the Dam and the power plan EPC should be concluded in June 2006 to allow the completion of the financial evaluation. Financial closure for the project was supposed to be achieved in October 2006, with construction starting last December. According to information made available to The EastAfrican, a revised project plan will now be sent to the financier — the World Bank — later this year with financial closure expected in July.
Negotiations with various parties including financiers are not concluded,” said James Banaabe, the acting Commissioner for Energy. “The project has to go to the World Bank board first for approval in April 2007 and hopefully have financial closure in July. That is the main reason for not taking off.” Sources within the Industrial Promotion Services Ltd (IPS) — the company that is in charge of developing the project — told The EastAfrican that construction of the dam is expected to start in May.
“We are hoping to come to a financial closure by May, though the original plan is for July,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. “The project EPC evaluation was done and we are in negotiations with the preferred constructor.” The official said that most of the money needed to fund the project, whose total cost is estimated at $400 million-$500 million, is yet to be available. “Response from the lenders has been overwhelming; however the larger part — the 80 per cent debt — is not there and you can only mobilise the contractor when you have the full financing.”
The project lenders include the European Investment Bank (EIB), the African Development Bank (ADB), and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). The IPS Consortium proposed a financing plan with a total budget of $500 million on an 80-20 per cent debt-equity ratio. The lenders have been evaluating the project since September last year and are presently evaluating the environmental impact assessment and the credit worthiness of the sponsor, the Ugandan government. Energy Minister Daudi Migereko was optimistic about the project: “Salini, an Italian company, won the bid as the contractor but we have not signed a contract yet. I would not want to go into details of the project but everything is on course.”
This is the second time that the Ugandan government is attempting to build a dam at Bujagali. The first effort, under which construction was supposed to have started in 2003, was mired in allegations of corruption and protests from environmentalists opposed to the destruction the dam would cause to the Bujagali Falls, a popular tourist destination for white-water rafters. The construction was eventually suspended and the World Bank Group withheld its financing after corruption investigations by the US Justice Department and by the World Bank’s Fraud and Corruption Unit. In 2003, AES Nile power — then the main developer, announced that it was pulling out of the project for economic reasons.
However, following the escalation of the power crisis in Uganda, in which a prolonged drought has cut hydropower production by more than half to about 120MW, against a peak-hour demand of 380MW, the government decided to rescue the Bujagali proposals. In April 2005, the government selected a consortium of investors led by Industrial Promotion Services (Kenya) Ltd as the new sponsor for the Bujagali Hydropower Project. Bujagali is seen as a medium-term effort to stem the power crisis that has knocked at least two percentage points off economic growth.

Uganda: Govt Unveils National Identity Card

2011-11-29T16:38:00.001+03:00

The German firm, M¼hlbauer Technology Group, yesterday unveiled the new national identity card at Hotel Africana in Kampala.
The ID card will be made of polycarbonate (plastic) material. It will have as visible features a picture of the card holder, a signature, date of birth, sex, card number, date of expiry, a thumb print and the national flag with the map of Uganda.
It will have additional invisible features, such as tribe, clan, village, parish, district, details of spouses, with provision of up to four wives, and children.
The sh185b project will first cover the new voters for the 2011 general elections, estimated at 3.5 million people. They are supposed to get their ID cards by October this year.
Under the second phase, Ugandans who are already on the voters' list, a total of 10.5 million, will have their bio-data updated.
They are expected to get their ID cards in the next two years.
The German firm yesterday kick-started the training of 450 trainers who will in turn train 8,000 operators to carry out the voter registration at parish level.
However, M¼hlbauer Technology Group did not respond to media reports which claimed that the price of the project was highly inflated.
The Observer yesterday quoted similar projects in neighbouring Kenya and Tanzania which cost sh53b and sh41b respectively although they have larger populations.
Questions have also been raised about the procurement process. A tender for the ID cards project in 2005 was cancelled by the IGG due to irregularities and corruption.
The three bidders were South African Face Technologies, Indian Contec Global and an Israel company called Supercom. MÃ¼hlbauer Technology Group was not one of the bidders.
Instead, the German company bid for the Electoral Commission bio-metric voter registration last year but the process was stopped by the procurement authority, PPDA, in December due to irregularities in the evaluation process. PPDA advised the Electoral Commission to re-evaluate the bids.
However, the commission did not follow this advice and abandoned the tendering process altogether.
Last month, the Ministry of Internal Affairs signed a contract with MÃ¼hlbauer for not only the ID cards but also the bio-metric voter registration system.
A third concern raised is about the type of ID card, which uses barcode technology.
The East African Community secretariat as far back as 2008 advised Uganda to abandon that type of technology because it was unsuitable and not compatible with other countries in the region.
"The experts advised Uganda to use the smart card technology which Tanzania has opted for," said Monique Mukaruliza, the chairperson of the EAC council of ministers, during a session of the EAC Parliament in December 2008.
The smartcard technology uses a chip instead of a barcode. A chip can accommodate a lot more information, such as medical records, criminal records, educational data, driving permits and social security data.
It can also authenticate fingerprints and photographs, which are additional safeguards against forgeries.
"A smartcard is critical for e-government," an expert told The New Vision.
"You present your card to a hospital and it shows your blood group, medical history, the treatment you are on or the medicines you are allergic to.
"It can also contain A'level and O'level results or the schools somebody attended."
Asked for a reaction last week, internal affairs minister Kirunda Kivejinja, also the chairman of the security committee handling the project, declined to give details, arguing that the national identification project was a matter of national security.
"This is a national security matter I don't have to discuss with the press," he said.
He added that the deal would not be presented before Parliament as some MPs had demanded.
"There are certain things I do not have to go to the Cabinet and Parliament for."

Who will heal Uganda’s sick health sector?

2011-11-29T16:05:00.000+03:00

By Barbara Among
bamong@ug.nationmedia.com

When his teenage wife went into labour, John Emegu wedged her on a bicycle between himself and his grandmother and pedalled furiously for 11 miles. But on reaching the nearest hospital, his relief quickly turned to despair.

Though healthcare is meant to be free in Uganda, nurses told him to buy a Shs20,000 maternity kit including rubber cloves, saline solution, surgical needle and a plastic ‘delivery’ sheet, which were all out of stock in the hospital. By the time he had done so—and paid another Shs10, 000 to convince an intern doctor to attend to his wife—12 hours had passed. “I don’t know what is happening,” said Emegu, 22, as he waited for news at Soroti regional referral hospital. “I am getting desperate.” His wife and newborn baby survived—unlike his first child who died in the same hospital the year before.

The Emegus’ traumatic experience is not unusual in a country, where the healthcare system is in crisis despite the billions of shillings of mostly donor money flowing in every year. Visits to a dozen health centres across the country revealed a chronic shortage of beds, drugs and medical personnel, confirming a recent verdict by the Anti-Corruption Coalition of Uganda that “service delivery and general care is almost not there”.

The government admits that the situation is dire. “Lack of adequate resources is still limiting hospitals to provide the services expected. In many instances, basic emergency infrastructure, supplies and specilised equipment are inadequate,” reads the latest annual health sector performance report. The dire situation has meant that senior government officials and wealthy Ugandans have long used private hospitals or flown outside the country for treatment, as was the case with some of President Museveni’s daughters, who delivered their children in Germany.

Members of Parliament are registered with private health insurance companies of their choice, paid for by taxpayers. But now even ordinary Ugandans, the intended beneficiaries of the free healthcare system, are increasingly seeking private healthcare. “I don’t see any reason of wasting time; you go to the government hospital yet there are no drugs,” said Joseph Kusemerwa, a resident of Kicucu village, Kabarole District in western Uganda.

So why is it dysfuntional?
Such attitudes are stirring public debate on why the free healthcare system is so dysfunctional. While it is expensive to run, money does not seem to be in short supply. Donors gave more money towards health than any sector of government, amounting to Shs321 billion in 2009/2010.

The government added a further Shs465 billion and this year Shs1.3 trillion went to health. In total, health spending accounts for 9.6 per cent of the budget, significantly higher than the sub-Saharan average of 8 per cent. Local healthcare monitoring groups and government officials say Uganda’s heavy reliance on outside funding is one of the main problems, with a lack of overlap between the government’s priorities and those of donors.

The focus of HIV prevention and treatment is one example. While 1 million Ugandans are estimated to be HIV positive—3.3 per cent of the population—some Shs549 billion went to Aids campaigns in the financial 200/2010, more than half of total healthcare budget. Most of the money came from the US’s Pepfar (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) and USAID.

‘Unreliable donor funding
Local players in the sector say the unpredictability of the donor funding makes it difficult to plan and when it comes, there is lots of overhead expenditure and what is spent on actual projects is actually less. “The money, which is off budget, has had issues of accountability, which has resulted in delayed release of other funds. Some such as Gavi have been withheld. If we had an organised system of receiving even off budget funds, we should not be seeing such problems,” said the Health Ministry Permanent Secretary, Mr Asuman Lukwago.

The effect of the heavy HIV focus is clearly visible; even in rural areas the voluntary counselling and testing centres are usually well-equipped compared to the general health units. In Kabarole District in Western Uganda, Rose Kayesu, 24, was battling malaria at home. The nearest health centre only had one type of malarial drug, and she was allergic to it. Enock Kibite, her husband, said he sometimes spends more than half of his Shs75,000 monthly earning from carpentry on malaria drugs alone.

According to the Director General of Health Services, Dr Ruth Achieng, the bulk of donor support to the health sector (41 per cent) is off budget and a significant proportion (21 per cent) of government expenditure on health mainly goes to emoluments. Sector players also point to poor coordination among health system players and this has led to fragmentation of services. “Actors have immense interest in M & E (data), at the expense of investment in service delivery. Many actors are measuring the same indices,” said Dr Achieng.

District health directors, many of whom did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said it was “unacceptable” to run out of drugs, but also unavoidable. “There’s no money,” a director said. Government’s 2009/2010 health sector report shows that only 35 per cent of health centres do not run out of essential drugs. As of August, reports on the ministry website indicate that stocks available at both the National Medical Stores and Joint Medical Stores are generally below recommended minimum central stock level and health centres also registered low stock levels of essential drugs.

The corruption drawbacks
But corruption is a major problem hampering healthcare delivery. The Auditor General’s 2009 report shows that Shs310m meant for drugs went missing that year. “The end users did not also have knowledge of these (missing money, deliveries either). The missing drugs included ARVs, coartem, condoms and oral rehydration salts,” the AG report said.

In November 2010, the National Drug Authority said more than 100 ghost health centres created by corrupt officials had been receiving medical supplies and equipment. By contrast, many genuine health centres lack even basic equipment. So in places like Awcha, Gulu District, the theatre serves as a ward. At Kiyombya Health Centre, Southern Uganda, mothers in the maternity section are expected to pay for parafine for lamps.

Large sums of money are simply stolen. In 2005, nearly Shs150b from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) and the Global Fund to fight Aids, tuberculosis and malaria was unaccounted for. “The healthcare system is very sick but the one who is supposed to heal it is very corrupt,” said the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda in its report.

Brain drain effects
There is also a major shortage of medical professionals. Kitgum Hospital in northern Uganda had five doctors in the 1980s. Today, there is one. Arua Hospital needs 38 doctors but has 11; Kabale has five instead of 35.

Data from the Health Ministry indicates the country has only 37,368 health workers. Of these, 8,978 are nurses, 4,535 are midwives, and only 1,118 (3 per cent) are doctors. Data also indicates that nursing assistants still form a big number of the health workers--6,371 (17 per cent). “If we don’t handle this problem now, in the next 10 years, Uganda will have no clinicians or physicians,” former Director General for Health Services, Dr Sam Zaramba, warned at a health conference last year.

The World Health Organisation says Uganda’s doctor-to-patients ratio of 1:25,000 is low even by African standards. Uganda graduates more than 200 doctors every year but most migrate to neighbouring countries such as Rwanda where pay and working conditions are better. However, even the few medical workers employed in Uganda’s health sector often abscond from duty. Government investigation show that 40 per cent of doctors and 50 per cent of nurses receive salary but are absent from duty.

In cases where money has been spent on appropriate inputs such as medical supplies, in many cases the staff to dispense the supplies are absent or not recruited. “You find that the same doctors supposed to be working for the government are also working for donor funded projects yet our numbers are already few. This worker is over stretched and they cannot be efficient any more. And the reasons I have heard cited for leaving government facilities is little pay,” said Dr Lukwago

Dr Achieng puts the problem candidly as, “ethical erosion.” Some Shs2.6 trillion is needed to rehabilitate hospitals across the country, the ministry says. For clinicians like Mr Richard Kyeyune, and the patients who visit the dilapidated health centre he runs in Masaka District, that money can’t come soon enough. “When it rains, we send patients away because we are scared the roof will fall on them,” he said.

When skewed priorities hurt heath care delivery

When the money does get through spending priorities often seem skewed. In 2009, Shs439million meant for medicine was diverted to foreign travel. Parliament last months rejected the Health Ministry’s budget after they discovered that the ministry officials had diverted more than Shs2 billion meant for maternal health to seminars and workshops on HIV/Aids, among others.

A scenario given by Uganda Medical Workers’ Union show that the ministry of health owns expensive recent model 4x4 vehicles, totaling 2,935, yet hospitals in smaller towns often lack a single functional ambulance.

In Soroti, there is an ambulance – but no fuel. After Jocy Asio’s father paid Shs30,000 for petrol, the 19-year-old suffering from post-natal bleeding was rushed to the hospital only to be told there was no blood. At health centres like Kinoni, Mbarara, a double-cabin truck is used as an ambulance. The medical workers’ union point in a document that the ministry official vehicles can provide three well- equipped ambulances per sub-county and the Shs28 billion spent on fuel can build and equip five open heart surgery units.

At Mulago National Referral Hospital, it is not uncommon to see patients sleep in the corridor in the night due to overwhelming number, mothers in labour being shuffled, due to inadequate number of beds and patients often diagonise but asked to buy medicines from private pharmacies or clinics.“We put four of them (children) on the bed and some sleep on the floor,” said a health worker in Kyenjojo, western Uganda, explaining how he deals with overcrowding.

Meanwhile, programmes to tackle malaria, which is the number one killer disease in Uganda, as well as diarrhea, respiratory diseases, maternal and infant mortality, are chronically underfunded. “HIV/Aids and direct project funding affects funding for other sectors. We are insisting that the money is channeled into the system other than specific project funding,” said Dr Achieng during the health science week conference. “There is a need to look at the system as a whole, from human resource to infrastructure.”

State of hospitals

GULU HOSPITAL: The referral hospital is all but a dilapidated structure that has been condemned for human use, though plans are underway for a new modern hospital. Also, some sections have been refurbished. The maternity ward, children’s ward and medical ward have given some hope to visiting patients—if only service delivery was equalled.
Beds. The hospital is supposed to accommodate 250 inpatients but it overflows with more than 367.

Staffing. Specialist care remains a hurdle. Instead of having 40 doctors, there are only four doctors, of which two are retiring next year after reaching the retirement age and there is no replacement yet. According to the director of the hospital, Dr Athoney Onyach, a doctor on a daily basis is supposed to attend to only 30 patients but each is attending to up 100 patients.

Drugs. Supply has improved unlike in the past where patients referred to buy medicines from clinics and many skipped treatment due to biting poverty. Missing specialists. Ear, Nose and Throat doctor since 2005 when the structure was built (equipment are idle), pathologists left in 2006, gynecologist left two month ago.

BUNDIBUGYO HOSPITAL: The hospital administrator, Mr Ronald Mutegeki, says the hospital is in a sorry state and needs to be overhauled. He said the sewer system broke down several years ago and the hospital is still using old equipment, for instance, fire extinguishers which were installed in 1969 when the hospital opened have never been replaced. The hospital uses sand for firefighting.

Staffing. The hospital lacks a dispenser, radiographer, staff accommodation, dressing equipment, an anesthetist and a specialist to work on an ultra sound scan. Equipment. The hospital also lacks autoclaves, refrigerators, sterilisers and an EMO machine (used when anaesthising patients).

Drugs. The stores assistant, Mr Erasto Kamadi, says the hospital has been running without switchers, flagyl, ciprofloxacine for six months and ORS for two years. The hospital also lacks gloves and patients are supposed to improvise before they are worked on.

SOROTI HOSPITAL: An emergency operation had to wait for a couple of minutes. Reason? Load-shedding, and a standby generator for the hospital did not have fuel to run it. “It is a big challenge for us here, especially when we have an emergency to work on. Funds allocated for running the generator are not sufficient,” a doctor, who declined to disclose his identity for fear of reprisal, said.

Patients. The regional referral hospital also caters for Amuria, Bukedea, Kaberamaido, Katakwi, Kumi and part of Karamoja region. But authorities say it has not been able deliver to expectations due to numerous challenges ranging from inadequate staff to lacking to sufficient drugs.

Shortages. Dr Joseph Epodoi, a senior surgeon, said the hospital has a capacity of about 250 beds, which the unit has since outlived. He said the hospital is experiencing a high demand for blood due to increasing cases of malaria among children. The hospital currently depends on the Mbale-based blood bank.

Graft. A probe by the Health Services Delivery and Monitoring Unit in 2010 revealed massive graft, including theft under unclear circumstances of a computer containing vital information on the implementation of HIV/Aids programme at the hospital. It is alleged that last year, drugs worth Shs50m was stolen and about Shs7m meant for the repair of the hospital generator has since not been accounted for.

Uganda: German Firm Wins National ID Contract

2011-11-29T15:08:00.000+03:00

A German firm yesterday confirmed that it had won the controversial national identification project. The Mühlbauer Technology Group spokesperson, Tilo Rosenberger, said the company had been awarded the contract at sh185b.

"Mühlbauer Technology Group announced that it has received an order for the realisation of a national identity card project," said Rosenberger.

He said the award worth sh179b will be implemented over a three year period. The deal comprises the provision of mobile data enrollment systems for the capturing of personal data, the creation of a central population data base as well as the establishment of a personalisation centre for the biometric identity documents

Mühlbauer indicated on its website that it is involved in more than 200 identity projects and supports numerous governments and authorities in implementing identity documents.

The Government last week signed the contract with the firm at the offices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The German-based company was, however, sourced in contravention of procurement rules, according to sources. Efforts to get a comment from the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority were futile as the board chairman and executive director were said to be out of the country.

"The deal was treated as confidential and documents related to it were sent to the board chairman and executive director," said a source at the authority.

Minister for Internal Affairs Kirunda Kivejinja, also chairman of the security committee handling the project, declined to give details on the role played by the Government but said the project would soon be implemented.

He said the deal will not be presented before Parliament as some MPs had demanded.

"There are certain things that I do not have to go to Cabinet and Parliament for," said Kivejinja, before asking, "Do you think it is such a big deal? If it is your mandate, you implement it."

Reasoning that the national identification project was a matter of national security, the minister declined to give details on when and how the project would be implemented.

The revelation that the project has been awarded to the German company brought a new twist to the court battle between the Government and the South African data processing company, Face Technologies.

The firm sued the Government for breach of contract, saying it had an existing contract with the Government to implement the national identity project, having emerged winner in the bidding process in 2006.

Though the Government declined to discuss the fate of Face Technologies, it said the country could not be held hostage indefinitely by the court process.

The new price of sh180b quoted by the German company is slightly lower than the sh194b that was quoted by Face Technologies in 2005. Two other bidders had offered to do the job at sh200b and sh302b respectively.

The IGG stopped the procurement process in 2006 and investigations revealed that the process was marred with irregularities.

Uganda: No Compensation for ID Firm - IGG

2011-11-29T15:02:00.002+03:00

THE Inspectorate of Government has ruled out compensation to Face Technologies, a South African firm, that won the bid to make national identity cards.

Face Technologies earlier this month served the Attorney General with a notice of intention to sue the Government for halting its contract to make national identity cards. It wants sh87b in compensation.

The company claims the Government committed itself when it offered them the tender to manage the National Population Databank and Identification Solution project.

But the IGG said the Government did not sign an agreement with the firm.

"They don't have any claim against the Government. The contract had not been signed. A notification of a post-evaluated bidder does not amount to a contract," Faith Mwondha told The New Vision.

The IGG probe report, obtained by The New Vision, says that the notice of award to the best-evaluated bidder, or a decision to award a contract, does not amount to a contract, according to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act and Regulation.

"The notice to award the contract to the best-evaluated bidder should be withdrawn and rescinded immediately pending other action by government," the IGG recommended.

The project, which has dragged on for two years, involves the production of 12 million national ID cards, 14 million registration certificates and one million Smart Cards.

The Government wanted to issue ID cards to all Ugandan citizens over 18 to help it verify people's identity and domiciliary and enable the provision of electronic government services.

The project, however, got embroiled into multiple scandals in February 2006, when former state minister for planning Isaac Musumba claimed that another company offered better terms than Face Technologies.

The IGG halted the process and started investigations after one of the losers, Contec Global, complained that they had been unfairly treated in the evaluation of the bids.

The investigation established that the procurement process of the vendor, who would implement the project, was riddled with illegalities. The probe also found that the process was characterised by patronage and in-fighting by public servants who had vested and even competing interests in the outcome.

"Consequently, the procurement process defeated the principles of objectivity and competitiveness through which the value for money could be achieved in implementing the project," the IGG said in her report.

The negotiation committee, according to the report, prematurely recommended that the contract be awarded to one of the vendors when critical issues on finance and revenue had not been concluded.

In addition, the committee did not disclose to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) contract committee that Face Technologies, whose proposal had been evaluated as best at $92m, had floated a recovery schedule.

It proposed to recover $151m during the five-year period when it would build and own the project before transferring it to the Government, $59m more than it invested.

The report further pointed out that the UBOS contracts committee was not involved in the initial stages of the procurement.

Instead, the report said, the procurement process involved the implementation committee, the steering committee and the bid preparation and evaluation committee, all established by Musumba.

The investigation further revealed that Musumba exerted undue influence on the evaluation committee to pass firms which had not met the set criteria, either during the pre-qualification or the evaluation stage.

Nabongo of UBOS, who was a member of the evaluation committee, revealed that included Contec Global due to pressure from Musumba, who had personally called him.

"From the evidence gathered, it can also be reasonably inferred and concluded that Musumba was fronting and lobbying for Contec Global."

The probe established that Musumba initially only wrote to Contec Global, inviting it for negotiations with the Government, yet it was ranked third bidder. When it was pointed out to him that his action was contrary to the PPDA regulation, he then wrote to Face Technologies and another bidder, Supercom.

The report also implicates the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Ham Mulira, who was then executive director of the Uganda Computer Services.

"Mulira failed to disclose his prior interaction with Face Technologies and to safeguard the integrity of the process he was engaged in," the IGG's report says.

West Nile:Besigye still the political juggernaut

2011-02-08T16:35:00.000+03:00

On the trail with the 2011 Presidential candidate, Kizza Besigye

It’s that typical sunny morning in Dufeli village, Moyo, when the village is embraced by dust and hot wind and the soil glisten as it reflect the hot morning sun ray.

Half naked children play by the potholed murrum roads, their skin ashen by the ground the play on. Together with adults, they weave and merriment to Kizza Besigye’s convoy as it snakes through their village, combing for votes.

The convoy came to a stop at a homestead, where graves line the compound; it’s the family home to the late Orosula Endreo, who perished in a motor accident together with his wives and children. Together eight family members are buried here.

“The roads in this area are bad, my brother died with his family while on their way from a wedding, their car hit a ditch and overturned” the home caretaker said. The accident occurred last month.

Dufeli is a village at the extreme end of Uganda; 4km away from the Sudan-Uganda Border, to get there, one has to drive through the rocky hills and gully roads, making the drive a frightening venture.

The village suffers from water shortage, during the dry seasons, the crops wither and when the rains return, the gardens get flood. In addition, the elephants from the Panzala reserve area destroy the crops in rainy seasons as they look for food.

“Here, we don’t feel the hand of government and the NGOs that reach here, only come to do research,” said Mary Asumpta, who graduated a fortnight ago with a degree in Development Studies from Gulu University.

Asumpta, like many other youth in the area have no hopes of getting employment anytime soon. In Dafuli, residents have the option of labouring in the gardens, venture into fishing or do retail business with their neighbours in Sudan.

“Business is tough here, transport is non existence and when you get to the border, you have to pay taxes of not less than sh20, 000 for a basket of fish” said Moses Vurri.

The issues raised in this far end of Uganda however cuts across the West Nile region. When asked, the people in this region outlines lack of electricity, poor road infrastructure and water shortage as the top most priority they would want the next President to deal with.

The region gave birth to Uganda’s third President, Idi Amin and when he was overthrown, several of its sons, who were soldiers in the National Army, resorted to rebel activities that destroyed the social and economic facets of the region.

It was only in the mid 2000s that the peace deals between the rebel groups and government ushered peace in the region. People are now concentrating on developing their lives but like their neighbours in Acholi and Lango sub-region, the region is yet to get on its feet.

According to the National Bureau of Statistic, the population of West Nile stands at 2,813,800 people and the district with the highest number of people is Nebbi, followed by Arua.

The main road from the capital Kampala to the main town of Arua has been tarmac and this has reduced travel hours from eight to six and made travel safer. Business people can now travel at night, which is convenient.

The region has the largest number of ex-servicemen and government is now promising to pay their entitlement. Government has granted the region more districts bringing the total to eight. So will these achievements change the political landscape?

Though the smooth road was constructed by 2006 elections, it did not translate into votes for NRM candidate Yoweri Museveni.

Their resentment they say stems from bad roads and lack of electricity plus poor social services.

Although the roads are fair within the urban centres, the greater part of West Nile and major roads to Sudan, their major trading partners, are impassable and the bridges are yet to be upgraded from wood to concrete or permanent status.

The West Nile region is one of the only two regions not connected to the national grid, the other being Karamoja. Efforts by government to take electricity to the region are yet to yield positive results. The 3.5megawatts Nyagak hydropower project stalled two years ago.

Going by past elections, West Nile is largely opposition turf. Kizza Besigye won in five of the six districts in the region.

In Adjumani, Museveni scored 11,277 to Besigye’s 19,919. In Arua he scored 67,436 to Besigye’s 103,133.

In Nebbi Museveni got 54,208, while Besigye got 56,663. Museveni again lost in Moyo with 11,610, with Besigye getting 14,901 and in Yumbe with 19,832 to Besigye’s 24,297.

It’s in Koboko that Museveni got 26,842, while Besigye got 2,694.

However, in counties like Vuura and Okoro where Museveni has always won, the votes are reducing. In 2001, Museveni got 64%, 60% in 2006 while Besigye for 31% in 2001 to 34% in 2006.

In Okoro, Museveni got 74% in 2001, Besigye 20%, in 2006, Museveni got 51% in 2006 and Besigye 40.5%.

The current parliamentary seats however give a different picture of the political landscape showing NRM with the majority. Of the 20 MPs, the ruling party has eight followed by FDC with six. The rest are taken by independents (four) and Uganda People’s Congress (two). Of the seven district leaders in the region, six are NRM, while only one is FDC.

Despite having more MPs and district leaders in the region, NRM’s presidential candidate did not perform well in the last election.

The local people say the MPs and local leaders concentrated on their campaigns fearing the mention of Museveni would cost them votes. In addition to old sentiments, this year, factors like wrangles over money within NRM district leaders would be an additional factor in favour of Besigye.

Last month, shs700m given by NRM candidate to women’s groups in the four district of Yumbe, Koboko, Arua and Maracha was shared by NRM leaders and given to their campaigned agents. In November sh10m given to his campaign team to organise his elections was hijacked by officials.

When Kizza, as he is popularly called in West Nile arrived on Monday 24 for a week long campaign, the euphoria of 2006 was not lost.

The showdown of who wields the axe in the region came in the town of Arua, where the NRM organised a party, alongside Besigye’s rally. The curtains came down on Sarturday,29, at 4pm, when Besigye entered town, crowds poured on the street, singing and dancing to songs such as “Toka kwa barabara, Besigye imeingia, toa gaishya yako, tunataka Besigye. (Give way, Besigye has entered, remove your rubbish, we want Besigye).

Others chanted in the local language; “Anyia emi eza oyee, (we have eaten your meat for nothing)

In his campaign, Besigye rode on issues that have always given him the majority votes in the region. He promised West Nile that electrifying the region is his top most priority, followed by road construction.

The sentiments were high on the poor quality of education as Besigye outline result from Primary leaving examination. “Yumbe got 27 first grade, all from private schools, Nebbi got 57, and 30 of which are from private schools, Adjumani, Marcaha, Arua, all the same poor performances, where is the future of the region,?” Besigye asked.

He outlined his plan as building more classrooms, re-training teachers, doubling teacher’s salary to sh400, 000 and providing lunch at school.

In comparing Amin and Museveni, Besigye touched on positives codes in Koboko, Amin’s home town. He said Amin deserved recognition for contributing to the development of the country. He said Amin built schools, army barracks, and the international conference centre. Amin, started the process of taking electricity to West Nile from Jinja before he was overthrown in 1979, this option still remains open.

The sentiments over the sale of Okoro corporative Society in 2004, and allegation of it having been bought by President Museveni’s brother Salim Sale, is still high in Paidha. The population said they are still grieved by the cutting down of Lendu forest, the largest man made forest in the region and others like Ossi, Awang and Okavu could still play in Besigye’s favour if the huge crowd that turned up to listen to him was anything to go by.

On the dusty, road from Moyo to Yumbe, an old man, stopped Besigye’s convoy, he had one request, “Help us get our payment as ex-servicemen,” he said. Several of such requests were made at every rally in West Nile region. The IPC candidate promised to pay thousands of ex-servicemen their due arrears.

He promised to make Agriculture the engine of the economy; his government will set up irrigation schemes in the region, avail farmers tractors for hire at sub-county headquarters and build silos in each region to stabilize the prices of farm commodities during surplus and offer food supplies in the face of famine.

The FDC government will upgrade Arua airfield to an international airport.

Dr Besigye explained why the lost in past elections and assured his supporters that they will win the February 18, elections. In the last elections, he said, we were a young party and in addition, we were not prepared as a party. However, we now have committees at every polling station.

“We did not win for two reasons, one, other parts of the country took long to realize NRM party is evil and also our votes were stole, because we, ourselves were not organized enough to protect our votes,” he said.

He promised that no amount of intimidation will prevent his party from announcing own result. He said his team will control polling stations, tally results at its own tally centre and announce them.

His message of “change is coming for a better Uganda” inspired voters. “Besigye has the capacity of convincing people and for me, I am sure this may not remain verbal, he is going to fulfill them, not in a year or two but over a period of time,” said David Acidri, 40, a Mechanic.

If a crowd in West Nile region is anything to go by, then Besigye still remains the political juggernaut he has been in West Nile region.

Political conflict

However, the failure by Besigye’s camp to amicably solve a conflict involving two of their leading party officials in the region seems to be working against Besigye’s win in Maracha district.

MPs Alex Onzima (Maracha) and Kasiano Wadri (Terego) have battled over the creation of Maracha since 2006. This was solved last year by returning Terego to Arua. However the pull and push over the location of the district headquarters led to Onzima’s coziness with NRM officials that culminated in his expulsion from FDC and his eventual defection to NRM.

Onzima’s supporters feel alienated from the party by the FDC. “But Onzima is still popular here. We support him because he is fighting for a cause that will benefit all of us,” says Moses Drawuzu.

In Arua Municipality, there is the unresolved conflict between incumbent FDC MP Akbar Godi, now an independent, with Aminah Atako, contesting on FDC ticket. Besigye, only made a diplomatic statement while in Arua that, “They are our people and we believe in democratic principals.”

Lango gives mixed signals

2011-02-08T16:10:00.001+03:00

On the road with opposition Presidential candidate Kizza Besigye

The Inter-Party Co-operation presidential candidate Kizza Besigye’s hunt for votes in Lango was characterised by an unfamiliar event in the political history of the sub-region a fortnight ago.

A fight that ensued between supporters of the opposition party, the Forum for Democratic
Change (FDC) and those of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) in Aloi trading centre, Alebtong District signalled the changing political terrain.

The scuffle, the first of its kind in the region, shocked the old residents of the village. It did not only demonstrate the deep rivalry between the two camps, but was a sign that the NRM party has gained some confidence to rear its head in Lango.

“These children are not fighting for a party but money. Politics has never been this way in Lango,” said Gandesio Ogwal, a UPC supporter. Ogwal’s statement was re-echoed by his friend Tony Ongom, 53, who blames the fight on the NRM’s recent gains in Lango.

The two men noted that the NRM had made some in-roads in the village, but reckoned that Besigye might win in Lango.

Lango gave Uganda its first Prime Minister and second President Milton Obote and it remains a stronghold of the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC). A collection of flowers in the UPC colours — red, blue and black — planted at the end of the main street, Obote Road, gives the impression that the party remains strong in Lango.

However, beyond the flowers, Lango region might be a little more competitive in the 2011 general elections than in the previous general elections.

When Besigye visited the region last week, there were uncoordinated movements and mixed reactions to his presence. The indications did not only come from the common man, but the political and cultural leaders as well. His support, as people observed, still exists.

At his rallies, thousands danced and ululated as elders shouted his praises. During several rallies, seasoned politicians of Lango, including Cecilia Ogwal, Ben Wacha, Angiro Gutomoi, Alex Okot and Ojok B’leo, as well as a host of district councillors who were previously in UPC, accompanied and openly campaigned for Besigye.

Several defected from the UPC and NRM to FDC. Some of the defectors claimed that they had been misled and others said they had realized that FDC would serve their interests.

The former NRM chairman of Aloro Parish, Amach Sub-county in Lira, Tony Gony, told the rally at the sub-county headquarters that he had left the NRM because of the threat to grab his land. “They wanted to take my land, they had even surveyed it,” he said.

FDC leaders in the region admit that the NRM could get between five and 10% of the vote in the February elections. The two new districts of Oyam and Alebtong are said to have the highest number of NRM supporters.

There were about 485,000 voters in Lango region in 2006. Besigye got 85% of the votes in Lango, while the NRM candidate, Yoweri Museveni, got 6%. However, going by the parliamentary and local council votes in the 2006 elections, the contest in Lango was a war for the local leadership within the UPC.

FDC got no parliamentary seats. Of the 11 directly elected MPs, six belonged to UPC, while four were UPC ‘rebels’ –the independents. Only Felix Okot Ogong was elected on the NRM ticket. Of the four Woman MPs, two were UPC ‘rebels’, one NRM and the other UPC.

However, there seems to be a shift in the parliamentary votes, with FDC and NRM poised to share seats previously held by UPC. The defections of UPC leaders to FDC have however, given FDC a boost. UPC has the largest number of councillors, 55% in all of Lango’s districts, but these might reduce as the party continues to lose its members.

Besigye’s vote is, however, threatened by the entry of Norbert Mao of DP and Olara Otunnu of UPC.

“We shall vote for Mao and Otunnu and let Museveni and Besigye split the votes in the west and then go for a re-run,” said Peter Okao.

This assumption could greatly affect Besigye’s performance. However, the long-standing hatred between Acholi and Lango could save some of Besigye’s votes.

“Otunnu is good, but where he hails from is my problem,” said Okao of Bala in Kole District.

After this year’s delegates conference that saw Lira MP Jimmy Akena lose the UPC leadership to Otunnu, who is from Kitgum, many people doubt that Lango will remain as faithful to the party.

“I don’t think that UPC is still a Lango party. We all know what Otunnu did to Obote. We know that he betrayed him in 1985. I cannot support him even if I am a life member of UPC,” says Sam Longo, who runs a stall in Lira Market.

As the country moves to polling day in about 18 days, there is mixed reaction to Besigye, Otunnu, Mao and Museveni in Lango. A section of voters say Otunnu is a traitor, Mao a vote spoiler and they are unsure about Museveni.

When you mention places like Aboke and Barlonyo to anybody in Uganda, the atrocities committed by the LRA rebels come to mind. However, in Lango, it raises mistrust and a feeling of betrayal by the NRM.

A section of the population say there is no reason why the NRM should benefit from the return of the displaced persons. “They were returned by NGOs and not the Government,” says Felix Ogwang.

The war sent many into camps and it affected the social and economic development in the region. Other than the towns, the rest of the areas have lagged behind. Education suffered in many rural areas because of the war. The roads are impassable and health centres lack drugs.

Besigye rode on these issues during his campaigns in Lango. He promised to revive agriculture and give each household an ox-plough and revive the farmer’s co-operative society. He also promised that his government will build roads in the region and help farmers have access to markets.

He encouraged his supporters not to lose hope as there were all indications that this time, he would win. “We have committees at every level and we are now more prepared than before. That is why we won by-elections in Mbale, Bugweri and Mukono, among others,” he said.

The tarmacking of the Soroti-Dokolo-Lira road has been the biggest infrastructural development in Lango for many years. But it is not clear whether that will translate into votes for the NRM in Lango.

The FDC leaders who accompanied Besigye to Lango, like Alaso Alice (MP), Elijah Okupa (MP), Ogenga Latigo (MP) and Nandala Mafabi (MP) asserted that the road was repaired because they put pressure on the Government to do so.

“For 25 years, the road was murram and several roads remain so. In 25 years if you calculate, the NRM has only constructed four kilometers of road in Lango per year,” said Latigo.

The fixing of the Corner Kamdini-Lira road means that access to the Lango region via the main highway is assured. However, most of the district roads are in a bad state. These include Lira-Pader-Kitgum, Lira-Bobi, Lira-Amolator and Lira-Aloi.

Lango region largely depends on farming as a source of income. For many years, cotton was the leading cash crop in the region. But it was hit hard by the war.

Soldiers of fortune

2011-01-17T11:45:00.001+03:00

Ugandans making it big in South Africa

It’s that warm summer morning, when it seems like Johannesburg is covered by a slow-moving hot air conditioner, in central Hillbrow, the traders go about calling out to buyers. They warm-heartedly refer to each other as doctor, brigadier, colonel, general, mugagga, Shaba wa Shaba, boss, king, depending on what job one is doing and how he is perceived among the growing community of Ugandans searching for riches in South Africa.

A trip to Wanderers Street in Hillbrow, jerks you into the Ugandan community, doing all sorts of jobs. Here, you find professionals, businessmen, quack traditional doctors, vendors and those selling assorted items.

First you notice the language; Luganda, but they quickly switch to Xhosa or Zulu as a customer approaches.

They go about selling clothes, bags, jewellery, foodstuffs and doing porterage. Then there are those frantically distributing leaflets advertising traditional healers from East Africa.

“I call them soldiers of fortune,” said George Awol, who owns a security firm, Awol Security, in Hillbrow.

Thousands of Ugandans travel by road to South Africa every year in search of employment. When they arrive in the country, either they proceed to Pretoria or remain in Johannesburg but most start as quack witchdoctors or pamphlet-distributing “boys” or “girls”.

Most say the entered South Africa through Zimbabwe, Botswana or Mozambique. Their heart-rendering stories of travelling for several days without food, swimming across rivers and jumping over razor wire at border points and riding on the back of trucks into South Africa is one of determination.

George Awol, has been here for 10 years, he says he has seen many come with nothing but now drive expensive cars and own apartments in several areas of Johannesburg.

“When they come, we show them what to do, how to start life, sell assorted items or distribute leaflets for traditional witchdoctors,” he said.

Awol’s office is just above the Park Station Market, in the downtown area of Hillbrow in South Africa. This market is not any different from Owino Market in downtown Kampala.

The market is located just behind Park Station, a stop for buses from other Southern African countries. This is where the majority of Ugandans sneaking into South Africa first land. in this market, they sell foodstuffs, clothes and electronics from China, crafts imported from Kenya or work in electronic workshops as well.

The chairman of the market is Ugandan. He declines to give me his name but says he is from Namugongo. He has been in South Africa for six years and deals in crafts. Chairman earns R1000-2000 (sh300,000 - 600,000) per day. He is building a house back home in Kira Sub-county.

inside the offices of Awol Security, are two Ugandans, Hakim, 23, and Siraji, 22, who have just arrived. They are semi literate but hope to make it big in future. Siraji and Hakim do porterage and distribute pamphlets for quack witchdoctors. They are paid between R30 to R50 (sh9,000 - sh15,000) per day. From George’s office, located on the fourth floor, one gets an aerial view of Park Station and Park Market and several streets of Hillbrow.

Awol’s office acts as a lodge at night for the many Ugandans searching for a better life in South Africa. “You can’t event get space for your legs in the night here,” said Awol. He is renting a whole floor, consisting of several rooms, which he sub-lets to Ugandans or lets them use them for free till they find their footing.

The cab driver, a Ugandan and an a staunch supporter of President Yoweri Museveni, does not go into specifics but tells me an estimated 20,000 semi-literate and literate Ugandans are working so hard that they drive expensive cars.

Bunya Serebe, is a proprietor of two colleges outside Johannesburg. His company, Zeal-Com Capitals Ltd, also deals in stationery, computer hardware and in his office is an advert for Herbal medicine. He does not go into details about his colleges or company profits, only answering my questions in general terms. Bunya’s office is well furnished and located in the upmarket area of Hillbrow.

He is the leader of the non-professional Ugandans living in South Africa and estimates them to be between 300,000 to 350,000.

Ssegawa is one of the many Ugandans who arrived in Park Station, ready to mint gold in Johannesburg, the city that habours 40% of the world’s gold.

The 34-year-old, a quack witchdoctor, has credited his success in this scam to his unrelenting search for success. From this business, Ssegawa has set up a modern, multipurpose internet café in Johannesburg’s central business district. He drives the latest model of BMW 3 series.

He left Uganda for South Africa seven years ago, after the company he was working for, Greenland insurance, folded. “I was going to Dubai for kyeyo but my friend suggested that we go to South Africa, that it is easy to get a job and fellow blacks would treat us well,” he says.

“When I got here, things were different; no one could employ me, even with my degree in accounting,” he remembers. Determined to make ends meet, Ssegawa got involved in the witchdoctor scam, first working for a lady who exploited him. He then moved to another, after which he and three other friends set up their own clinics. After a year, the three had made enough capital to enable each start their own business.

“I now own three ‘clinics’, from which I earn between R1,500 (R450,000)-R3,000 (sh900,000) a day. I employ 40 people, paying each R50 per day,” said Ssegawa.

He, however, says he feels bad for all the people who sit at a filthy table for hours, sometimes a day, feigning an intercession with spirits. Pain in this trade comes in many forms. There is the loss you feel about living off of the dregs of a societal illness. Then there is the moment of clarity when you realise you have become just like the old, sad men that you ridiculed in your younger, luckier days.

Then there is the anxiety explaining to your family what the source of your money is. “There is a sweltering unease that comes from watching loved ones twist uncomfortably when you give then a gift with the spoils from the scam,” he said. But none of the scam’s daily guilt is intrusive enough to force him out of the business. What is more, all of the inner indignity is cleaned by the huge profits.

“But what do I do? I am searching for a solution out of poverty and unemployment.”

Ssegawa does not believe in the herbs he sells. “What I do is to only play with a person’s mind.” When things don’t work and he is threatened by a client, he moves shop to another location. The front desk of Ssegawa’s clinic is neat. On the wall are pictures of backcloth and traditional artefacts. The examination room is dimly lit, and a mat is provided for clients. Unlike in Uganda, here the traditional doctors dress in suits and operate from very neat ‘clinics’. Similarity only comes in when a client has to be cleaned with certain herbs, remove shoes before stepping on the ‘holy’ ground and the dims lights or none at all.

Like him, many Ugandans are involved in this business. Bunya Serebe, a proprietor of several colleges in Johannesburg, defends them, saying it’s the only way out for those who end up conned in South Africa or seeking for a better life. This business has found fertile ground in the highly superstitious South African communities.

They believe that ancestors guide and protect the living through traditional healers. Due to these superstitious beliefs, sangomas (witchdoctors) are considered to be holy men and women who can bring good luck to their communities and chase away evil spirits.

As a result of this respect and the incentives that come with it, foreign traditional healers have flooded the market promising the highly superstitious Southern Africans heaven on earth. Ssegawa tells me they claim to have powers to cure all sorts of illnesses, make the poor rich, bring back lost love, win court cases, win the lotto or predict the future. Due to their aggressive adverts and alleged expertise, traditional witchdoctors from East Africa are now considered the best in the business of sorcery.

They are paid consultation fees ranging from R30 (sh12,000) to R60 (sh24,000) and clients are charged according to the problems they present. The healers demand to be paid in cash and cars. Since it is taboo to question traditional healers, they exploit that.

The Ugandan traditional healers rent rooms in towns for their business and you will always find them in groups. For those who sell the herbal medicine, they get it either from Uganda, Zimbabwe or rural South Africa.

Further shielding Ugandans in this trade is the South African law which recognises traditional medicine and it is common to find certificates hanging on the walls of these clinics, claiming they have attended traditional medicine courses in Uganda and other East African countries.

But this group has considerable wealth, with the majority driving expensive models of BMW cars, living in lavish apartments and putting up huge structures back home. They, however, do not want their identities revealed.

They give themselves titles such as Doctor or Professor Sula, Ndugu, Shaba Shaba. “I change names depending on circumstances,” said Ssegawa. Two hundred metres from Segawa’s ‘clinic’, located on Wanderers Street, is an internet café packed with students and other users, who I later learnt were mostly Ugandans. The students play computer games, chat, email and check on the latest news from home.

I asked them if they are skilled at using computers. “Of course, we are good,” says a student. Michael, 14, is a son to Ugandan parents who have lived here for eight years now. His parents, he says, own a college.

Minting gold
The café assistant, a 27-year-old university graduate, with a degree in social sciences, fills me in on the mentality of Ugandans working in South Africa. “The truth is, everyone here works hard, and they are here to make money, whatever it takes,” said Sherlyn Birungi.

“My boss is rich, his brothers and sisters are rich,” says Birungi. “They don’t worry about anything.” Her boss, she says, doubles as a witchdoctor and his sister owns a beauty salon and a restaurant.

Hillbrow is one of the most dangerous places to live in but a burgeoning business and professional class and the offspring of both groups — is only getting richer, more powerful and less accountable in this neglected part of South Africa.

No Rain in the Rainbow nation as Ugandans end on South Africa streets

2011-01-17T11:43:00.000+03:00

HUNDREDS of Ugandans lured to South Africa with promises of education and job opportunities have ended up on Johannesburg streets empty-handed.

Some abandon their jobs expecting high pay only to discover too late that they are victims of a racket based in South Africa with contacts in Uganda. The conmen also target parents who want to get a good education for their children. The unsuspecting parents bite the attractive baits and pay large sums of money only to discover they have been duped in what is emerging as a big trans-border scam.

According to Sunday Vision investigations, a Ugandan graduate who responded to an advert in a newspaper for a job, paid sh2.4m and travelled to South Africa, ended up distributing hand bills for a traditional healer. He was paid (R30) sh9,000 per day and lived in a dilapidated one-bedroom house with 12 others.

Another Ugandan gave up his job at Roofings Ltd, sold his piece of land and household properties for a better life in South Africa. Upon arrival, the big job he had been promised was not available, but he was taught tricks to pretend as a witchdoctor. But he failed to do the job and now roams the streets of Hillbrow, a suburb of Johannesburg where many stranded Ugandans are languishing.

To survive, the Ugandans take on odd jobs and some do errands for witchdoctors. Witchcraft being lucrative in South Africa some of the Ugandans masquerade as traditional healers to earn a living.

It all started when Richard Musiime read an advert in one of the newspapers promising jobs, work permits or education in South Africa.

Richard (not real name) had just graduated from university and after discussing with the recruitment firm based in Johannesburg and with a branch in Kampala about the opportunities, he was sure of earning gold once in South Africa.

Being from a well-to-do family, his parents paid the R8,000 (sh2.4m) that the firm had made them believe would get him the job.

After paying the money, he was then asked to travel by road to South Africa, given phone contacts and in each country he arrived, he surely found someone waiting at the border point, purportedly to be working for the company and helped him enter through.

Not until he reached Johannesburg was he abandoned. He ended up in the suburb of Mayville.

Stranded, Richard ended up working for a traditional healer, distributing hand bills for traditional doctors from East Africa, for a pay of R30 (sh9,000) per day and later sleeping in a one-bedroom dilapidated house which he shared with 12 others.

Richard is not alone. Isaac Wasike abandoned his job at Roofings Ltd, sold his piece of land in Zana and his household properties for a better life in South Africa.

He was invited by a friend, who told him they could run a lucrative business in Johannesburg. Upon arrival in South Africa, Wasike’s friend confessed to him that he was a quack witchdoctor. With nothing to come back to, Wasike, 32, bought the idea, injected R10,000 (sh3m) into the business and another R5,000 (sh1.5m) allegedly to process his work permit.

on the streets of Hillbrow
Wasike was taken through the tricks of convincing clients into parting with huge sums of money or property. However, upon reporting for work, the landlord informed him that the police had been looking for his friend and he owed rent arrears. He quickly called his friend, who promised to come to his rescue but that was the last time he heard from him.

Wasike now walks and sleeps on the streets of Hillbrow, a suburb of Johannesburg, where many stranded Ugandans are languishing. For a living, he is distributing pamphlets advertising witchdoctors’ services on how to bring back lost love.

Peter Mukasa
He worked for a financial institution, but always looked forward to a better life and when he was told of lucrative jobs in the city of gold; he quickly resigned, packed his bags and left for Johannesburg.

“My intention was to transform my life. My friends had assured me it was better here and we all knew how fast Ugandans living in South Africa moved up the economic ladder. They usually buy land and set up businesses and properties within a short space of time. That’s why I resigned my job,” Mukasa, 27, said.

Mukasa, however, refused to deposit the required sh3m.

“I told them I would give them the money once I arrived. In every country I went through, someone was waiting for me to ensure I was on a bus. They would then give me telephone contacts for a person waiting in the next country,” Mukasa said.

“When I arrived at Park Station, the man I had been in contact with instructed me to deposit the money on a certain bank account before he could fetch me. But when I told him I would only do that after meeting him, he said he was in Swaziland and switched off his phone,” Mukasa said.

He ended up distributing pamphlets adverting penis enlargement before making his way to Pretoria and now stays with “a friend”.

Musiime was lucky that his parents had contacts in South Africa, who tracked him down to Mayville and he is now back home. But many young Ugandans have ended up on the streets of South Africa, after being enticed with promises of high-paying jobs and benefits.

After using up their life savings to secure these jobs, they arrived in South Africa only to be asked to distribute pamphlets advertising quack traditional doctors. Some are kept in bondage with threats that the police will arrest them because they are living in South Africa illegally.

The scheme appears to be operated by those based in downtown area of Hillbrow and a Pretoria-based Ugandan who advertises in Uganda’s newspapers and on radio stations.

This organisation has a branch on Entebbe road. It has posters plastered around Kampala.

When someone responds to the advert, they are told to deposit up to R10,000 (sh3m) in a certain bank account to enable recruiters to sort out paperwork with prospective employers and to secure work permits.

When I sought their help to travel to South Africa and that I was seeking to work in Johannesburg. I was told to take four passport photos, a photocopy of my passport and a registration fee of sh10,000.

I was asked to pay $1,000 in order for them to process my work permit and I was given an assurance that its parent company in South Africa would have my work permit and temporary accommodation ready by the time I arrived there.

The unsuspecting victims are always instructed to travel by road to South Africa. When they arrive in the country, either they discover their recruiters have disappeared or they are turned into pamphlet-distributing “boys” or “girls”.

The victims are told that they don’t need a visa to enter South Africa. Indeed victims like Michael Kagolo got into South Africa without a visa or having his passport stamped at any border point.

The racket seems to involve customs officials at the different border points, who let in the victim without any documentation. It is only at the South African border that the victim’s name is written on an A4-size piece of paper.

Stephen Twinoburyo, who lives in Pretoria narrates that early this year a Ugandan boy, phoned him from the Musina border after entering South Africa and said the person he was going to see had said that Twinoburyo, as the AUPSA (The Association of Ugandan Professionals in South Africa) chairman, would assist transport him to Johannesburg since he was busy at the time and was no longer reachable on phone.

“I told him that I live in Pretoria and that there is no way the ‘host person’ could have expected me to drive to Musina, 400 km away, to fetch him,” he said.

students not spared
What is more shocking is that the young professionals and students are lured to South Africa by Ugandans who are respected and well connected at home.

Those left humiliated and stranded thousands of miles away from home, walk the streets of Johannesburg, Pretoria or at the borders of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

A section of those operating the racket are, however, witchdoctors but masquerade as college principals offering scholarships or placement agencies.

MOLLY AND GRACE
The two students left Uganda with the hope of furthering their education at a college in Pretoria. Their parents were promised scholarships. But the two are now working in a restaurant in order to survive and share a three by four square metre bedroom with seven other girls.

Wilber Onyango Randari, a Ugandan businessman in Pretoria who runs Face of Africa restaurant, employs some of the students who are leaving in dire conditions in South Africa.
“The students approached me one day, they told me they were from Uganda and needed help,” said Onyango.

He narrated that when he visited the place where these students were living, “it was appalling. I found seven of them cramped in one tiny room,” said Onyango.

“I then approached the Brooklyn College principal, who told me that they only offered them school fees and the students have to cater for the rest,” he said.

Onyango said the circular, issued out to the parents of these students indicated that they needed only sh100,000 for accommodation and sh50,000 for feeding. This, Onyango said, is not even half of what the students needed. The cheapest accommodation would go for R800, (sh240,000).

Patrick Kyazze, who owns an internet business in Pretoria, said he is usually approached by Ugandan students who have been promised fully paid bursaries.

“It is really bad. They end up distributing pamphlets, and when they go to the embassy, they are told that hundreds of other people had sought help in a similar way,” he said.

Brooklyn College offers certificate courses and it is run by Ivan Semwanga together with his wife Zarina Zaitun.

Semwanga recently offered 50 scholarships to the Kingdom of Buganda and this offer was specifically for tuition. Scholars are supposed to meet their own travel and accommodation costs.

A copy of a recommendation letter for one of the students, James Yiga, purportedly signed by an official on behalf of the kingdom’s state minister for education, Ahmed Lwasa, states that only tuitions fees would be covered.

“Both the students and the kingdom know that we only offer tution and they are expected to meet upkeep costs,” said Zaitun, CEO Brooklyn College.

She said the stranded students turned up without admissions from her college.

The South African High Commission in Uganda said they heard of the college when the Buganda kingdom approached them for visas but asked for documents, which the education minister is yet to avail them.

The high commission warned those travelling to South Africa not to expect gold once there.

Ugandans living in South Africa describe the racket as composed of semi-literate Ugandans.

“They are the kind of people you would not find in the mainstream Ugandan community because of the nature of their jobs,” said Twinoburyo. “They employ a number of people to run their units — thus going around collecting money.”

The South African police in Pretoria in June arrested and prosecuted four Ugandans, one Nigerian and two South African citizens for running illegal colleges.

“This follows the closing down of more illegal colleges across the country by police. Even more sarcastically, some of these colleges offered training courses in policing, when in fact only government’s the police colleges authentically offer such training,” said South African Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa.

colleges closed
The operation to crack down on illegal colleges, some run by Ugandans, started in May and by last month seven arrests had been made and 14 colleges closed.

“Instead of refraining from their illegal practices, these ‘directors’ ignored our call. Now they are feeling the heat. We will ensure they receive the harshest punishment because their actions clearly amount to criminality,” said Mthethwa.

“Beyond just arresting these scoundrels who rob our children of their future, we are also embarking on a campaign to name and shame them publicly; so that we also warn all potential students not to fall victim of suc rackets,” he added.

During the raids, police confiscated and are in possession of some of the ‘certificates’ which are issued to students upon completion of their studies. Some of these fake certificates even resemble those issued by the South African Qualifications Authority, and other certification bodies.

The South African Consular in Uganda, Johannes Van Niekerk, urged parents and students to verify with the high commission in Uganda before enrolling in any college.

Blame on Uganda high commission
The Ugandan community in South Africa, however, believes the Ugandan High Commission in South Africa is not doing enough to save its citizens who have fallen victim to this crime.

The high commission has not responded to queries sent to it two weeks ago.

“When you approach the embassy, they ask you to fill some forms and tell you to pay $50 for a temporary travel document. Some of these people have gone for days without food, got no where to sleep and the high commission still asks them for money,” noted a Ugandan.

“The embassy is there not only to protect Uganda’s interests here, but also to help Ugandans back home with relevant information that emanates from here. It’s high time the embassy stepped forward and protected Ugandans,” said Twinoburyo.

Ugandan ‘doctors’ top list of crooks
They are commonly known as doctor (or sometimes professor), but they are Uganda‘s biggest unwanted export to South Africa.

The South African communities are highly superstitious and believe that ancestors guide and protect the living through traditional healers. Due to these superstitious beliefs, sangomas are considered to be holy men and women who can bring good luck to their communities and chase away evil spirits.
As a result of this respect and many incentives that go with this worthwhile healing profession, foreign traditional healers have flooded the market promising the highly superstitious Southern Africans heaven on earth.

The majority of these traditional healers are from Nigeria and Uganda. They claim to have powers to cure all sorts of illnesses, make the poor rich, bring back lost love, win court cases, win the lotto and predict the future.

Due to their aggressive adverts and alleged expertise, they are now considered the best in the business of sorcery.

They are paid consultation fees ranging from R40 (sh12,000) to R80 (sh24,000) and clients are charged according to the problems they present.

The healers demand as payment cash, cars and since its taboo to question traditional healers in sections of South African, they exploit that and go to the extent of asking for credit cards with threats that if the clients refuse, they will lose their family members.
“It’s an activity they wouldn’t carry out in Uganda but clearly, it’s one of Uganda’s biggest exports to South Africa,” said Priscilla Namukasa, a Ugandan working for the South African government.
The Ugandan traditional healers rent rooms in towns for their business and you will always find them in groups. For those who sell the herbal medicine, it’s difficult to know the source as they never tell you.

The South African law recognises traditional medicine and it is common to find certificates hanging on the walls of these clinics, claiming they have attended traditional medicine courses in Uganda and other East African countries.

They give themselves titles such as Doctor or Professor Sula, Ndugu, Shaba Shaba etc. They also use phony names, usually Islamic names to advertise their trade.

There are tales of those who have been asked to deposit large sums of money which the sangoma goes on to mutiply, others have been asked to surrender their cars and usually when the victims do these, they close shop and relocate to another town.

South African Police act
In August, a quack Ugandan traditional healer, caught in the get-rich-scam was arraigned in Nelspruit Magistrate’s court.
Police spokesperson Leonard Hlathi said in an interview with Sapa newspaper that the Ugandan traditional healer allegedly demanded R29,000 (sh8.7m) from a man who came to be cleansed, in exchange for a share of R900,000 (sh270m).

The healer claimed he wanted the money to buy 13 cows, which needed to be sacrificed so he could open a metal box containing the sh270m.

When the victim delivered R29,000 (sh8.7m), the healer allegedly demanded R10,000 (sh3m) more, saying he needed more cows. He then approached the police, who arrested the Ugandan.

“He was found to be in possession of a fraudulent Zimbabwean passport and fraudulent asylum permit,” said the police in a statement.

Will independents change political landscape in 2011?

2011-01-17T11:31:00.000+03:00

WITH the parliamentary nominations concluded, the NRM has emerged again as the largest party alongside a sharply increased representation of independent MPs, but what will their impact be come 2011?

The Independents will most likely capture critical new power to redraw constituency maps and influence local elections for five years to come.

Independents are likely to have a bigger influence in the next Parliament than the current ones.

Results from the nominations indicate that 50% of those successfully nominated are playing the independent card. Unlike in 2006, where some ministers were nominated unopposed, this time all 70 ministers have two or more independent candidates standing against them.

While in 2006, 356 were nominated as independent, preliminary results show the is close to 500 candidates this time round.

Makerere University political analysts, however, predict that the increased number of independent candidates will not affect NRM’s dominance in Parliament in the next five years. The Independents, analysts said, are not driven by ideological difference but anger and grudges.

“The Independents are only independent in name, even if they win, they have no ideology to drive them. I don’t think they pause any threat either to the opposition or NRM,” say researcher and history don, Mwambutsya Ndebesa.

Political analyst Golooba Mutebi agrees: “I don’t think that the large number (of Independents) is going to change NRM’s parliamentary dominance that much. Once they get to Parliament, like in 2006, they will side with or sign a memorandum with the NRM.”

The NRM is fielding 364 candidates, having a contender for each constituency and special interest groups. Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) has 288 candidates nominated, Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) has 135 while the Democratic Party (DP) has 120 nominees. Uganda Federal Alliance (UFA) has 66, People’s Development Party (PDP) has 18 and 33 are nominated on the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) ticket.

While the opposition has more candidates nominated than it did in 2006, 660 compared to 355, it is not clear whether they will capture more seats than NRM of the over 333 seats in the August House.

In 2006, the NRM had 277 nominees, UPC 88, FDC 175, DP 72, JEEMA nine, CP five and six smaller parties each fielded one candidate.

In the outgoing parliament, the NRM dominated with 221 seats; FDC held 38 seats, UPC 9, DP 10, JEEMA and CP each held one seat. The Independents are 38; with the majority leaning towards the ruling NRM and UPC.

Electoral Commission data shows that there are 238 directly elected seats, 112 for women representatives and 25 seats available for special interest groups.

Political analysts note that the Independents are the result of weak legislations. They said existing legislations are not sufficient enough to guide the development of democracy under multiparty politics.

“This symbolises a failed democracy. It means political parties are dysfunctional,” said Aaron Mukwaya. “Therefore, we should expect a weak Parliament; that is grudging as those voted will be because they are popular or because people are angry.”

The opposition, analysts predict, will lose more seats in the 2011 general elections as they have failed to reconcile their differences while the NRM dominance in Parliament will not be threatened by the Independents.

Ndebesa said victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections will be determined by two factors: organisational structure and political factors.

“The opposition has the political factor but the NRM has an edge in organisational structure. It has grown a lot in the last five years in terms of projects and money. It also used intimidation in areas where opposition scored highly in 2006,” said Ndebesa.

He said that the opposition has failed to translate their political support based on issues of poverty, poor social services and poor infrastructure into votes.

“It is not enough to have political factors in your favour if you have no capacity to translate them into votes,” says Ndebesa.

Despite the numerous factors playing in its favour, the NRM is faced with the challenge of dealing with Independents in 2011 parliamentary elections.

Party spokesperson Ofwono Opondo, admits that Independents are a threat to the party. “Our own internal processes were flawed, it would be unfair for NRM to employ the hammer on them,” he explains.

The NRM, like the opposition parties — FDC, UPC and DP is, however, confident that the Independents will not beat its flag bearers in the elections.

In fact, FDC and NRM are confident that factors such as the strength of their party and presidential candidates will greatly reduce the chances of independent candidates winning.

“We do not think they are a threat to NRM. We don’t think they will be trouble makers in the House, because they are riding on the popularity of the party presidential candidate and the strength of the party,” says Ofwono.

According to Ofwono, the party is under pressure from those nominated on the party ticket to sort out the question of the Independents. “But we won’t employ the hammer now, but perhaps after the grace period we can decide to go all out in on decampaigning them,” says Ofwono.

A committee headed by party vice chairman Haji Moses Kigongo is arbitrating and hoping to reconcile the Independents and the party before campaigns begin on December 16.

The FDC is, however, taking a step further and wooing the independent candidates to its side. So far, they have succeed in Lango region, where seasonal candidates; Cecelia Ogwal, B’leo Ojok, Ben Wacha and Angiro Gutomoi have agreed to work with them.

NRM says that they will only reach a working agreement with incumbents who have a leaning towards the NRM and those who recently crossed from other parties such as Okwir Rwabwoni, Agnes Akiror and Alex Onzima.

The UPC on the other hand is playing the proverbial ostrich by burying its head in the sand. “We define an independent as one who went through the party primaries but then decides to go as independent. For now, we don’t have any,” says UPC secretary general Joseph Bossa.

As December 16 draws closer, parties have made clear their strongholds and battlegrounds.

While the NRM is confident it will win some opposition-controlled constituencies, analysts predicted opposition parties will succeed in holding onto constituencies it’s already commanding.

They point to parts of Lango, Acholi, Teso, Busoga, Buganda, as regions where the opposition have got political capital and could gain considerably. The areas of Masaka, Kasese and Kampala are predicted to go to the opposition.

According to analysts, the opposition will retain Agago County, where the incumbent is leader of opposition in Parliament, Terego County where opposition chief whip Kassiano Wadri is incumbent. In Budadiri West, the incumbent, Nandala Mafabi, will most likely retain his seat.

Also the seats of Aruu, Aswa, Kasilo, Kumi, Erute North and South, Busongora County, Tororo County, Bukedea, Ngora and Bukoto County are considered safe for the opposition. The seats for Woman MP of Soroti, Dokolo, Kitgum, Arua, Kaberamaido and Kasese are also seen as safe.

Ten of the biggest for the NRM might come from Kampala Central, Makindye East, Soroti Municipality, Alebtong County, Otuke County, Amolatar Woman MP Seat, Kyadondo County East and Rubaga North constituencies.

Political analysts at Makerere University say the places where NRM has an opportunity to make inroads into opposition territory will depend on the individual candidate’s acceptance by the voters.

At present, opposition parties are aiming at breaking the NRM’s stranglehold by securing votes from youth, woman, as well as urban elite in the 238 directly elected constituencies countrywide.

The battle for control of Parliament will focus on a handful of toss-up races; that of Budadiri West between the incumbent Nathan Nandala Mafabi, and minister for presidency Beatrice Wabudea. Also to watch is the contest between incumbent MP for Oyam South Ishaa Otto and Betty Amongi. The Lwemiyaga MP race between incumbent Theodore Ssekikubo and his long time rival Patrick Nkalubo. The battle for West Budama County between incumbent Emmanuel Otaala and his arch-rival Jacob Oboth Oboth.

In Kabale, the fight for Woman MP seat will be on between state minister Hope Mwesigye and Ronah Rita. The Rukiga County seat has always been a battleground and the same players, the incumbent Adison Kakuru and FDC’s Jack Sabiti will tussel it out again.

While UPC points out that it has got high chances of winning 100 seats, the DP points to its strongholds as the constituencies of Kyadondo North and South constituencies, Busiro South, North and East, Masaka Municipality, Kalungu, Bukoto East and South, Nakawa Division, Kawempe North and South, Mukono Municipality, Arua Municipality Mukono South, Buikwe South and Butambala.

The DP sees its battlegrounds as being Mawokota, Kalungu West, Rubaga South and North constituencies and several in Isingiro.

However, the three counties of Buikwe South, North and West will be the battleground for opposition parties as they all claim it as their stronghold. Currently DP candidate Lulume Bayiga is MP Buikwe South. The NRM controls North and an Independent Norman Muwulize is MP Buikwe West.

The NRM hopes to battle in Mbarara Municipality, where FDC John Kazoora is seen as the stronger candidate, Bugabula South, where NRM incumbent Simon Menhya, an Independent with leaning towards the NRM will tussel it out with FDC vice-Chairperson Salaamu Musumba. NRM also see Bugweri County, where FDC candidate Abdu Katuntu is running as a challenge.

In Buganda, Ofwono says the party will retain all its seats except some in Wakiso District. In Kampala, he says, the vulnerable area is Kawempe.

The seats of Bukoto Central, Kalungu East, Bufumbira East, Dokolo, Vurra and Mwenge counties are predicted to go to the opposition.

In Kasese District, a number of seats held by the NRM are vulnerable as the FDC has made inroads in the last five years, taking advantage of the fight for the restoration of the Obusinga bwa Rwenzururu (Rwenzururu Kingdom).

The NRM is claiming that they are currently in the lead as expected but what they did not expect was that they would have a large number of Independents.

With several contentious parliamentary races to decide, NRM is praying for an outright victory rather than a situation where it may have to depend on the Independent support to pass critical legislation in the house.

Does north still love Besigye?

2011-01-17T11:22:00.002+03:00

BEATRICE Alanyo, 31, is a mother of two and a widow. She lost her husband Patrick Olara to a disease she only describes as strange.

Alanyo recently returned to Opit village after spending much of her life in a camp for internally displaced people. She has gardens of food and her children go to Modem Primary School, also in Opit, Gulu District. they are pupils under the Universal Primary Education scheme.

Alango is happy there is peace but dissatisfied with the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts by the Government in the region.

Sunday Vision found her at Kizza Besigye’s rally at Opit trading centre.

“I voted for Besigye in 2006 and will vote for him again,” she says.

“I want change and Besigye will deliver on his promises to us,” Alango said.

Alango was forced out of her home aged only 11 years, as were hundreds of other children in northern Uganda. She grew up in the camps.

Her views on the elections are shared by older residents like Alphonsio Odur, 68, and Constantino Lokung of Palabek, 64.

“Twenty five years is a long time. We want change and want to see what Besigye can do for us,” said Odur.

Lokung points to a more pertinent issue.

“We are resting, just resting, Joseph Kony is still alive and can come back any time,” he says.

the three agree on voting for Besigye but doubt if he will be president when the votes are counted on February 18.

“We don’t know how the rest will vote. Northern Uganda is always votes Beisgye,” says Odur.

Northern Uganda, including Acholi, has always votes against President Museveni — Besigye 2001, 2006 and Paul Ssemogerere in 1996.

Besigye’s campaign message is focusing on the cause of the 20-year war and the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the region. But above all, he laboured to point out that this time round, he will win the presidency.

While Besigye’s supporters assured him of their votes, they kept asking if their vote would not go to waste like in the 2001 and 2006 elections.

He told the people that the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) is now much more organised and has got structures.

Besigye said in 2001, political parties were not allowed to operate and in 2006, when the political parties were allowed to function, FDC was only a year old and in addition, he spent more time in Luzira Prison.

“My answer to the question of whether it is possible to defeat Museveni is a definite yes and he will be defeated,” Besigye said.

“What remains is for us to guard the ballot box. We shall collect our own results and there is nothing in the law that will stop us. the law allows for that,” he said.

He told supporters that because of re-organisation, FDC defeated NRM in Mbale Municipality, Bugweri and Mukono constituencies.

“these are signs that we have gained the capacity to protect our votes, even in areas where the NRM was rigging,” he said.

Besides, holding three main rallies in Acholi sub-region, he changed tactics this time, holding several small rallies in the villages where supporters, tending to their gardens or selling foodstuffs welcomed him. His message to them was of the looming change, assuring his supporters in Luo: “Alokaloka tye kabinu” (change is coming).

“Be confident, be firm, change is coming,” he would assure them.

At the rallies, Besigye said people in northern Uganda were right all along for voting against the NRM as it never kept its promises to Ugandans.

Results of the past three elections, show Museveni’s popularity dropping by 10% in each election and Besigye noted that come February, Museveni will not garner the needed 51% to be declared winner.

Besigye said what used to be favourable areas for Museveni like Buganda, Busoga and Bunyoro were no longer going to vote for him after the many problems the Government inflicted on the people in the past few years.

He said the factors playing in their favour include the current stand-off between the central government and the Kingdom of Buganda, the closure of Bugisu Co-operative Union (BCU), the land wrangles in Bunyoro and the jiggers killing the people of Busoga.

Leaders and MPs from Buganda led by former Katikkiro Joseph Mulwanyamuli Ssemogerere, told the voters that the people of Buganda were united in their support for Besigye and “we are sorry for not having voted for Besigye in the past”.

Nandala Mafabi, who led the group from Bugisu, cited the current developments in the management of BCU as reason enough to vote out Museveni.

Besigye told the people that for 25 years, the people of Busoga supported Museveni and yet there is no much development in the area and the “Basoga are dying of jiggers”.

At each of his rallies, he ran through the pertinent issues that the IPC hope to implement once in power. Top on the list is the reconstruction of northern Uganda and the sectors of education and health where he promises to double teachers’ pay in next year’s budget and make available free healthcare services to all.

He said Museveni and his Government should not claim credit for the prevailing peace in the region, as they opposed the peace talks in Juba.

Besigye said there was need for Museveni to take responsibility and apologise to the people for the atrocities committed against them during the two-decade conflict while he was President.

Besigye described NRM leaders in the north as “brokers”, who knew nothing about the yellow bus they were calling people to. He regretted having worked as Museveni’s doctor during the five-year bush war that brought him to power.

“I have more responsibility than all the other Ugandans because I am responsible for bringing Museveni to power. If I had not treated Museveni during the war, maybe these problems would not have been there,” Besigye said.

Besigye was a personal doctor to President Museveni during the National Resistance Army bush war, from 1980-1985.

Besigye said his government would correct the wrongs the NRM Government had committed against Ugandans.

Gulu's love for Besigye

2011-01-17T11:18:00.000+03:00

FORUM for Democratic Change (FDC) presidential candidate Kizza Besigye’s convoy paralysed Gulu town on Friday as he held his final rally in Acholi sub-region.

Thousands matched the streets of Gulu chanting ‘Besigye, our president’ as women swept the streets and men cleared the way for him.

Repeated recital of his party’s slogan ‘One Uganda, One People’ echoed through the town, forcing those who had chosen to stay in their shops and houses to line the streets as Besigye’s convoy snaked through Gulu’s main street.

Besigye arrived at Boma grounds at about 4:00pm to an exciting welcome and chants from his supporters.

The rally was also punctuated with blessings from Acholi elders, gifts from his supporters and some people crossing from the NRM party and declaring their support for Besigye.

At the rally, Besigye said people in northern Uganda were right all along for voting against the NRM as it had never kept its promises to Ugandans.

Besigye assured the people that this time round the Inter-Party Cooperation would win the elections as it was much more organised and had grassroots structure.

He called on his supporters to guard the votes at their polling stations until the final tally was made.

“What remains is for us to guard the ballot box. We shall collect our own results and there is nothing in the law that will stop us. The law allows that,” Besigye said.

He told supporters that because of re-organisation, FDC defeated NRM in Mbale municipality, Bugweri and Mukono.

“These are signs that we have gained the capacity to protect our votes, even in areas where the NRM was rigging,” Besigye said.

He said Museveni and his Government should not claim credit for the prevailing peace in the region, as they opposed the peace talks in Juba.

Besigye said there was need for Museveni to take responsibility and apologise to the people for the atrocities committed against them during the two decade conflict while he was President.

Freedom of press under attack in Uganda

2010-05-26T14:46:00.002+03:00

A new bill tabled before parliament threatens the freedom of the press in Uganda. The country's journalists need the world to speak out against it.

Adopted from the Guardian.co.uk
Like many soldiers who seized power with the gun, promising clean leadership in post-colonial Africa, the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, has had problems putting earlier patriotic rhetoric into action.

In the early years, after his National Resistance Army captured Kampala in 1986, Museveni sounded too good to be true. He promised a fundamental change to the way the country was governed, not a mere change of guard. He wondered why an African president would fly in a private jet when his people were suffering. He abhorred corruption. He said Africa's problem was leaders who did not want to leave power.

It now seems Museveni was too good to be true. Over the last decade, some of the actions of his government have been compared to those from the days of bare-knuckled dictators, like his predecessor Idi Amin – actions such as open persecution of political opponents, torture by army intelligence and military desecration of the high court. Today Museveni flies in a $50m presidential jet, which last year replaced an older one that was once used to fly his daughter to Germany to have a baby. All this, while a third of his people survive on barely $1 a day. Corruption is now making a strong case to be appended on to the name Uganda. And next year Museveni will seek to extend his reign to 30 years, having erased presidential term-limits from the country's constitution.
Press freedoms

One of the reasons why Museveni was originally labelled one of a new breed of African leaders was because of media freedoms. Magazines and newspapers thrived under the new "visionary" leader and broadcast media were liberalised, leading to the creation, over the years, of more than 150 private radio and television stations.

There have always been cracks in this relationship between state and the fourth estate, but they have become ever more glaring over the last 10 years, characterised by harassment of journalists critical of the government and the closure of media houses. In Uganda today, radio stations, especially those upcountry, in more rural areas where most Ugandans live, are considered very brave to host senior opposition figures, like Kizza Besigye of the Forum for Democratic Change. Some stations have denied him paid-for airtime, citing "orders from above" or for fear of being blacklisted by the Intelligence and the Broadcasting Council.

But the latest assault on the media, which has sent chills down the spines of independent newspaper editors, is the press and journalists (amendment) bill 2010. Reports indicate it has been tabled in Cabinet, although a minister recently said it is yet to be discussed.

One of the provisions in the proposed law requires newspapers to apply for annual licences to operate from the Media Council, whose chairman will be appointed by the minister for information. Until now newspapers only had to register with the General Post Office and pay for a trading licence like any other business. As Dr George Lugalambi, head of the mass communication department at Makerere University and chairman of the media activist group Article 29 Coalition, put it in a recent statement, by bringing this clause, the government is giving itself powers to legally shut down newspapers by simply revoking or refusing to renew its licence.

"Contrary to the provisions of Article 29 of our Constitution, licensing of newspapers will amount to licensing the very fundamental freedom of expression that is guaranteed in the constitution," the statement said. "Licensing of newspapers is an archaic control mechanism which has been used by regimes that do not appreciate the role of the media in enhancing the public good."

A newspaper could also lose its licence if it published material that the Media Council deems to be harmful to national security, stability, unity, the relationship with friendly countries or material that amounts to "economic sabotage". Given the contested nature of what constitutes "national interest" in a country where leaders live in politically financed extravagance while children die of malaria, and where top army ranks appear reserved for those from the president's ethnic group, the criminalisation of critical reporting on such public issues is, clearly, a veiled attack on freedom of expression.

The Article 29 Coalition, which has previously engaged Uganda's information minister, Kabakumba Masiko, over these matters, calls for support of the media's efforts at self-regulation, including the formation of an Independent Media Council. But a close scrutiny of government actions and statements against independent media houses shows ministers are not interested in professionalising the media, rather in controlling it.
Controlling opinion

In a recent interview with the Daily Monitor newspaper, Masiko said the law was needed to enforce responsibility in the media and control media that incite people. Asked who defines national interest, the minister replied "us Ugandans". And how do the media commit the crime of economic sabotage? By reporting about corruption scandals and environmental concerns on a contentious new electricity dam.

But last October, while speaking in the western Ugandan town of Hoima, Masiko inadvertently gave away what she, and the bill, really meant by saying that her government would not tolerate media and clergy that incite people. "All media content falls under my mandate, therefore make sure that your content promotes government programmes," she said at a Catholic church-founded radio station. "Stick to your mission and vision and do not incite the public against their government and leaders. Religious leaders, reserve your political comments and sentiments; if you make a political statement, be prepared for the consequences. Leave politics to politicians, or be ready to bear the consequences."

So there it is. Don't be critical, or expect "consequences" from the government; make sure that religious leaders – more than 90% of Ugandans profess to being practising Christians or Muslims - do not talk politics unless they are praising the government. That way you can rule without any significant interruption. That is how you get a Mugabe-style regime.

The Swedish government and US secretary of state Hilary Clinton are among the latest diplomats to speak out against Museveni's attempts to muzzle the press. Indeed, Clinton's latest report on Uganda was remarkably terse in its language, an indication of the west's changing tone towards Uganda's new breed leader. But how much can the west do to move a man they have so long helped to entrench himself in power? And what stance will the UK's new government take on the issue?

The world's outrage over Uganda's anti-gay bill looks like it has had an impact. It has not been thrown out yet, but could be quietly dropped. Perhaps too, with concerted pressure – especially from the EU countries and US – we can get Museveni to back down on this draconian bill. We have to try.

Should Uganda adopt the Italy-Vatican system to solve its problems?

2010-04-07T10:36:00.000+03:00

Bishop Cyprian Lwanga of Rubaga has suggested that Uganda adopt the Italy- Vatican system of governance as a solution to the current deadlock between the Central Government and Buganda.

The Vatican is an autonomous State, with among others, a formidable security detail/army, its own financial system and a strong football team, which plays in the Italian league, the Pope actually gets tickets for a full season.

Attending the Easter mass celebrations was Vice President Gilbert Bukenya and Buganda prime minister John Baptist Walusiimbe. However, none of the two leaders commented on the suggestion. Bukenya vaguely said government was open to dialogue with Buganda and Walusiimbe thanked all those who contributed to the rebuilding of the Kasubi tombs.

Now, the Vatican wields a lot of power and it is a threat to the existence of any government, especially those whose popularity is hinge on military power.

The Baganda, are the largest tribe in Uganda that lives in the central region. They form one of Uganda’s largest Kingdoms, ruled by a king called the Kabaka. The Kabaka wiled both political and economic power, till 1966, when the government then, led by late ex-President Milton Obote, abolished kingdoms.

President Museveni restored kingdoms in 1993; however, according to the 1995 constitution he is only a cultural head. And time and again, the central government has reminded it of that role. Government pays cultural leaders a monthly upkeep of sh5million, including availing a 4*4 vehicle and a military escort.

The King however, through his loyal subjects has however continued to demand more; they want a federal system of government, a return of its property, including claims on 9000sq miles of land.

So, is this a workable solution to the problem that has existed since Uganda became a State?

I sincerely do not see a straight solution in hand, but to suggest an autonomous Buganda within Uganda is suggesting what all previous and current governments have vehemently rejected.

At the moment, I believe the confrontation between Central government and Mengo establishment will stay or probably get worst as Uganda heads toward the 2011 election. President Yoweri Museveni and team will not take chances with the Kingdom. He would not want a kingdom that can challenge his power, either through its radio, that has been closed since last September or any other power source.
For Buganda to regain its power or get heard, it must adopt a non confrontational approach, for anything that threatens the political hold by the regime will not be listened to or tolerated.

Buganda must also drop the victim mentality and learn to trust and involve other regions in their fight for ‘federo’ an adulterate formed of federal system of governance.
For now, the lone player system won’t take it far and a suggestion of Italy-Vatican system of governance will add more fuel to flame.

Tax row threatens Bujagali power project

2010-02-09T10:30:00.000+03:00

A tax row is threatening to delay the Bujagali hydropower project, seen as crucial in solving the acute power shortage in the country.

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has defied a directive from the finance ministry to halt VAT charges against the project’s supplier and sub-contractors. It also refuses to refund money it took from the supplier’s account over tax defaults.

In February this year, URA froze the accounts of Bavima Enterprises, the project’s main supplier, demanding VAT arrears totalling sh358m. It also forcefully took sh17m from the company’s account in Crane Bank.

In addition, the tax body is demanding sh331m from three sub-contractors, Boschcon, Cilmerics and Pitchbuild.

The suppliers and sub-contractors have cried foul, saying the move had put their companies in great financial hardship.

Boschcon has declared bankruptcy while the management of Cilmerics is on the run from angry workers.

Employees of both companies have complained to the energy minister and the World Bank, the chief financier of the $860m (sh1.9 trillion) project, about non-payment of salaries. They are demanding sh3.2b in salary arrears and have threatened to go on strike over the issue.

When contacted, Boschcon management confirmed that it owed its workers money and blamed the Government for refusal to refund their VAT.

The URA clamp-down has triggered a chain reaction, with the sub-contractors trying to pass the taxes onto Salini Construttori, the main contractor of the 250MW power project. But Salini has soundly rejected the bills and instead has passed them on to Bujagali Energy Limited (BEL), the project developer.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a reputable audit bureau, has warned that the move will not only cause delay but also increase the project cost by $9.6m (sh21b).

The tax squabbles started in May 2007 when the suppliers and sub-contractors invoiced Salini for deliveries and work completed, inclusive of VAT.

But Salini rejected the rates, saying it was VAT exempt. It referred the companies to the finance ministry and URA for a VAT refund.

A series of meetings were held with officials from the ministry, URA and the Bujagali developer but the issue was not sorted out. The dispute, which former finance minister Ezra Suruma left pending, has reached the desk of his successor, Syda Bbumba.

The Solicitor General in a letter of February 11, 2009, advised the permanent secretary of the finance ministry, Chris Kassami, that the sub-contractors were entitled to VAT refund under the VAT (Amendment) Act 2008.

Consequently, Bumba in a letter two weeks later asked URA boss Allen Kagina to halt any enforcement measures against the sub-contractors pending a Cabinet decision.

Last month, Keith Muhakanizi, the deputy secretary to the treasury, also wrote to Kagina requesting that the VAT arrears of the companies in question be re-assessed with a view to keeping the cost of the project low.

“I would be grateful if you verified these claims and provided a way forward on how to resolve them without further impediment to the project implementation,” Muhakanizi said in the April 28 letter.

But Moses Kajubi, the URA commissioner for domestic taxes, said the claims by the four companies were illegal and refunding the money would be against the law.

“According to the VAT (Amendment) Act 2008, the VAT on input goods and services by Bujagali sub-contractors is not refundable,” Kajubi told The New Vision.

“We implement the law as it is. If I withdraw money from the URA coffers to refund the sub-contractors, I would have paid illegally.”

URA spokesperson Sarah Birungi Banage also disclosed that some of the arrears being demanded from the four companies were for supplies made outside the Bujagali project.

“They trade with a cross-section of clients across Uganda and definitely their business transactions, other than those with Bujagali project, are subject to taxation,” Birungi said.

“This explains the tax assessments URA raised on them. When they did not co-operate in paying up, we froze some of their accounts. But they made the necessary arrangements to pay so the accounts were later opened.”

Salini warns that the impact of VAT will increase the sub-contractors’ costs and make it difficult for them to fulfill their contract obligations. “Both Salini and BEL are of the view that if the status quo continues, it will be difficult to complete the project within the set budget,” a Salini official said.

In addition, Salini fears that a number of suppliers and sub-contractors may not be willing to continue dealing with them due to the squabbles with URA. One of the conditions by the project financier was that local companies supply some of the construction materials.

However, Salini said, it is now considering contracting foreign companies to perform these tasks.

Uganda: Kenlloyd-Logistics Loses Fuel Deal

2010-02-09T10:26:00.000+03:00

THE Uganda Procurement Authority has directed the energy ministry to re-tender the procurement of fuel to restock the Government's oil reserves in Jinja.

The Public Procurement (PPDA) and Disposal of Assets Authority and Parliament halted the murky sh45b deal awarded to a local company Kenlloyd-Logistics (U) Ltd early this month, citing several flaws in the procurement process.

Kenlloyd-Logistics was awarded the contract to restock the Government's strategic oil reserves in January. The company, registered in 1997, deals in logistics and commodities and only started dealing in petroleum in 2003, but beat big oil companies to clinch the deal.

The probe report says there was no evidence of the post-qualification to ascertain the capacity of Kenlloyd-Logistics. Which created uncertainty about the implementation of the contract. "The authority recommends that the accounting officer re-tenders the procurement for the fuel for the Government reserves to mitigate risk and ensure sustainability of the supplies," the report read.

The report calls for disciplinary action against the Commissioner Petroleum Supplies Department, Ben Twodo, for flouting the provisions of the PPDA Act and usurping the powers of the accounting officer and the contracts committee.The report also wants the members of the contracts committee cautioned for failure to correct the anomaly caused by the commissioner. The procurement authority has also cancelled the waiver granted to the energy ministry to use the restricted domestic bidding method, saying the ministry abused the waiver.

PPDA said the energy ministry sought for a waiver from the authority to use the domestic restricted bidding method after the procurement process had commenced. "The authority treats this as a fraudulent practice as defined under the PPDA Act, 2003. PPDA therefore revokes the waiver granted to the entity to use the restricted domestic bidding method in this tender since it does not grant retrospective approvals," the report further read.

The report noted that the procurement method used was not approved by the contracts committee contrary to Section 79 (2) of the PPDA Act, which states that the choice of the procurement or disposal method shall first be approved by the contracts committee.

During the investigation, the chairman of the contracts committee, Ernest Rubondo, said his committee had noted the inadequacy of the bidding document which lacked vital information, but had resolved that considering the fuel crisis at hand, the ministry should proceed with the procurement.

The contracts committee and procurement and disposal unit only got involved after invitation of bids. Given that the estimated value of the supplies exceeded about sh50m the open bidding method of procurement should have been used. However, the energy ministry did not apply to the PPDA for a deviation. It also stated that Twodo issued an invitation to bid, on behalf of the Permanent Secretary (PS), without the prior approval of the then acting PS William Luwemba Apuuli, contrary to the PPDA Act.

According to the report, the petroleum supplies department played the role of the accounting officer, contracts committee and procurement and disposal unit and therefore the invitation to bid issued to bidders was irregular in law. The PPDA report said other bidders were treated unfairly when the ministry allowed Kenlloyd-Logistics to have the backing of a third party - Vitol Group.

On January 23, Vitol Group communicated to the Accounting Officer, Ministry of Energy, confirming their intention to supply oil products to Kenlloyd-Logistics for the volumes tendered out by the ministry. "It should be noted that post-qualification in respect of ascertaining capacity of the supplier should go further than sending mails," the report said.

The investigation established that there was no post-qualification conducted to ascertain the capacity of Kenlloyd-Logistic which creates uncertainty about the implementation of the contract. PPDA points out that the ministry also ignored the concerns and directives of the ministerial sub-committee on economy and went ahead, negotiated and awarded the contract to Kenlloyd-Logistics.

In a January 31 memo to the PS, the ministerial sub-committee was disappointed over the award to only one supplier with no demonstrated financial and logistical capacity in the industry for a big supply. According to the report, the procurement should have been handled in lots, given the magnitude of the procurement.

However, the petroleum commissioner ignored the advice from contract committee for a re-tendering of the procurement. The report further points out that the negotiations held with Kenlloyd-Logistics on the fuel price which increased the contract price from $25m to $26.4m were irregular in law. The Procurement Authority said the upward price adjustment would mean that in the event that Rift Valley Railway continued to adjust its prices, the Government may have to bear the increment.

The bidding document lacked preliminary, technical and financial evaluation criteria, a requirement for a bid security. In addition, a waiver from the PPDA to use the different bidding document was not sought as required by the regulations. The report states that the contracts committee did not approve the bidding document and that the procurement and disposal unit did not prepare and issue the bidding document contrary to Section 31 PPDA Act.

The Ministry of Energy has 55 licensed oil companies, but only invited 39 oil firms to bid. The report says it was not clear what criterion was used to invite the companies. Uganda is at a risk of continued fuel shortage if the Government does not find a solution to the depleted oil reserves in Jinja.

Findings, recommendations of the probe report

There was no post-qualification conducted to ascertain the financial and logistical capacity of Kenlloyd-Logistics.

The ministry ignored the concerns and directives of the ministerial sub-committee on economy and negotiated and awarded the contract to Kenlloyd-Logistics

The Ministry of Energy has 55 licensed oil companies but only invited 39 oil firms to bid.
Kenlloyd-Logistics, registered in 1997 deals in logistics and commodities and only started dealing in petroleum in 2003. How then did it beat big oil companies to clinch the deal?

The procurement for the fuel for the Government reserves should be re-tendered to mitigate risk and ensure sustainability of supplies.

Members of the contracts committee should be cautioned.

The waiver granted to the energy ministry to use the restricted domestic bidding method should be cancelled because the ministry abused it.

Sh44b deal to minister' son-in-law halted

2010-02-09T10:23:00.000+03:00

UGANDA'S public procurement authority has halted a contract worth $26m (sh44b) awarded to a local company, Kenlloyd-logistics, to restock the oil reserves in Jinja.

The energy ministry contravened public procurement rules when it used selective tendering instead of open bidding, according to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA).

The authority has suspended the deal as it investigates the procurement process, which it says had other flaws as well.

“The whole process should be stayed,” said Edgar Agaba, the PPDA director.

“We need to investigate Kenlloyd. Though it is a registered company dealing in oil, we need to know more about it and how it got the tender. We need to be careful to ensure that the Government’s interests are safe-guarded.”

The project to restock the Jinja depots with 30 million litres of fuel was meant to help Uganda overcome fuel shortages like the ones experienced in the past few months because of post-election violence in Kenya.

Kenlloyd-logistics was registered in Uganda in 1997. It deals in logistics and commodities and only started dealing in petroleum in 2003.

The company’s executive director and majority shareholder, Albert Muganga, is foreign affairs minister Sam Kutesa’s son-in-law. He owns 65% shares.

Muganga insists that his company won the contract on merit and not because of political influence. “It was an open tendering process which we won,” said Muganga. “My wife, Ishta Kutesa, has no connection with the company.”

But documents obtained by Sunday Vision show that Elizabeth Kutesa, another daughter of the foreign minister, has been guaranteeing loans worth billions of shillings for the company and was at one point a signatory to the company’s dollar account at Stanbic Bank.

“The directors Albert Muganga, John Masanda and Elizabeth Kyomugisha Kutesa be appointed and are hereby appointed signatories of the said account,” reads one document.

Elizabeth Kutesa previously worked for Hunton & Williams, a London law firm which was given a sh1.2b contract in 2005 to improve the Ugandan government’s image in Europe, a deal which drew widespread criticism.

Kenlloyd is a partner of Vitol Group, an international oil company which pleaded guilty in 2007 to larceny in connection with an oil-for-food deal in Iraq.

According to the plea, Vitol paid $13m in kickbacks to Iraqi officials for oil purchases and allowed false representations to be made to the United Nations that no kickbacks were paid.

Muganga confirmed that the company is in partnership with Vitol for its operations in the East African region.

Energy minister Daudi Migereko, however, said Kenlloyd is a subsidiary of Vitol Group.

Kenlloyd-logistics in January this year also entered into a joint venture with Gulf Energy and Libya Oil Kenya for the purpose of incorporating a company in the United Arab Emirates.

In addition, Kenlloyd last year guaranteed a loan of $102,760 for “SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army) beneficiaries”, according to a resolution of the company’s board meeting of March 21. It is not known who the beneficiaries are or what the loan was for. K

enlloyd has a share capital of sh10m. On the URA list of top tax payers in the petroleum sector, it came number 17 last year. It paid sh1.5b in taxes, compared to sh105b paid by Shell, sh47b paid by Caltex and sh46b paid by Total.

Nevertheless, managing director John Masanda insists that his company has the capacity to handle a project of this magnitude given their regional presence. He points out that they have representations at both Mombassa and Dar-es- Salaam ports.

He also explained that the company has been supplying fuel to construction companies and individuals who own fuel stations in Kampala.

Migereko also insists he followed due process. But internal sources said the ministry diverted from the normal procedures because of the biting fuel crisis.

The decision to restock the oil reserves was made at a cabinet meeting on January 10. Subsequently, the ministry sent out letters to several oil companies in Kampala inviting them to tender. The companies were given five days, from January 16 to 22, to prepare and come in person with their bids.

According to the PPDA, this was against government procurement procedures. Legally, the ministry was supposed to advertise publicly, calling for bids within 45 days.

The advert was not placed in the newspaper, as required by law. The ministry also asked the oil companies not to submit their bids in advance, as required by law, but come with them in their hands.

A total of 11 companies applied. The bids were opened on January 22 and forwarded to the contract committee for selections. They were Shell, Caltex, Gapco, Moil, Mogas, Hass Petroleum, Mafuta, Kobil, Kenlloyd-Logistic Ltd, Phoenix and Matan.

Matan was disqualified on grounds of not being registered in Uganda. Total and Petro Oil were eliminated because they brought in their bids too late.

Besides the argument by Migereko that Kenlloyd-logistic quoted the lowest price, it is not known how the contract committee arrived at the winner.

“This has raised questions within the ministry but we were facing a crisis so those opposed gave up,” a source in the ministry said.

According to documents seen by Sunday Vision, the prices quoted ranged from $780 per cubic metre to $1,400 per cubic metre. Prices quoted varied depending on whether delivery would be made by road or rail, and whether it was petrol or diesel.

The ministry signed the contract with Kenlloyd at the end of February and this was approved by the Justice Ministry.
Sections of the Procurement Act allow a government office to flaw the tendering process in case of a crisis. However, the norm is that the ministry informs the procurement office beforehand, which was not done in this case.

The contract document stipulates that payment would be made upon delivery. To effect this agreement, the ministry needed to open a letter of credit to the company, a promise by the bank that the client will pay.

But the energy ministry did not have the money to effect the letter of credit and had to turn to the finance ministry. The finance ministry in turn needed the approval of parliament to release the money.

But after hearing the PPDA last week, Parliament decided to temporarily halt the process until the minister clears the allegations that his ministry flawed the procurement process.

“It is our opinion that this parliament waits to approve the request until we submit our report in two weeks time,” Agaba of PPDA had told the MPs.

The Auditor General, too, has declined to authorise the release of the sh45b, arguing that the expenditure would rise beyond the 3% government's supplementary ceiling.

There is only one operational fuel depot in the country, located in Jinja. The depot was commissioned in 1988 but it is said to be in a sorry state.

Uganda: Kenlloyd-Logistics Loses Fuel Deal

2010-02-09T10:18:00.000+03:00

Libyans take over Jinja oil reserves

2010-02-09T10:10:00.000+03:00

THE Government has given the Jinja national oil reserve to TAMOIL, a Libyan oil company. The Cabinet directed the energy ministry to hand over the country’s only reserves in a letter of January 7, 2009.

The decision comes at a time when the Government has unveiled plans to construct a 150 million-litre capacity fuel depot in Kampala to deal with emergencies.

TAMOIL is constructing the Kampala Oil Products Terminal as well as the $250m (sh425b) Eldoret-Kampala oil pipeline extension project.

According to documents, the 30 million-litre oil facility will be integrated into the pipeline project.
Energy state minister Simon D’Ujanga said the tanks would be part of the pipeline and as such, would automatically be managed by TAMOIL.

“In the past it was a strategic fuel reserve, but we are now turning it into an operational fuel reserve,” D’Ujanga said. “Initially we wanted a pipeline, but later we said it will be better if it has an operational capacity along the way.”

However, the contract was not advertised as required by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) Act and as such it can be challenged.

The Act prohibits sole sourcing of a public asset, service or goods except in an emergency where the waiver is granted by the procurement authority.

Consequently, the energy ministry wrote to the PPDA on January 30, 2009, seeking permission to go ahead with the deal.

Acting permanent secretary Eng. Paul Mubiru said in a letter since the Cabinet had already decided to hand over the tanks to TAMOIL, it had to implement the directive.

He said TAMOIL had the skills and experience in fuel supply and depot operation and had already produced the design for up-grading the facility.

“The cost of repair and restocking will be met by TAMOIL,” he said.

“This will save the Government from having to use its own funds.”
PPDA boss Edgar Agaba declined to comment on the matter.

However, documents show that PPDA wrote back to the ministry last month, saying the issue was outside its mandate. The PPDA said the matter was being handled by a Joint Coordinating Commission (JCC) formed by Kenya and Uganda to manage the pipeline project.

“Any contracting arrangements in respect of the Jinja Storage Tanks and Tamoil are the responsibility of the JCC,” acting PPDA boss Cornelia Sabiiti said in the letter. He instead referred the ministry to the Solicitor General for legal advice.

Earlier, the Solicitor General had said that the JCC was acting on behalf of Kenya and Uganda and so its decisions overrode the PPDA Act.
Under the current arrangement, TAMOIL will build the pipeline, own 51% of it, form a joint venture company with the Ugandan and Kenyan governments to operate it for 20 years before surrendering ownership to them.

Uganda started building the oil reserves in Jinja, Nakasongola, Gulu and Kasese in the 1970s. However, only the Jinja one was built with a capacity of 30 million litres. The facility needed sh31.23b to refurbish and restock. The Government said it did not have the money and so gave the deal to TAMOIL.

The energy ministry has been struggling to raise the sh50b needed to restock the reserves with at least 20 million litres of diesel and 10 million litres of petrol.

At least sh79m was needed to repair the hose pipes, sh74.7m for the depot repair and sh82m to transport three million litres of kerosene from Jinja depot to Kampala.

The Government sold 11.5 million litres in 2002 and realised over $37m (sh64.7b) which it used to buy fire fighting equipment for the reserves.

The first attempt to restock the oil reserves was cancelled by the PPDA because the energy ministry contravened procurement rules in awarding the contract to Kenlyod Logistics.

The project was re-tendered and awarded to GAPCO and MOGAS oil companies. The companies, however, did not sign contracts because the ministry lacked money.

Shortly afterwards, the ministry closed down the empty depot, exposing the country to greater risk of fuel shortage. The Mombasa oil refinery is due to close for renovation in June.

Uganda suffers acute oil shortages whenever there is a disruption in the supply line from Kenya. Over the last five years, the country has suffered shortages in December, January, March, April and in June.

Uganda relies on oil companies whose limited facilities can hardly store fuel to last the country 10 days. Uganda consumes 2.2 million litres daily and demand grows by 7% annually.

The new management is expected to renovate and increase the capacity of the existing oil reserves, buy new equipment, build three new tanks and install a computerised monitoring system.

Tamoil won the right to build a $60m liquid petroleum gas storage facility in Mombasa in 2007 under a deal which caused a public outcry as the Kenya government carried out sole sourcing.

The Libyan firm is also investing $300m in upgrading the Mombasa refinery, which serves the entire East Africa market with refined products.

The relinquishing of the country’s only oil reserves by the Government also follows several failed attempts by energy ministry last year to restock the tanks.

Political interference coupled with the refusal of Parliament to approve the sh45b requested by the energy ministry to restock the reserves bogged down the project.

The Auditor General too declined to issue an Audit Warrant for the sh45b, arguing that the expenditure would have risen beyond the 3% government’s supplementary ceiling.

Microcare in financial crisis

2010-02-09T10:01:00.000+03:00

Microcare, Uganda’s biggest health insurance company, has been struck off the list of licensed insurance companies. The company, that covers 70,000 people in a network of 157 health facilities across the country, is facing a financial crisis, in which over a dozen health service providers are demanding over sh2bn in unpaid bills.

The health providers on Wednesday filed a case in the High Court, seeking to wind up the company.

In a public announcement on February 27, 2009, the Uganda Insurance Commission drew a list of authorised insurance companies and warned the public against dealing with unlicensed insurers, insurance brokers, agents, loss adjusters, assessors and insurance surveyors.

The commission listed five life insurance companies, 18 life insurance brokers as well as 19 non-life insurance companies, non-life insurance brokers. Microcare Insurance Limited never featured on any of the lists.

The Commission’s acting boss, Evelyn Nkalubo-Muwemba, said Microcare, incorporated in Uganda in June 2004, had failed to meet some licensing requirements. “But as soon as the company meets this, we will licence it,” she said.

For a company to be licensed, Nkalubo-Muwemba explained, it should have met criteria such as the sh1b security deposit with Bank of Uganda, sh2.5b in case of reinsurance business, approval by the insurance association, the COMESA yellow card requirement, authorised share capital and paid up share capital.

Microcare however insisted that they have complied with all the Commission’s requirements for the renewal of their license.

“The Uganda Insurance Commission has not revoked or stopped Microcare from transacting insurance business,” said the marketing manager, Clare Tumwesigye.

“It should be noted that it is normal for a company not to be advertised if the regulatory body is still pursing some administrative processes. We are in touch with the commission regarding our license of 2009 and would not like to divulge the details of our discussions but you are free to inquire from it (the commission) if we have been stopped from transacting insurance business,” she added.

Tumwesigye dismissed allegations that they owe health service providers billions of shillings.

She said: “Microcare handles volumes of data processed every day and this is bound to cause friction some times, which leads to reconciliation meetings of accounts, which is what we are doing with some clinics. We do not want to discuss our service providers’ business in the press.

Investigations by Saturday Vision however revealed that some of the health service providers have suspended their services to patients under the Microcare health insurance scheme. Some of the clinics have also either taken legal action or are planning to do so to recover the money the health insurance owes them.

The first client to drag Microcare to court was Kadic Hospital in Bukoto, for non payment of up to sh150m, allegedly accumulated over three years. Microcare has since paid sh60m, leaving a balance of sh90m. The company also owes Case Clinic, sh700m, Paragon Hospital, sh770m, Mulago Hospital private wing, sh180m and Kampala Family clinic sh60m.

Others are Gulu Independent Hospital, sh150m, Mbarara Community Hospital, sh67m, St. Catherine Clinic, sh108m, Byansi Clinic, Masaka, sh8m and Rubaga Hospital, sh30m. Gulu Independent Hospital is the latest on the list to serve the company with a notice to sue.

Also owed unspecified amounts are Nsambya hospital, Bugolobi nursing home, SAS clinic, Mayanja Memorial Hospital, Pan Dental Surgery, Victoria Medical Centre and Nakasero Hospital among others. The other service providers that have suspended their services with the company over unpaid bills include Abii Clinic and Laboratory Services, Victoria Medical Centre and Friecca Pharmacy in Wandegeya.

The Microcare financial crisis comes at a time when the Government is planning to introduce a Social Health Insurance Scheme.

Ten of the affected health service providers have engaged Kizito, Lumu and Company advocates of Kampala seeking protection from the Uganda Insurance Commission. The health service providers have also filed a case at the High Court seeking to wind up Microcare.

Five companies acting as one
Health service providers are complaining that there are five companies using the name Microcare and acting as one entity. A look through the letters sent or agreement signed between several companies and Microcare, spells different names. There is Microcare, Microcare Health, Microcare Health Ltd, Microcare Insurance and Microcare Insurance Ltd.

The health service providers now fear that the company could easily close shop without paying what is due to them. “The Uganda Insurance Commission should inform us and the general public which company is registered under the laws of this country with the Insurance Commission to offer insurance cover to the public so that the public and other companies are protected from becoming victims as our clients are, currently,” the lawyers demanded.

To compound their worry further, the service providers said they do not know whether it is a registered insurance company since its files went missing from the registrar of companies. Further complicating matters are clauses in the agreement signed between health service providers with Microcare, which prevents them from directly reaching to Microcare clients. It also stipulates that Microcare has the right to reject a bill if the drug provided for is not agreeable to them, if doctor exaggerates a bill and when a hospital treats congenital illness.

“In accordance with the agreements, our clients have fulfilled their part and to their dismay, the insurance company has consistently failed to honour their part,” the lawyers complained to the Commission.

They claimed that Microcare has placed the bills under quarantine, instead of paying them. This, they said, was a breach of contract.

However, Microcare blames the delay in settling bills on incorrect or exaggerated bills. The hospitals dismissed this accusation. They said the Microcare desk at hospitals and clinics verifies the bills before any treatment is provided.

Affecting Operations
Saturday Vision has learnt that a number of private health centres wallow in debt, some of them resulting from heavy borrowing forced on them after insurance firms delayed to settle medical bills. Some facilities have either scaled-down their operations, are contemplating shutting down, or are shopping for investors to re-capitalise and resuscitate the businesses.

The Microcare mess is just one of the troubles facing health service providers. Several botched medical insurance schemes and expensive bank loans have pushed a number of up market private hospitals into financial difficulties.

For instance, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) recently almost closed down Kadic Hospital in Bukoto. The URA also raided the accounts of Paragon Hospital due to non-remittance of PAYE, exceeding sh79m.

“You send a bill of sh15m, they give you only sh8m. Each time you send them a bill, they retain a certain fee and eventually you find the bill accumulating,” said an executive director of a hospital.

Hospitals and clinics complained that these companies take several months, at times years, before settling their bills. The general contract with insurance companies is that they pay within 30 days of submitting an invoice, but many insurance companies take as long as 4-6 months before paying.

In turn, the hospitals borrow from banks at high interest rates to meet operational costs.

Weak health insurance sector
The scrapping of Microcare leaves only two companies, Medicare (under East African Underwriters) and Liberty (under Standard Bank Group of South Africa that trades here as Stanbic) licensed to provide medical insurance.

There are also Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) that operate in a way similar to health insurance companies – taking funds from individuals and companies to provide medical services in the long-term. Currently there are five HMOs in Uganda: Africa Air Rescue (AAR), International Health Network (IHN), International Air Ambulance (IAA), Kadic Health Foundation (KHF) and Case Medicare. However, their services are not regulated by any law.

IGG clears controversial internet project

2010-02-09T09:45:00.002+03:00

THE Inspectorate of Government has cleared the controversial sh200b Government internet project. The project, which consists of three phases, involves building a 2,100km fibre optic cable network.

Ultimately, it is meant to link Uganda to the submarine cable on the East African coast and provide faster and cheaper internet access.

The Inspector General of Government (IGG), Raphael Baku, gave the go-ahead in a letter to ethics minister Nsaba Buturo earlier this month.

Last August, President Yoweri Museveni had tasked Buturo to oversee the investigations into complaints raised about the project.

Baku explained that the project was being implemented by the time the complaint was registered with his office. “The complaint which was raised was whether the second phase should go on,” said Baku.

“We saw no problem with it if the damages (on the first phase) could be repaired concurrently.”

The IGG argued that the Government would incur more costs if it cancelled the project.

Baku also said the ICT minister did not have the capacity to monitor the implementation of the project, which led to the shoddy work.

The IGG clearance comes after the parliamentary committee on ICT issued a directive to suspend the second phase of the rpoject.

The committee vice-chairperson, Paula Turyahikayo, said they had not seen the IGG report but would hold a joint meeting with the ICT ministry and the Auditor General on the way forward.
The Auditor General in a December report found several anomalies in the implementation of the project and questioned if there was value for money.

The national transmission backbone infrastructure and E-Government infrastructure is a $106m (sh201b) project, funded by a concessional loan from the export/import bank of China.
The first phase was meant to provide connectivity to Government ministries and departments at a total cost of $30m (sh57b).

The second and third phases were meant to connect all major towns, covering 1,900 kms at a cost of $61 million and $15 million respectively.
However, investigations found that the selection of the contractor, Huwaei Technologies, was done without competitive bidding and no price comparisons were done to ensure value for money.

“By not subjecting the proposal to proper evaluation, the ministry exposed itself to the risk of high pricing and unfavourable contract terms,” read the Auditor General’s report.

The audit found that the cost of the project was inflated. The 24 core optic cable was quoted by the contractor at $3,200 (sh6m) per kilometer.

However, in a technology brief to the board of the National Information Technology Authority of Uganda, the price of the cable was quoted as $1,400 (sh2.6m) per kilometer.

In addition, the audit found that the 24 core cable is of lower capacity than what private companies such as MTN and the Government of Rwanda laid at a much cheaper rate. It also questioned the capacity of 24 core cables to meet the under-water bury standards.
The audit further found that there was poor supervision of the project and that key implementation guidelines were not adhered to.

According to the report, the cables were placed too close to the road. Also, the depth was less that the recommended 1.5 metre and the distance from the middle of the road was found to be less than the 15 metres recommended.

There were also serious delays in the project, the Auditor General noted. Implementation of the three phases was supposed to be completed in 27 months, or by January 2009.

“However, 38 months later, the first phase, originally to be implemented in six months, has not been fully completed.” The delay is expected to lead to further administrative costs.

Already, the company has claimed $2.2m in additional costs for repairs on the first phase. The permanent secretary of the ICT ministry argued that the damages occurred after the hand-over of the network and could therefore not be covered by the insurance.

But the Auditor General observed that there was no independent assessment of the extent of the repairs, and there was no evidence that the contractor had actually obtained an insurance cover.

Former ICT minister Ham Mulira, under whose tenure the deal was sealed, has defended the huge cost of the project.

He said factors must be considered such as terrain, geographical coverage, fibre capacity to meet the potential demand based on the size of the population, and the cost of civil works.

On the size and capacity of the 24 core cable, as compared to that of MTN of 48 core and Rwanda of 90 core, Mulira argued that once the fibre is laid, the traffic capacity can be increased by changing the devices that send the traffic.

Major Gen Mugisha Muntu

2010-02-09T09:44:00.002+03:00

MAJOR Gen Mugisha Muntu yesterday launched his presidential bid for the 2011 election as his supporters danced.

The crowd was mainly composed of the youth, who described Muntu as “energetic, young and an honest leader for Uganda”.

Muntu is contesting against Col. Kizza Besigye, the head of the Forum for Democratic Change, for the chance to stand for president next year.

Muntu delivered his speech in his characteristic soft but tough tone.

The candidates have three months to woo delegates to their side. In 2008, he unsuccessfully contested for the party’s presidency against Besigye who is expected to launch his campaign today.

Present at Muntu’s rally was former East African Community secretary general and FDC vice-chairman Amanya Mushega, Maj. John Kazoora, opposition chief whip Kassiano Wadri and many MPs. Also present were youth leaders from the Democratic Party and the Uganda Peoples Congress.

The 300-capacity main hall of Pope Paul Memorial Hotel, where the meeting took place, was full.

Introducing Muntu, the master of ceremonies described Muntu as a selfless leader.

In his speech, Muntu portrayed himself as the fresh face of the political campaign and a candidate who would unite Ugandans.

If elected, Muntu promised “an honest and responsible leadership that reflects the aspiration of the people of Uganda”.

He decried what he called a dying health system, the poor standard of education and high level of poverty.

He also condemned corruption, saying it “has eaten to the core of our politics”.

“Enough is enough, nabikoowa (I am fed up); let all rise up and fight for our country,” he said, drawing applause.

He challenged Ugandans to come out and vote for a leader who would end the biting poverty, boost agriculture and fix the economy.

“This campaign is not about us, it is about our children, about their future, about the future of this country,” he said.

The retired army general promised to rid the country of military influence and to build public institutions.

Muntu avoided direct attack on Besigye. Saying that “Besigye has tremendously sacrificed for this country and we appreciate that,” Muntu added though that “we should not fear change and change is inevitable.”

Who is Muntu?
Muntu was born in October 1958 at Kitunga village, Ntungamo district, to the late Enock Ruzima Muntuyera and Aida Matama Muntuyera. He had an affluent childhood as his father was a strong UPC government functionary and close friend of former president Apollo Milton Obote.

He attended Mbarara Junior School, Kitunga Primary and Kitunga High School, later renamed Muntuyera High School. Muntu went on to graduate in political science from Makerere University.

The price of Journalism

2009-09-26T12:04:00.001+03:00

This is one of the holes from one of the bullets that killed Nigerian journalist Bayo Ohu at his Lagos resident in Lagos on Sunday. This 45 year was gunned down in a hail of bullets in the presence of his children.

"Mengo elements got foreign funds to further their aim-Museveni

2009-09-22T13:26:00.000+03:00

Transcript of M7's speech to Buganda MPs on Kayunga visit
A Statement By

H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

President of the Republic of Uganda

During the Meeting with the Buganda Parliamentary Caucus

Entebbe State House

10th September 2009

Buganda Parliamentary Caucus

I greet you all.

I have come to address you about the sustained unconstitutional behaviour of His Highness Kabaka Mutebi, the Mengo Kingdom officials and the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS.

As you know, the kingdoms were abolished in 1966 by the UPC government. Even when Uganda got independence in 1962, I was old enough to follow the events. I was 18 years old and in senior two at Ntare. I was also a youth-winger of the Democratic Party (DP) although I did not vote in 1962 because the voting age was 21 years at that time. Therefore, the youths who say the NRM does not care about them should, first, remember that it was the NRM who lowered the voting age to 18 years to include the youths early enough. In the period preceding independence, there was debate and maneuvers among the players. The Mengo establishment formed a political party called Kabaka Yekka (KY), which used intimidation, especially against DP supporters in Buganda, to win all the seats in the Lukiiko except 3. DP took a principled stand and pointed out that it was dangerous to mix politics with traditional leadership. The Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), on the other hand, deceived Mengo that they would do whatever the Kabaka wanted even if it was not compatible with the principles of democracy. The consequence of all this was, for instance, the denial of Baganda from voting directly for their 21 Members of Parliament (MPs). While the rest of the country voted for the MPs directly, Buganda had to use the Electoral College system – the Lukiiko, which itself had been elected through disgusting intimidation, being the Electoral College. The intimidation included boycotts of businesses, cutting people’s crops, etc. It is amazing that CBS, working with the Nambozes, has revived this. It will not be allowed to continue, you can be sure of this.

Then, KY formed an alliance with UPC (omukago), this was ‘a marriage-of-convenience’, based on that dishonest formula where UPC believed they were using KY and vice-versa. The Federal and semi-federal (federo) arrangements they constructed amounted to having states within states in such a small country like Uganda. Uganda is only the size of the US state of Oregon. Moreover, the concept of a modern government was new. How could you have such a paralyzed system of government with numerous power centres manned by people that were only beginning to hear of an accountable government? You can see the problems we are having with the decentralization process we put in place. On account of the incredible corruption that had crept into the systems of Local Governments, we had to re-centralize the CAOs. You have been hearing that powers of taxation have been abused by town-clerks, Gombolola-chiefs, etc. They have been, for instance, overtaxing banana-sellers, muchomo-sellers, gonja-sellers, etc. What would happen if we had been constitutionally enfettered in such a way that we could not correct these anti-people mistakes? You remember the problems of Nigeria with their Federal Regions that caused the 1965 crisis in Nigeria.

It was the paralysis in the constitutional arrangements of the 1962 Ugandan Constitution plus UPC’s lack of straight forwardness and their double standards that, eventually, caused the 1966 crisis and all the subsequent tragic events. By 1986, about 800,000 Ugandans had died through the extra-judicial violence that followed those mistakes.

In 1966, I was a very active DP youth-winger, this time in senior six. Our group vigorously opposed Obote’s actions although we were aware of the flaws in the 1962 Constitution. The situation kept deteriorating until we took up arms against the dictatorship in 1971. When we triumphed in 1986, the subject of restoring the traditional leaders started coming up. Even in the bush, opportunists like the late Kayiira started bringing it up. In the bush, however, especially during the Kikunyu conference of 1982, the NRM openly rejected Kayiira’s position of talking about monarchies. We said that we were fighting for the freedom of Ugandans; once the Ugandans had got their freedom they would decide on what to do. That was our position. Our major points were captured in the 10-Points Programme. Therefore, those liars who say that we committed ourselves to monarchism in the bush should be disregarded. Many senior Baganda leaders, etc. – came to see me about this issue. I sought guarantees from them that the monarchies, when restored, will never meddle in politics again, as happened in the 1960s and before.

They all agreed and swore that they would never allow their monarchy to meddle in politics. That is how that principle was captured in article 246 (3 e). The same article (3 f) provides that cultural leaders will not ‘wield Legislative, Executive or Administrative powers’. Article 178 reiterates the same principles and goes into details.

While those discussions were going on and decisions were being taken, other old issues re-emerged. The Banyoro MPs, especially Hon. Kabakumba and even Muruli Mukasa, raised the issue of the Bunyoro lost counties: Buwekula (Mubende), Ssingo (Kiboga), Buruuli (Nakasongola) and even parts of Bulemezi (Ngoma, etc.). They wanted them to be returned to Bunyoro. I told them that ideologically, as a nationalist and Pan-Africanist, I did not believe in the concept of “lost counties” within Uganda. I gave the example of my family. Suppose, I said, for some reasons, one of my children grew up at Saleh’s place. It could be because I was sick or away. Are you going to say that he is “lost”? I did not think so, I told them. However, there was one proviso: he must be well treated; he must be treated like Saleh’s own children. If he is discriminated against, then the question of his real parentage comes up. We, therefore, constitutionally provided that all these areas should remain in Buganda as provided for under Article 5 of the 1995 Constitution. However, also, under 37, it is stipulated that:

“Every person has a right as applicable to belong to, enjoy, practice, profess, maintain and promote any culture, cultural institution, language, tradition, creed or religion in community with others.”

In this way we persuaded all the Banyoro MPs, including Muruli Mukasa, to vote for the whole package. It was a carefully arranged package, ensuring that everybody was a winner; a win-win formula with no losers.

Unfortunately, however, no sooner had we promulgated the Constitution of 1995, than I started hearing that Mengo was undermining the NRM. I could not believe this. Whenever I would hear such stories, I would ring His Highness Kabaka Mutebi and invite him for meetings. The trend, however, continued and it grew worse in the elections of 2001 and 2006. The Buganda Kingdom Radio spends most of their time demonizing NRM and Museveni, I hear. I never listen to such Radios. However, the wanainchi listen to them. I ignored all this.

As you all know, the NRM repaired the economy of Uganda. As the economy boomed, the price of land went up. The old colonial arrangement of mailo-land now came under strain. The old mailo-land system provided for a paralyzed system of land-holding. Since the 1928 busuulu and nvujo law, the bibanja-owners could not be evicted without the authority of the Governor and there was a ceiling on the busuulu to be paid. Apart from the Idi Amin land decree of 1975, these two have remained the main principles of the land law in Buganda. Our land Act of 1997 recaptured the same principles after the 1995 Constitution had repealed the Amin decree of 1975. On account of the rampant evictions, caused by the high demand for land, which, itself, is caused by the fast growing economy, there was outcry in the public, among the peasants. Even some of you MPs, like Hon. Sekikubo, complained about these evictions. As a consequence of this, I proposed an amendment to stop the evictions. The unprincipled, opportunistic opposition opposed that proposed amendment. On account of reasons I did not initially understand, His Highness Kabaka Mutebi also came out to publicly oppose the proposed Amendment. I think this was a violation of the Constitution.

Additionally, the Kabaka’s Radio, CBS, launched a campaign against the amendment. His Highness the Kabaka commissioned a group of people led by Nambooze to travel around Buganda and incite people, with all sorts of incredible lies, against the proposed land bill amendment and the Government. Museveni ayagala kubba ettaka lyamwe – Museveni wants to steal your land, etc. CBS promoted sectarianism, at one time talking of people with long noses (ab’enyindo mpanvu). It is not our duty to measure people’s noses – long or short. My reaction was to ring His Highness the Kabaka to invite him for a meeting to sort out all this amicably as mature people. His Highness, however, could not pick my telephones or have the courtesy of returning my calls. I told my Principal Private Secretary, Amelia Kyambadde, to keep calling him to no avail. His Highness the Kabaka could not take the calls of the President of Uganda; moreover, the President that led the struggle for democracy and the monarchies. I hear that the Baganda have two proverbs: ‘gwowonya eggere yalikusambya’ (if you help a person to treat a wound on his leg, he will use that particular leg you treated to kick you). Another one says: ‘oguggwa tegubamuka (a forgetful person will not recall that the old beer he drunk, is sweeter than the new beer he is currently drinking).’ Anyway, given my work methods, I did not give up. Whenever any controversy came up involving Mengo, I would telephone His Highness the Kabaka; he would, however, not answer my telephones as usual. When the controversy over Buruuli came up, I telephoned him; but he refused to answer my telephone. I referred the matter to the National Security Council which contacted the Katikkiro and advised him to have a dialogue with the Baruuli cultural leaders or postpone the visit. They treated our advice with contempt. The National Security Council, with my full support, this time, said enough is enough; they stopped the Kabaka from visiting certain parts of Buruuli although he was allowed to visit Migyera where there were some CBS activities.

When the issue of Bugerere came up, I have been trying to talk to His Highness the Kabaka, since May 2009. Again, he persistently refused to answer my calls; I kept trying. At one time I was told that he was abroad. That should not be a problem. There are telephones abroad. My Principal Private Secretary and I failed totally to access him. When the Bugerere issues were building up, after failing to get the Kabaka, I referred the matter to the National Security Council who wrote to the Katikkiro. Rt. Hon. Kivejinja even met the Katikkiro and advised him to talk to the Banyala cultural leaders as well as the Local Government elected leaders and Administrators. Mengo made it clear that they treat all those with contempt. Given that unacceptable arrogance, the National Security Council, with my full support, through informal channels, told Mengo, most firmly, that the function will not take place. That was the position by yesterday evening.

Meanwhile, I have been consulting some of the influential Baganda about this. I told them that we can no longer tolerate this unconstitutional behaviour of Mengo with the apparent connivance of the Kabaka. The progressive forces will definitely take decisive actions soon. During those consultations it transpired that the Lukiiko is now dominated by opposition political activists especially the ones that lost elections. Most of the balanced voices have been removed from the Lukiiko.

Anyway, last evening, about 8.00 p.m., I, again, asked Amelia to try and ring the Kabaka one more time. This time the Kabaka responded; he rung Amelia who also rung me in our gazebo where I was having dinner with some friends. She rung me at 9.15 p.m. but I told her that I was having dinner and I could not have the privacy to talk. We arranged to talk at 10.30 p.m. Indeed, we talked at 10.30 p.m. I asked him: “Your Highness, why have you been refusing to answer my telephone calls for the last 2 years?” He answered that he was not “aware” that I had been ringing. I asked him: Why does your CBS abuse and demonize us?” He answered: “I do not believe that is true.” Anyway, we went into the immediate matter of Kayunga’s function. I told him that because of the sustained unconstitutional behaviours by your Kingdom, that meeting will only be permitted to take place only under certain conditions which Hon. Kivejinja will communicate to the Katikkiro today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009). I had actually wanted to meet the Kabaka himself today (Thursday, 10th of September 2009) but he suggested a later date. I have no problem with that.

On the issue of the Land bill we had to launch our own counter-campaign of sensitization and forming the bibanja associations. These associations have empowered and emboldened the bibanja-owners. Now that the bibanja members are empowered, some of them have started taking the law into their own hands, if we take the recent examples of lynching landlords in some areas of Kayunga. I blame Mengo and also the opportunists among us who delayed the land bill and created this vacuum.

I also got information that Mengo elements got foreign funds to further their aims of fighting the NRM and undermining the Constitution. We are following these reports very closely and we shall defeat all those elements involved. I encourage my friend His Highness Kabaka Mutebi to distance himself from the Judases. The NRM fought many battles; we shall win this one also.

The conditions for the Kayunga meetings are that:

Rt. Hon. Kevejinja and Mengo’s representatives together with their Katikkiro should meet with the representatives of the Banyala cultural groups as well as the Kayunga political and administrative leaders to agree on the way forward.

CBS stops forthwith their campaign against NRM, including what they have been doing recently, inciting the public to storm the Police who are peacefully carrying out their duties.

If the above conditions are fulfilled, the meeting will take place; if they are not, it will not. Besides I am looking forward to meeting His Highness the Kabaka soon to resolve all the outstanding issues. In my talk with the Kabaka last night, he referred to the difference between political and cultural matters. That is a good point. That is what we have been telling Mengo all along. Then, in that case we should not discuss with the Katikkiro because he is not political; instead we should discuss with the hundreds of the elected leaders in Buganda: MPs, LCV-Chairmen, LCIII-Chairmen, etc. Anyway, I will discuss all this with His Highness the Kabaka, when we meet soon, now that he has answered my telephones after two years.

There is more I would like to say about this. However, let me reserve it for another time. There are a number of issues on which we had agreed with Mengo on which they made about-turn and start misinforming the public. These include the Regional tier, the status of Kampala, etc. Mengo’s Radio CBS also coordinated a boycott campaign recently. This is bad politics and practices and should stop henceforth. I rarely speak publicly about such issues. My method of work is to work confidentially with the Kings or other stakeholders. However, in the case of Buganda, Kabaka Mutebi has denied me this quiet method; hence, the escalation of essentially simple issues.

On the specific issues of Buruuli and the Banyala (Kayunga), the applicable Constitutional provisions are articles 37 and Article 246 already quoted above.

In terms of implementation, we normally insist on District Council Resolutions to find out if the community wishes to have a cultural leader; this is in conformity with Article 246. Both Nakasongola and Kayunga passed the respective Resolutions to that effect. This is the method we used every where, including Buganda. In Ankole, where District Councils did not pass the requisite Resolutions, we did not allow the cultural leaders to be installed. Can more than one cultural leader exist in one kingdom? Yes, because that is what the Constitution says. They need to work out their relationship. This is what we have been telling Mengo to do in respect of Buruuli and Kayunga. In any case, this is not new. The Kamuswaga of Kooki, even under the British, co-existed with the Kabaka. In Busoga there are 11 hereditary chiefs in addition to the Kyabazinga. The bad behaviour of Mengo is being copied by other Kingdoms. Recently, in Bunyoro, there were elements calling for terrorism against Bafuruki, etc. We had to act against them. Therefore, Mengo’s impunity must stop.

I appeal to His Highness the Kabaka to prevail on his groups and stop keeping Uganda permanently on tenterhooks (kubunkeke). We need total calmness to consolidate the gains of the people. If there is anything unresolved it should be discussed quietly, not on the Radios. Decisive action will be taken on any media house that continues the practice of incitement.

I would like to conclude by condemning the criminals, hired by Mengo, that caused damage in Kampala and the suburbs. Initially, the Police acted slowly. Now, however, the Police has been re-enforced by elements of the UPDF. All areas where the hooligans are will be covered and, stern action will be taken against them according to the Police procedures. Looters will be shot on sight as will those who attack other civilians. Those who threaten the lives of security personnel will be dealt with according to the standing procedure of the Police. Shop-owners and everybody should continue with their daily activities. The security forces will protect them. The ring leaders are being hunted for (rounded off) and some have been arrested.

I extend my condolences to the families who lost their loved ones.

I thank all of you for listening to me.

Don’t like the reflection- Smash the mirror: Part II

2009-09-15T17:56:00.001+03:00

The riot is over, a bigger section of Kampala is back to work and its business as usual. The epicenter of the violence however remains quiet but tense.

However, to the media, the war continues. As usual the guns have turned on them and those who don’t like their reflection in the mirror have decided to smash it.

A number of journalist were beaten and harassed during the two days of riot, four radio stations (can’t vouch my defence for CBS) were switched off, three journalist suspended and one arrested.

In Part I, (May, 2008) I posted on the decision by the government to amend the existing media laws and introduce new ones, It is disheartening to say the least, but should not be unexpected.

And as I had said before, in the modern world, you have freedom of expression but after expression, you are striped off that freedom.

The media fraternity in Uganda is young but like an orphan child, the have been forced to become adults at a tender age, hence the gamble and mistakes through life, especially the FM radio stations.

In the last one year, the government has come down hard on the media, at least a dozen journalists in the country are facing prosecution over stories that the State deems either seditious or defamatory.

Besides, the formation of a Cabinet sub-committee to propose a way of reining-in the media and the proposed Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Bill, 2008, commonly known as phone tapping bill, which is before Parliament for consideration are some of the plans the government is seeking to use to clamp down on independent media.

While President Yoweri Museveni always emphasises the importance of free speech, he has at the same time consistently attacked the media for allegedly “misleading and misinforming” the public.

Museveni has repeatedly promised to tame the media, accusing the media of bias and sabotaging national development.

However what makes me post today is not to decry the kind of treatment we have received from government. I don’t expect it to improve any time soon but to worsen as we head towards election.

Robert Kalundi Serumaga, the Radio One journalist was arrested on Friday night. According to panelist Bernard Tabaire and Peter Kibazo, Serumaga was arrested as soon as he stepped out of the studios of WBS TV station where they had conducted a live telecast debate on unrest in Central Uganda.

I watched the WBS program and was impressed by Serumaga's courage but scared for him. As a journalist, who has come under attack and tested the dose of both government and Buganda harassment, I could not help but worry for him.

Robert was arrested by security operatives and bundle into the boot of a Toyota car and taken to an unknown destination. He was then transferred to Central Police Station on Sunday and Today (two days) later charged with six counts sedition.

According to the Lango Association of UK, who transcribed the program, this could be the reason why he was arrested:

-he gave a genesis of the NRMO, and said the first rebel core committee was composed of about 8 members: 4 Baganda and 4 westerners, but by the time of coming out of the bush, all Baganda, apart from Lule were six feet under, giving example of one Seguya who was alledgedly poisoned! He posed the question why is it that one side came out alive and the other side were all finished? he argued that instead of Museveni saying he assisted Baganda, it was instead Buganda that assisted NRA war-effort, so the proverb of removing thorns from one's leg could only mean sense if Buganda removed thorns from Museveni's NRA feet, not the other way round.

-then he said the fracas seen on the streets was a reflection of the leadership style, remarking that he could only explain it as Museveni was a badly-brought up person, for even the ordinary Mukopi were of two types: one who was polished in mannerisms and could be accepted in community of well-behaved, and the other of a badly behaved person who will be around to spoil things for people, which he thought Museveni belongs to.

-Kalungi dropped the bombshell saying he saw it like Uganda was under colonial occupation, and UPDF and army of occupation, asking why the Bunyoro oil fields were guarded by Presidential Guard soldiers and Saracen security Guards of Salim Saleh? He allerted Banyoro that while they were venting their anger over Bafuruki, the oil-sale agreement was being concluded with British firms with total disregard of the Banyoro who have not asked what would belong to them when mining proper begins.

-He went full blast and listed occasions when the Uganda constitution was intentionally violated by the NRMo Government, and this one of preventing Kabaka to go wherever he deemed necessary was one such occasion of NRM violating the constitution.

When asked to summarise the good things of the week according to him, Serumaga said he was amused by the involvement of Kabakumba Matsiko (information), Matia Kasaija (Internal Affair), Kale Kaihura (Police Chief), sarcastically portraying that it was leaders from Western Uganda tormenting Kabaka and Buganda...

Could it be some of these....that has caused him some trouble. In present day world, Freedom of speech/press exists before you express it but ends when you express it.

... and Serumaga is experiencing this.

Hard Target:The hunt for Africa's last warlord

2009-05-21T12:09:00.001+03:00

Shortly after dawn last Dec. 14, four Ugandan Mi-24 helicopters banked low over the thick forest canopy of Congo's Garamba National Park. A dense fog had rolled in overnight, and the weather had turned nasty. Earlier that morning at a forward staging area in Uganda, a team of American military advisers equipped with large-scale U.S. government maps and Google Earth technology had shown the helicopter pilots what to look for—four distinct "fishhook shape" camps spread out in cleared areas of the park. In one of these camps, they believed, was Joseph Kony, the professed mystic who leads Africa's longest-lived insurgent group, the Lord's Resistance Army. Find Kony, the pilots' commander had said, and kill him.

Descending through the fog bank and hovering just above the tree line, the pilots spotted what looked like a rebel council meeting in the largest cluster of shelters, code-named Camp K. The gunships immediately unleashed a barrage of rockets and chain-gun fire. Reports from the helicopter crews later stated that several dozen people, including women and children, had been caught in the open. "I saw the helicopters come—they were black, and they were bombing us," recalls George Komagun, 16, one of the hundreds of child soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army. "I ran. We tried to fight the helicopters, but could not."

Two days after Operation Lightning Thunder began, Ugandan commandos finally reached Camp K. They found bloody trails heading into the jungle in all directions. Hastily dug graves dotted the site's periphery. Kony had been on the run for more than two decades, but this place had the look of a settled homestead. Acres had been cultivated with sorghum, cassava and maize. Stashes of sugar, rice and water in large plastic containers were buried all around.

Washington would love to get a look at the trove of evidence, which Ugandan investigators are still studying, including Thuraya satellite and cell phones, walkie-talkies and three Acer laptops. Soldiers even found a printer, a CD-ROM drive and an English-language dictionary. What they didn't find was Joseph Kony. "We have some hints where he might be now, but nothing like we had before the strike," says a senior U.S. military-intelligence official who was intimately involved with the operation's planning and execution, but is not authorized to speak on the record about it. "Kony has virtually disappeared from the face of the earth."

Kony is arguably the most-wanted man in Africa. Uganda's government has been chasing him for 23 years, ever since he donned a woman's dress, claimed to be channeling the spirit world and vowed to topple the country's president, Yoweri Museveni. Kony is a law unto himself. He claims to run the LRA according to the Ten Commandments, but he and the hundreds of forcibly conscripted children who serve as his killing squads are feared throughout the region for their horrific levels of brutality and the butchery of tens of thousands of defenseless civilians. Their swath of destruction has displaced well over 2 million people. Kony has forced new male recruits to rape their mothers and kill their parents. Former LRA members say the rebels sometimes cook and eat their victims.

Years of peace talks have consistently failed to deliver Kony. Dictators have fallen in many countries, and war criminals in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast have been brought to justice. Even Kony's longtime patron, Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir, has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court for his policy of ethnic cleansing in Darfur. But Kony remains free to raid, plunder and kidnap.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Kony and three of his top commanders in 2005, but the papers sit untouched in a dusty office in Kampala, useless until Kony is captured. "Normally these kinds of conflicts in Africa are various shades of gray," says Julia Spiegel, a California native who documents the LRA's atrocities for the Enough Project, an independent group formed to stop crimes against humanity in Africa. "But this is very clear-cut. Going after Kony is just not disputable."

George w. bush set his sights on Kony almost as soon as he was sworn in as president. Early on in his first term, Bush told his new assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, that he wanted to "do something" about southern Sudan, a breakaway Christian and animist region of the Muslim-dominated country. Bush's interest gave Ugandan President Museveni the opening he craved. Museveni had transformed his country into a relatively peaceful and prosperous place since fighting his way to power 15 years earlier, and he believed it would be a model nation if not for Kony, whose murderous raids extended into southern Sudan. In a 2001 meeting with Bush, Museveni appealed for help. "Can you give us some helicopters?" Frazer recalls the Ugandan leader asking. "We've got this terrorist." Bush lobbied hard for the military aid and got Kony placed on a "terror exclusion list" that gave the United States much broader powers to intervene. "Museveni was happy," says Frazer. "We did it partly because we felt it was appropriate, but also to give ourselves some leverage on how to deal with [Kony]."

Two new helicopters were delivered to Museveni, and within 18 months the United States had deployed a three-man intelligence cell to the jungles of northern Uganda specifically to monitor the situation. Their reports were sent up the chain of command in Washington, where they landed on the desk of Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national-security adviser. Bush was watching closely, too. "He'd go off very passionately about the LRA," says Frazer. "How can this guy call himself a soldier of the Lord?" Bush would rage. "He's just a murderer."

Kony was certainly no ordinary rebel. Born in 1962 in a small village called Odek, he was by all accounts a quiet boy, more partial to dancing than sports. His deepset eyes earned him the nickname "Black Monkey." According to a recent biography, Matthew Green's The Wizard of the Nile, Kony didn't enjoy boxing like other kids his age. "I just don't see the point of fighting," he told a friend. His father was a catechist in the Roman Catholic Church.

But the quiet young man came of age in tumultuous times. The end of Idi Amin's notorious dictatorship in 1979 quickly gave way to more years of chaos and violence under the equally ruthless, but less colorful, leader Milton Obote. Deep in the countryside, Museveni gathered a band of guerrillas—many of them children. Uganda was swarming with orphans by then, and every militia filled its armed ranks with kids. Unlike other underage combatants, Museveni's forces at least had a reputation for discipline; looting, rape and other abuses against civilians were forbidden. Many people cheered Museveni's child soldiers as liberators when they fought their way to Kampala in late 1985. But Museveni was a southerner, and after taking power he set about systematically weeding out enemies who hailed from the northern Acholi tribe. Some fled the country, while others, like Kony, took to the bush.

Kony wasn't the only member of the tribe to mount an uprising against Museveni. Several other self-proclaimed spiritual healers and mystics had vowed to oust the new president. The most famous was Alice Lakwena, a wildly popular healer who established the Holy Spirit Movement and rallied thousands of Acholis against Museveni. Lakwena told her followers that enemy bullets would turn to water. Museveni eventually crushed Lakwena's movement and sent her into exile in Kenya. But Kony took on her mantle. In April 1987, after three days of nonstop praying on a grassy spot called Awere Hill, he advised his followers to bring him a dove, some white plates and a Muslim robe. From there, he led his people into the hills. The Lord's Resistance Army was born.

Like Lakwena, Kony claimed a personal connection to the spirit world, using water as a medium. He declared himself a prophet and a seer. But he also got considerable worldly (but covert) assistance from men who bore grudges against Museveni. The Acholi tribe was once the core of Uganda's military, and Acholi generals who had been sacked by Museveni gladly helped Kony with technical advice and military strategy. Sudan's Muslim leaders also wanted to punish Museveni for supporting Christian-led rebels in southern Sudan, and in 1994 they began helping Kony build a full-blown insurgency.

Over drinks in Gulu, a town in northern Uganda that has endured some of the LRA's worst depredations, Patrick Makassa recalled his years as Kony's director of operations. A short, weathered man who finally quit the LRA in 2007, Makassa has a long, quiet stare born of years in the bush. "Between '94 and '98 Khartoum gave us a lot of ammunition and we buried it all around," he told me. "Even now, they're using it." In later years, Makassa said, Khartoum also provided "intelligence training," and injured

LRA fighters were flown to Khartoum for treatment "in big Russian planes."
Some people say Sudan's support for Kony dried up around 2003, when the Bush administration focused on his atrocities, but the leaders of Uganda and southern Sudan insist the covert support has continued. Either way, Bashir's recent indictment at the ICC places him in the same legal predicament as his former proxy warrior. As a result, says Steven Browning, the American ambassador in Kampala, "this whole region is going to get a lot more unstable."

The hunt for joseph kony has been marked by one spectacular failure after another. In 2006, in an unprecedented move, the United Nations mounted a covert operation to capture or kill him. A squad of U.S.-trained Guatemalan Special Ops soldiers set out into Congo's Garamba National Park, a longtime LRA refuge and the scene of last year's Operation Lightning Thunder. Trained in jungle warfare and accustomed to surviving in the bush for long stretches, the Guatemalans were equipped with M-16s and the latest special-operations technology. But they were no match for Kony and his child warriors. Makassa recalls the day the Guatemalans appeared. He had left Garamba park briefly to pick up food and supplies in southern Sudan, just across the border. On his way back he got a call: "The situation is bad. Unknown soldiers came to fight us. Hurry up and help us." The caller described the unknown soldiers as muzungu—a Swahili word meaning "white man."

By the time Makassa reached the scene, the battle was over. Five LRA soldiers had been killed. But not one of the Guatemalans had survived. The LRA fighters slaughtered them all and, according to one account, beheaded the commander. Some reports put the U.N. dead at eight; others say as many as 40 counterinsurgency troops may have died that morning. The LRA left the corpses in the jungle but took the weapons—including heavy machine guns and grenade launchers.

Kony was in southern Sudan at the time, far from the battle. Makassa called him with the news. "Kony was very happy," Makassa recalls. "Kony likes fighting, he likes war." The episode is remembered in Kampala as "the Guatemalan disaster." "They got their asses whipped," says a senior U.S. official who declined to go on the record discussing the event. "It was a huge shock," remembers U.S. Ambassador Browning. "It was demoralizing to the United Nations, and it was a tremendous boost to the aura of Joseph Kony."

Kony is an enigma even to the throngs of children and young adults who grew up at his side, butchering, kidnapping and plundering together. Former soldiers say they're not sure whether he's a psychopath or a true seer. Kony keeps everyone guessing, taking a decision and completely reversing it minutes later. Among his followers he often holds a drinking gourd up against the sun, so the light filters through the water inside. "Look," he once whispered to David Opige, a 35-year-old former soldier who spent six years in the bush with the LRA before escaping, "Look inside and I'll tell you what is happening in Uganda right now." Makassa says Kony often disappeared into the jungle for long stretches, accompanied only by his 10-man security detail. Upon his return, Kony would make a prediction—and as often as not, Makassa recalls, it would come true. "I don't know what he is or who he is, but he has something special about him, that's for sure."

Just three months after the massacre of the Guatemalans, Kony agreed to join international peace talks. It wasn't the first time. Previous negotiations—in 1994, and again in 2002—ended in failure, and the LRA resumed its campaign of wanton violence in the heart of Africa. Over the years the group is estimated to have killed upward of 65,000 civilians; abducted as many as 40,000 children; and destroyed hundreds of villages in Uganda and southern Sudan and, most recently, across a swath of eastern Congo.

The 2006 talks opened in a climate of abject terror. Years of relentless LRA raids led by Kony against his own tribes people had turned northern Uganda into a vast area of fetid camps where hundreds of thousands of refugees had sought safety. Rampant HIV, malaria, hunger and violence were worsened by occasional night visits from LRA marauders out to kill or abduct new victims. At one point, thousands of children began making nightly trips to nearby towns to seek shelter; relief workers called them "the night commuters." By 2004 nearly every aid organization in the world had set up an office in the downtrodden northern refugee town of Gulu. "It was just an absolute hell here," Spiegel told me as we toured the site of a former camp that once held nearly a quarter of a million Ugandans, all driven from their homes by the LRA's war against the government.

The talks were beset with problems from the start. Kony's chief negotiator was a man named David Matsanga, a Ugandan exile who had also done public-relations work for Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. According to several people who worked with him, Matsanga was more "conflict entrepreneur" than credible negotiator. Insiders say he was paranoid and unstable, too. They say he tested his food with a "poison detector" before meals, and if he happened to look away while eating he would demand a fresh plate of food, which also had to be tested before he resumed his meal.

But Kony seemed eager for the talks. He and his fighters showed up for repeated meetings in the southern Sudanese capital of Juba and on the border between Congo and Sudan. Kony's interest rose visibly when the Bush administration sent a young American, Tim Shortley, to push for a comprehensive agreement. Frazer—who says she never thought Kony was serious about peace, especially not after the ICC issued its arrest warrant for him in 2005—nevertheless urged Shortley to "go out there and do more, do everything you can to get this guy to sign." The United States contributed more than $10 million to underwrite the process. The United Nations had passed a resolution conveying "deep concern" about the LRA, and was pushing hard for an end to the conflict.

Museveni even sent Kony's own mother to meet with her son in the bush and beg him to surrender. But behind the scenes, Frazer was getting frustrated. At one point she quietly asked Museveni, "Why don't you just ambush Kony when he's in one of these meetings?" "We don't ambush people," Museveni told her. "If we're in the bush and somebody's back is turned, before we strike, we'll cough."

Still, it became clear that Kony had no intention of signing any agreement that didn't guarantee his immunity from prosecution. (The international community now faces similar difficulties with Sudan's Bashir.) Before every meeting, Kony would insist on receiving a shipment of food for his "5,000 fighters"—although he's believed to have no more than 800 at any given time. Makassa says the LRA stashed the provisions for future operations.

Meanwhile, Kony's chief negotiator was going to pieces. Unable to convince the Americans that he had any real sway, Matsanga often drank himself into a stupor or burst into tears on the shoulders of other negotiators. "Going through a process like that is very emotional," says Matsanga. "The thousands of people who have died in these 23 years, it is something that gives you grief, it doesn't give you joy, but we have to push forward to find a settlement … It was very, very frightening to go meet him. [But] we had to." A Western official who was deeply involved in the talks takes a skeptical view. "When you met with him secretly, he was always interested in letting you understand that he was in contact with Kony," says the official, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations. "In the end, none of that seemed to be true. Kony played everyone, and everyone played everyone else."

From 2006 through late 2008, the LRA continued its raids unabated while the talks went nowhere. "Kony just kept putting it off," recalls Ambassador Browning. "There was one excuse after another, a new translator, a new lawyer, more food—it was clearly a delaying tactic." Kony would often agree to a time and place for a meeting, and then not show up. Matsanga still insists that Kony genuinely wants peace. But while the negotiators tried to keep the talks alive, the militaries of Uganda, southern Sudan and Congo began planning another military operation to stop him once and for all.

By July 2008 Congolese troops had begun forming an L-shaped perimeter south of Kony's largest camps in Garamba National Park. Late that year a delegation of religious and Acholi leaders made an arduous two-day journey into Garamba in a final effort to persuade Kony to surrender. Archbishop John Odama, the ranking Anglican cleric in Gulu, had spent most of his professional life struggling to lure Kony out of the bush, meeting with the rebel leader seven times over the years. Entering Garamba on Nov. 28, he realized this might be his last chance. The next morning, in a small jungle clearing, Kony emerged from behind a throng of bodyguards and faced the archbishop. Kony was tall and slender, fit from his years in the jungle. He wore a crisp uniform adorned with red epaulets, and he was cleanshaven.

Kony said he was angry. "You see," he told the archbishop, "I have a spear in my hand and I'm chasing an animal called peace. I want to spear peace so people can eat it. But as I chase peace, there is a lion called the ICC chasing me. So I'm caught between these two. Should I fight the lion, or go on chasing the peace animal?" Then Kony walked away. Later that evening the archbishop was about to give up and leave when several LRA fighters rushed up and grabbed his arm. "Please continue this peace process," they whispered. "Don't give up! Don't give up!"

Even as the rebels begged Odama to keep trying, Ugandan military officers and U.S. military-intelligence advisers were finalizing plans for Operation Lightning Thunder, just two weeks away. The details had been kept secret even from the No. 2 officer in the Ugandan Army. Museveni, a military man and former bush leader himself, occasionally went to great lengths to showcase his martial prowess. (He once convened Parliament and dressed everyone in fatigues for a 4 a.m. calisthenics class.) He was going to direct the operation personally from his office at the presidential State House, and his son-in-law would lead the team of Ugandan commandos who were to find and kill Kony.

It was the first military operation on the continent for AfriCom, the fledgling U.S. military command for Africa. The Americans—16 men and one woman, all specialists in intelligence and logistical support—did their best to make Lightning Thunder a success, even bringing in Makassa, the former LRA operations director, to advise them on where Kony might be hiding and how he might react.

But like the peace talks, the operation went badly from the start. The plan had called for helicopters and MiG fighters to attack Kony's camp simultaneously, followed immediately by a commando assault. But the Ugandans, worried by the rapidly worsening weather, jumped the gun. "They struck early and they didn't get their troops on the ground fast enough," says a senior U.S. official who followed the operation closely.

"By the time [the commandos] got there, the LRA had already disappeared." The Americans still aren't sure how Kony escaped. One of his concubines later told investigators that he took off just minutes before the attack, saying he was going hunting. U.S. and Ugandan military officials believe he had a shortwave radio and had picked up pilot chatter from the incoming Mi-24 helicopters. "I just know he was there," says the senior U.S. official. "That's probably the closest anyone has ever gotten to killing him."

Eight days later Kony retaliated, as usual by attacking helpless civilians. Within a few days, LRA fighters had slaughtered more than 1,000 Congolese villagers, beating them to death with clubs, rifle butts and machetes, and burning entire villages to the ground.

Hundreds of children were kidnapped, and roughly a quarter of a million people fled their homes in Congo and south Sudan. Somehow Kony managed to maintain at least some operational control over a now atomized force, scattered into small groups and largely on the run. "They whacked the hornets' nest, and now they were angry," says Spiegel of Project Enough. Acholi opposition politician chairman Norbert Mao, a tough critic of Museveni's handling of Kony, put it more harshly: "We had the intel, and if the U.S. had been better involved, it would have been a pinpoint operation. I suspect that sometimes the incompetent management of the military may be deliberate."

Kony has been lying low since then, but U.S. officials believe he's preparing his next move. Ugandan forces have mostly pulled back from their forward operating bases in Congo, leaving their pathetically underequipped, ill-trained Congolese colleagues to continue the hunt. "I'm sure Kony is seeing an opportunity to pull his operation back together," says one AfriCom official who can't speak on the record about the ongoing military situation.

Sometimes a conscript manages to escape Kony's clutches. George Komagun, the 16-year-old who witnessed Operation Lightning Thunder, fled to freedom a few weeks ago. He cried for two days, says the social worker who is treating him for malaria, diarrhea and posttraumatic stress. The boy was 11 when the LRA swarmed into his village, killed his parents and hauled him away. At a run-down shelter for war refugees in downtown Juba, he told me of some of his life in the bush with Kony. "If you kill someone, Kony would say, 'Now you killed them, you must drink their blood and eat their liver.' I ate the livers. Maybe 20 times."

Komagun has trouble sleeping, despite heavy doses of medication. At night he dreams of the people he has killed: "They come to me crying, saying, 'Don't kill me, don't kill me'." He slurped a bowl of pea soup as he spoke. "People should eat Kony," he said tiredly. "He killed so many people."

NEWSWEEK: From the magazine issue, May 25, 2009
One of the best pieces have ever read about the Garamba Operation Lightening Thunder.

Do we need a new anti-graft body?

2009-04-28T17:02:00.001+03:00

The Government has formed another body to fight graft. Interesting eh!
The Body aims to encourage the public to demand accountability from leaders and government institutions.

The Accountability Sector Secretariat is supposed to co-ordinate with other government institutions which receive and monitor the use of public funds.

The secretariat will be under the directorate of ethics and integrity in the Office of the President, and one of its duties will be to equip the public with skills to monitor government programmes in their communities.

The people to do the monitoring will be selected from the local community and will work with the resident district commissioners.

Any difference?
Personally, I don’t think so.

Uganda already has over six anti-corruption institutions and a number of legal frameworks specifically aimed at combating graft. Actually, the country has been credited by several international anti-graft bodies as having one of the best legal frameworks to fight corruption in Africa.

In spite of its administrative woes, the IGG continues to be the flagship in the battle against corruption, followed by the Auditor General, Directorate of Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets and Procurement (PPDA), the Police fraud squad department, Directorate of Public Prosecutions, Criminal Investigation Department and the anti-corruption division of the High Court.

Leadership code
There are regulations such as the Whistleblower Act, Witness Protection Act, Anti-money laundering law and the Leadership Code Act. All these institutions and legal frameworks are tasked to fight corruption, abuse of and office and to promote good governance in public office.

However, in spite of all these measures, corruption continues to gobble up the country’s resources, especially in the public sector.

Many anti-corruption campaigners feel there is need to harmonise all laws, policies and institutions established to fight the vice, to avoid duplication of work. They propose that the institution of the IGG and other anti-corruption institutions need to be better facilitated, so that they can execute their duties more effectively.

There is also need to enforce compliance with the Leadership Code. They further call for a speedy launch of the anti-corruption court and the Leadership Code Tribunal.

Anti-corruption campaigners propose the improvement of accountability systems, by punishing the culprits and their collaborators, and strengthening the system of sanctions and rewards for fighting corruption.

How bad is it?
Buturo blames Ugandans for failing to hold their leaders accountable: “We have a population that is largely submissive because of the traditional fear of people in authority. This provides fertile ground for thieves.”

Documentary evidence indicates that corruption is most rife in procurement, privatisation, administration of public expenditure and revenue, and the delivery of public services.

The PPDA report (2009) estimates that over sh330b is lost every year to corruption in procurement, much more than the country receives annually in aid. While the World Bank report (2005), estimates that Uganda loses about $300m (sh600b) per year through corruption and procurement malpractices.

The Uganda Self-Assessment Report and Programme of Action report by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) of 2008, reckons that the Government would save sh30b annually by eliminating losses from corruption in public procurement alone.

Several studies and investigations still show that corruption is on the rise and, coupled with ineffective public institutions, is still undermining good governance in the country.

The 2005 Auditor General’s report estimates that 20% of the value of public procurement was lost through graft, through weak public procurement laws, adding that procurement accounts for 70% of public expenditure.

Reports point out that corruption in procurement has adversely impacted on the quality of services meant to improve the quality of life, especially health and education. It has also influenced death and poverty levels in Uganda. For private firms, the costs of production have been continually high and unpredictable.

Two-thirds of Ugandans believe graft has increased, a 2007 survey by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics shows. In another survey cited in the report, almost half of the respondents said that bribes were more frequently demanded today than five years ago.

The APRM report says that to win a tender in Uganda, most companies expend a lot of resources, including bribes to the district contracts committees.

“This leads to shoddy work, classroom blocks which develop cracks within months and roads which become impassable soon after construction, since any bribes and kickbacks offered to influence the award of the tender have to be recovered by the contractor.”

Anti-corruption bodies point out that the vice is caused by weak controls, bureaucracy and greed. The root causes of graft are the breakdown of the rule of law, especially in the insurgency-affected north, poor procurement systems and inadequate legal machinery, leading to many cases being lost on technicalities like lack of evidence. Other reasons cited are lack of linkages between the Police, the Judiciary and the IGG, lack of technical capacity in public offices, job insecurity and poor pay.

The report also points at greed “driven by the insatiable desire for personal gain” and social pressure “where the wealthy are respected, regardless of the method of acquisition of their wealth”.

Over 350 people are facing corruption charges countrywide, with only two cases having reached the High Court, records from the Judiciary indicate.

The newly established Anti-Corruption Court has already convicted two suspects who were implicated in the embezzlement of the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The two are Teddy Seezi Cheeye, the Director of Economic Monitoring in the Internal Security Organisation, who was jailed for 28 years but will serve only 10 years. The other is Fred Kavuma, a former programme producer with the defunct Uganda Television.

What commentators say about the new law
Supreme Court judge George Kanyeihamba points out that actions like retaining ministers who have been implicated in corruption encourages the vice.

He says the laws on corruption are strong, but their implementation is weak. “Why do you (MPs) approve every candidate he (the President) throws at you?” he asked MPs on Wednesday.

Kanyeihamba said the highest prevalence of corruption was in the Government.

Ethics and integrity shadow minister Christopher Kibazanga asserts that creating more anti-corruption bodies would not eliminate the vice which has eaten into every government department.

“The Government definitely seems to be gambling. The existing laws are enough to fight corruption," he said, adding: “The problem is; we only fight where donors have interest. Whatever is being done is just a semblance of a fight.”

He points out that there is lack of political will to fight the vice, adding that the Government had on a number of occasions failed to act on IGG reports and those of several commissions of inquires, into alleged corruption.

Kibazanga says that the problem is with the Government applying the law selectively, where politicians are spared and lower government officials are prosecuted. “Until we stop pleasing donors and set clear guidelines to fight graft, we shall get nowhere with the several laws being created.”

Anti-corruption Coalition co-ordinator Jasper Tumuhimbise says the secretariat could provide a good platform for the grassroot population to raise their issues and demand accountability. He was, however, quick to express doubt that it would fight corruption at national level, especially within government departments.

“It’s a welcome move, but as to whether it will curtail corruption at national level, I doubt. The existing laws are enough; what needs to be done is applying them equally, irrespective of who is being accused.”

Uganda; killing the future

2009-02-02T10:54:00.002+03:00

Yesterday, I expressed my pain on facebook. I indicated that I was bored by the attention and glossing accorded to the senior four (S.4) exam results that were going on in the newsroom.

The attention accorded to the exams result is enormous and I appreciate it, but much of this energy was, as usual directed to what I think were trivial issues.

I must say a few of the stories are quiet interesting, stories in which, the students narrate the secret to their success. But this however leaves no space for real issues and has replaced critical and analytical writing.

A colleague commented, ‘Four more days to go… you will collapse of boredom.

The education system in Uganda is weak and to tell the truth, I worry for my Son. A troubling tendency of preferring a firefighting approach to deep problems is getting entrenched in the Ministry of Education.

Last week we saw the relaxing of cut-off points for entry into secondary school so as to absorb the fall-out from the high failure rate witnessed in the 2008 Primary Leaving Examinations.

This is worsening matters. It is an ill-disguised attempt to hide the real problem. Under the UPE scheme, government directed primary schools that pupil who fail examinations should not be asked to repeat classes.

The reasons, I must say are mainly political because the ministry has to provide the evidence that UPE, a pet project of the President, is a success–even if only in quantitative terms.

Statistics from the Education ministry indicate that currently, we have more than seven million children in primary school, which would have been a good thing. Unfortunately, most of these children have benefited from a programme whose dubious implementation has been clouded by politics.

The general education system is fluctuating. Makerere University has never recovered from the 2001 camping promise that saw the number of student increased over night from 2,000 to 4,000, this minus additional resource.

And every new project, such as the latest, political pet project-Universal Secondary Education is no different.

The decision by the government to close down a number of church-aided primary teacher training colleges almost a decade ago, unwittingly impacted the ability of the country to produce adequate numbers of manpower to educate young Ugandans.

In the intervening period, the few remaining teacher colleges have been under-facilitated and yet they are expected to deliver manpower for UPE. Quality has been sacrificed over the years to the extent that in large part the type of primary teachers made available through the system today is ill-prepared for the task.

And the ‘rationalisation’ policy has seen national teacher colleges that used to churn out diploma holders also take a beating on the grounds. The policy is to have secondary education carried out by graduate teachers.

Not a bad point if the ministry was hiring graduate teachers in numbers sufficient to handle the explosion occurring under the embryonic USE scheme.

The Ministry of Education has to return to the basics. It receives the highest budgetary allocation and 60% of this, goes to funding primary education. Money must be pumped into training of teaching staff while at the same allowing the professionals to inform education policy ahead of the politicians.

It would be calamitous if the government thought that relaxing of entry points is the solution. If that became the guiding principle, this country runs the risk of ending up with a midi Yorker labour force.

Old revolutionary sends MPs to sleep.

2008-06-11T18:07:00.002+03:00

The reactions to President Yoweri Museveni state of the nation address ably captured the mood of the nation.

An MP told me he slept throughout the two and half hour state of the nation address and could not remember a single word from it. His colleague told me he wasn’t sorry for having missed the function.

President Museveni was upbeat about the country’s economic performances and actually said Uganda is ready for an economic take-off; something I will write on later.

The president mentioned that the economy was projected to grow by an impressive 9.8 per cent this year, up from 6.5 per cent last year, on the back of a booming construction sector, fuelled largely by spending on infrastructure for the November Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Museveni promised to refocus on agriculture, energy and industrialisation.

All said the short and long from the president’s address was that the president failed to inspire the nation by his speech, not because his speech lacked gravitas but because he failed to convincingly address issues closed to the nation’s heart.

The president failed to come out strong on graft and how he would handle it-graft has eaten much of Uganda’s economy, yet if it was handled, donor funding could drop over night to a tiny 17%

There is almost a unanimous consensus that Uganda’s problem is not the lack of resources but the management of it.

By not coming out with a sound plan for fighting graft and reinforcing good governance, president convinced few that he could deliver on any of his other promises.

Don’t like the reflection- Smash the mirror

2008-05-29T11:40:00.001+03:00

The decision by the Uganda government to amend the existing media laws and introduce new ones is disheartening to say the least, but should not be unexpected.

This is because in the modern world, you have freedom of expression but after expression, you are striped off that freedom.

The move, described by minister for Information and National Guidance Kirunda Kivejinja as aimed at “streamlining the role the media plays in national development,” come hot on the heels of run-ins between the state and independent media houses in recent months.

Latest on the list was the raid of The Independent Magazine newsroom. Several journalists have been interrogated by both security agents and the police, in a bid to slap charges of sedition on journalists who raised issues of accountability.

However like other sections of Ugandan society, the media suffers its own capacity constraints but the path the state has taken only serves to shield the degenerated ruling class from scrutiny.

The press is merely a mirror of society, however, government and other sections of the Ugandan society have instead decided to smash the mirror rather than accept their reflection.

Succession talk-can M7 walk the talk

2008-05-27T16:45:00.002+03:00

President Yoweri Museveni or Mzee as his supporters love referring to him recently said he would not groom a successor as requested by his supporters but a system that would eventually produce one.

What a smart thing to say. The opposition and his party members clapped to this and maybe danced and wined to it. But how possible is this?

Peaceful and democratic political succession is very critical for the development of any country; unfortunately very few African countries have succeeded in achieving it.

In Uganda and like many other African, Asian and Caribbean countries, there is wide use of sectional and private reasons to beg incumbents to remain in power.

If only presidents could freely relinquish office, as experience had demonstrated that in doing so-even devils such as Kenyan Daniel Arap Moi -they remain elder statesmen, both in the eyes of the nationals and the international community.

Grooming a system involves a lot of courage and discipline, which many African leaders, even the so called breed-of-new-African leaders-if they still are anyway-shy away from.

EAC region-Tanzania, a successor is groomed but not the system, in Kenya, till today, they don’t know who actually won the December 2007 election and in my Uganda, it is still a dream.

With the establishment of a de jure one party state in Tanzania in 1965, a de facto one party state in Kenya in 1969 and military state in Uganda in 1971, the possibility of changing the head of government through multiparty competitive politics was eroded.

The presidential system, which is practiced, has the potential of creating a perpetual incumbency due to the enormous executive and political powers vested in the presidency, and the capacity of being president as well as party chairman.

The process of political recruitment has also adversely affected political succession. The nomination of candidates for civic, parliamentary and political party posts is heavily influenced by party procedures rather than the ability of contestants.

The final decision is made by party organs, whose discretion may often be coloured by ethnic and religious affiliations, corruption and intra party who-is-who “the Mwenzetu” problems.

So when Museveni said he would groom a system, I wonder, because holding onto to power for two-decades does not spell a character that can groom a system.

Grooming a system would mean a free and fair leadership in nomination processes both within and without political parties, maintenance of fixed terms of political office.

Grooming a democratic system, would mean separation of powers between the arms of government in order to tame wild presidents and promotion of a bottom-up political recruitment process.

While as a country we have romanticised and justified revolutionary violence, in all the situations it has been used, no significant benefit for the people has arisen. It only resulted in to the abandonment of the ideals of the NRM Ten Point Programme.

For Museveni’s rhetoric to come true, he will have to build strong institutions for conflict resolution and an empowered population capable of articulating and implementing necessary change.

Under a groom system, we shall be able to defined institutions as independent and non-partisan bodies with appropriate laws and procedures.

There will be a balance between accountability and impunity, minus witch hunting but a promotion of accountability and justice.

There will be a set procedure to avoid expensive elections that induce corruption

Neutrality and professionalism of army at all institutional levels. It should be capable of defending national interests and not beholden to individuals and an objective attribution of blame.

Political succession is a much larger matter than the issue of term limits that our opposition parties have been ranting about, though an important component of it.

The most powerful tool to ensure political succession is the conduct of free and fair elections. The independence of the electoral commission as well as the passing and the implementation of adequate electoral laws are of prime importance.

To crown it all, in order to ensure positive political succession, the political entities that are vying for power, must be democratically constituted.

NRM, DP, UPC and FDC must be well rooted within their constituents and should evolve around the practiced principles of participation and representation.

Their leaders must be accountable, and their members have a duty to demand such accountability. These qualities are necessary prerequisites for such organisations and individuals to assume responsibilities at the national level.

Museveni hit at corrupt leaders-what a bluff!

2008-05-20T17:56:00.001+03:00

I broke the story of President Yoweri Museveni expressing shock at the level of corruption within his government.

As I re-typed (for publication) out every sentence in his letter to his Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi and copied to MPs, I could not help laughing out loud at Museveni’s epistle expressing shock at learning that contract prices are inflated and the money swindled.

Oh dear! I could not help asking loud whether some new fund had been set up by Bush administration, UK or Canada -Government always shouts thief whenever there is a new fund for Africa- which we need to siphon.

Does our dear president have such a poor memory that he could not recall that in 1998 he revealed that he pardoned his brother Gen Salim Sale for inflating the contract for, and in turn delivered junk helicopters

Could someone jog Museveni’s memory that one of his senior NRM cadres now a Cabinet members siphoned off 4,000 litres of fuel after losing his parliamentary seat, on grounds that he rigged elections.

Come on! Does Museveni not remember that he promoted and reappointed two junior ministers to senior ministerial positions after parliament had censored them over corruption, and one repeated the act-Gavi and Global Fund scandal!

The president played a leading role in the creation of Tri-Star which went down with over Ush20bn, and which is on the verge of getting more? Another still birth Textile Company -Phenix Logistics got over Ush4bn-failed to pay back and just last month, government guarantee $5.5m from Japanese’s International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for Phenix.

Government has habitually given out billions of shillings to individual businessmen without parliament’s sanction or any transparent policies governing these donations.

The bail outs to Hassan Basajjabalaba, the head of the NRM Entrepreuers team who got Ush31bn in government bailout on the President's instructions – some of which was money meant to recapitalise Uganda Development Bank.

At the directive of the president, the minister of finance can inject public funds into a private entity without parliament’s knowledge and then declare that those funds translate into government’s shareholding. Moreover the office of the Auditor General cannot audit such firm’s since government is minority shareholder, isn’t that daylight robbery Mr. President?

The list of inflated contracts snakes all the way back to the sanctified corridors of State House. Entebbe State House construction? Inflated. UBC's relocation costs? Inflated. UCB's sale? Murky and inflated. National ID costs? Muddled and Inflated. Army numbers? Inflated, Oil reserves? flawed procurement process.

No Ugandan can fail to point out a murky tendering process or an inflated project

And if all that is news to President Museveni, then, let us tighten our seat belts. Corruption is probably the biggest threat to our existence as a country at the moment

The cancer of corruption and culture of impunity in Uganda can only be cured by vigilant anti-corruption institutions, by strong, sustained and impartial investigation, arrest and trial of all involved -- including those who walk the highest corridors of power!

I fear for Zimbabwe

2008-05-11T19:02:00.002+03:00

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said he will return home to contest a presidential run-off, despite fears of widespread poll violence.

Speaking in South Africa, he said people would feel "betrayed" if he did not run, and vowed to return within two-days.

Violence has been growing in Zimbabwe since Robert Mugabe and his cronies realised that his arch competitor Tsvangirari won the election, though he didn’t gunner the required 50+1 majority win.

Horrific TV pictures and stories coming out of Zimbabwe is worrying, it shows that the re-run could be one of the ugliest. There is a further claim that the military are poised to shoot to kill any opposition leader who will be in their sights.

The story by the BBC of teachers, who acted as polling officers being beaten and awarded certificate to show they have received beating by the military, with the full knowledge of ZANU-PF officials is the most ridiculous.

He was told to produce it whenever someone else wanted to beat him as proof that it had already been done.

BBC claimed the paper even had a date stamp and the signature of the leader of the group.

I don’t know whether to believe this or not, something tells me its propaganda by the UK media. However, given past raids of opposition offices and crack down on Movement for Democratic Change(MDC) supporters by police, I cannot just brush it off.

To Mugabe and the ‘war veterans’ (Mugabe’s biggest terrorising machinery), letting Tsvangirai rule Zimbabwe is equivalent to allowing the British re-colonise Zimbabwe.

The level of political patronage in the country has been portrayed in the way the National Electoral Commission and the High Court handled the election petition filed by MDC.

What remains to be seen is whether Mugabe will allow full access by international monitors and media as demanded by MDC and it supporters.

President Thabo Mbeki's silent diplomacy has so far failed.

Mexican’s most wanted journalist

2008-05-11T19:00:00.001+03:00

Mexican’s most wanted journalist Lydia Cacho won this year’s price for freedom of speech Award.

Joe Thloloe, President of the jury of 14 professional journalists and editors from all over the world, and Press Ombudsman of the Press Council of South Africa, explained the choice of this year’s laureate:

"Members of the jury were impressed by the courage of Lydia Cacho Ribeiro as she continues to expose political corruption, organized crime and domestic violence in the face of death threats, an attempt on her life and legal battles. For me, a journalist who knows the antagonistic environment in which he or she operates and continues to do the right thing by keeping readers, listeners or viewers informed about their society deserves recognition for their contribution to freedom of expression around the world. Lydia Cacho is such a laureate."

Cacho is a big encouragement to investigative journalist, my friend Benon Herbert Oluka, first prize winner in the 2007 Africa Education Journalism Award, who was at the same function described his encounter with Lydia as a wake up call.

Below is Cacho’s acceptance speech.

Mr. President, Mr. Director General of Unesco, Ministers, Ladies, Gentleman and fellow colleagues:
I feel honored to be with you tonight. This award may not protect me from death threats or from death itself. But it certainly helps to protect my written work and to enable a broader audience to know and understand the Mexican reality and the impact of the global crimes of trafficking in persons and of child pornography. By honoring me tonight you are recognizing the talent of my teachers, of the hundreds of women, men and children who have trusted me with their personal histories, their tragedies and their triumphs. Somehow they knew I would honor their trust by doing my job as a journalist. When I was tortured and imprisoned for publishing the story of a network of organized crime in child pornography and sex tourism, I was confronted with the enduring question of the meaning of life. Should I keep going? Should I continue to practice journalism in a country controlled by 300 powerful rich men? Was there any point to demanding justice or freedom in a country where 9 out of every 10 crimes are never solved? Was it worth risking my life for my principles? Of course the answer was… yes. Mexico, my homeland, is a country of 104 million people, a land of great landscapes, of magnificent rivers and unending green fertile mountains. Nonetheless Mexico exports 400 thousand people every year, men and women who flee to the United States, to escape hunger, poverty and violence. I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Mexico City. My mother, a feminist psychologist, took me to the slums around town and told me that those kids—kids who were just like me—had no food and no chance to get an education. In this way she prepared me to be a citizen and what is now called a human rights activist. I was born a woman. I found in feminism a philosophy based on equality and peace. It led me to view life from a gender perspective. For years I have lived and moved between two worlds: being a feminist advocate against violence is the way I act as a citizen; being a journalist is the way I practice my profession. Every day I try to enlarge my ability to listen, to understand, to feel empathy, to question, to be truthful, to be ethical. By listening to peoples’ stories I learn ways to add insight and perspective to my coverage of human tragedy and human development. And also I test - as many of my colleagues do - my ability to stay alive. I am 45 years old, and I have spent most of my life trying to understand human nature. What makes us able to survive, to change, to evolve, to save or to harm each other? I’ve been watching the news and reading newspapers most of my life. I thought I understood the macro structures of oppression. I knew how the political system works to protect the rights of the elites, at the expense of the majority. But I was not aware what it felt like to be the subject of repression myself. When the mechanisms of state repression were used against me, I found myself in the strange position of being seen as a heroine simply for exercising –with some dignity– my right to freedom and justice. Thousands of people marched on my behalf. Most of the Mexican media covered my case for almost two years, until the powerful were finally able to buy the silence of some of them. Millions of citizens echoed my demand for freedom of the press and for the rights of the child victims I wrote about. I stood before the Supreme Court with a heart full of hope that they would defend our constitutional right to tell the truth without being tortured or incarcerated. Many thought there was so much hard evidence in this case that there would be no room for corruption. It seemed all of Mexico was hoping for a chance to believe that change was possible. Standing against us was a handful of well dressed lawyers in dark blue suits who defended the politicians I had accused of an unsavory relationship with pedophiles. But this handful of men was able to lobby the majority of Supreme Court judges to dismiss my freedom of the press case relating to child pornography and organized crime. And so I lost and so did my country. But here I am. I was lucky enough to elude death. I had the opportunity to report my own case, to live inside the story of an orchestrated campaign to protect the marriage between organized crime, businessmen and a corrupted government. But most of all I had the chance to keep my promises to the little girls who were abused by pedophiles and child pornographers, and who asked me to tell their stories. We journalists tend to believe that the shock provoked by reading such stories cannot fail to unite people of good will. That is one of the reasons we keep going against all odds. We know the power of compassion. As journalists we should never become messangers of the powers that be.Nor sould we surrender to fear and self censorship. And that is why we are here in Mozambique. We know there is something wrong with a world that favors a war economy instead of education, that favors silence instead of freedom and truth. A world in wich millions of chldren orphans of the HIV-AIDS pandemia are unimportant to the rest of the world.There is something wrong in a world where racism and sexism separates us from each other.
This gathering symbolizes our determination to keep on going…with cool heads and warm hearts…and to keep on writing. To keep on living with hope.
——– Lydia Cacho Ribeiro Maputo, Mozambique. May 3rd 2008

Juba talks: A cat and Mouse game

2006-08-18T18:30:00.000+03:00

From my old blog-Friday, August 18, 2006

The peace talks currently underway between the Government of Uganda (GoU) and Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are the best opportunity in over a decade to end the twenty-year war in northern Uganda.

The involvement of South Sudan government as a mediator in this process, gives this process serious potential to succeed in both ending active violence and providing a framework to address deeper social and political grievances

However, what we are seeing now is an apparent end to the evident openness of the LRA and GoU to end the conflict that was exhibit at the beginning of talks.

It is over a month since the talks started and no serious issues have been arrived at and it is to that end that we undertake this analysis, to ask the government of Uganda and the LRA to refocus priority.

In the current GoU-LRA peace talks in Juba, we do not even know the issues of contention. For example, we do not know the government position on economic empowering of the north and its rehabilitation plans.

All we hear of is a “soft landing for LRA.” And the rebels prioritising post-conflict security and livelihood guarantees. The two parties seem not ready to address the multifaceted root causes underpinning the conflict in East and Northern Uganda.

The LRA support networks, scattered in small groups in the Diaspora, should not use the growing media attention, to expose what they believe are the injustices of the present government and gain reparations for past ills.

Coupled with this has been little public attempt to date to interrogate the interests and stakes of those involved in these peace talks. Such analysis is crucial to unpack the potentiality of this peace process and to clarify the short and long term needs for lasting peace in northern Uganda.

It is high time the government must consider several possible outcomes. First, the government must reflect on the needs of people in the north for peace.

President Museveni made it clear both in his campaign manifesto that restoration of peace in the north would be his priority and we think this is a chance for him to do just that.

Government should also consider whether it is willing to facilitate national dialogue and truth-telling mechanisms.

Lasting peace in northern Uganda will require not only disbanding LRA structure, but also addressing northern grievances of social, political and economic marginalisation.

Juba Talks-what is at stake

2006-08-15T18:39:00.000+03:00

From my old blog-Tuesday,August 15, 2006

On-going Juba talks are the best opportunity in over a decade to end one of Africa’s longest running wars. Yet, the stance of each team is threatening to undermine opportunities to help end one of the world’s worst humanitarian nightmares.

Talks between Ugandan negotiators and representatives of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in Juba, southern Sudan came to a halt last week as the LRA delegation stormed out of the talks protesting government refusal to declare a cessation of hostilities.

The first round of talks ended without much progress after the LRA delegation demanded a ceasefire and also accused government of human-rights violation in the north.

Joseph Kony, LRA leader declare a unilateral ceasefire last week, however, Ugandan government has not reciprocated on the ceasefire declaration, insisting that it will agree to one only after a comprehensive peace agreement is singed.

Because of this mistrust, the LRA is said to have relocated its headquarters for fear of attack by Ugandan army, especially since its location is now well known to Kampala following recent confidence building visits by various government functionaries.

The greatest weakness of the Juba talks is now seen as the failure of the Chief mediator, Riek Machar, to insist on ceasefire declaration by both parties, this is the fourth item on the table that is yet to be agreed upon.

By its own initiative, the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) agreed to mediate and host peace talks between the warring parties in May this year. The involvement of such a strategic third party mediator, combined with apparent openness of both parties to end the war gives this process serious potential to succeed.

However there is a lot at stake in this peace process and the might be missed opportunity in this talks begins with the GoSS.

The GoSS has much to gain from peacefully expelling the LRA from within its borders. Elements of the northern-based National Islamic Front regime could easily resume using the LRA as a proxy militia to destabilise the South and derail the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The Khartoum government has been quiet about the ongoing peace talks since it started on July 14th.

Further, the LRA is embedded within networks in southern Sudan that have not yet joined the Southern Sudanese government coalition. The GoSS is thus keen to ameliorate the threat and demobilise the LRA through diplomatic means.

The LRA recognises the stakes for its top five lieutenants and also wants to avoid military confrontation with regional forces, the African Union (AU) and the UN to an extent that its cultic leader Joseph Kony and his Deputy Vincent Otti avoided peace talks’ venue for fear of being arrested and whisk off to the Hague.

International Criminal Court (ICC) indictments issued last October for top five LRA commanders have generated new pressure, though not enough will to actually execute warrants. Indicted LRA leadership want guarantees for their post-conflict security and livelihood.

As talks get underway, elevated attention by the United States and donor countries could be decisive to their success. However, The US State Department who announced two months ago that ending the war by end of 2006 was a priority of the Bush Administration has been unclear about its position on the Juba talks.

The US role is most desired as a non-signatory to the ICC, the United States may be able to impact the talks in ways that European countries cannot. The European countries, for their part, can urge the ICC to show restraint and to employ Article 53 of the Rome Statute. Under Article 53(4), the Prosecutor can reconsider a decision at any time “based on new facts or information.”

The GoSS, Kampala government and LRA leadership say that ICC continued disapproval of talks could derail the process when discussions shift to post-conflict security guarantees.

The unknown position of the international community and US also cast a shadow on source of finances resources that will be needed for implementation of peace agreements. The return of displaced peoples, compensation of victims and reintegration of rebel fighters will require extensive international support.

However, for President Yoweri Museveni’s government, the crisis has become an increasing liability for the reputation of the Ugandan government. With Museveni’s repeal of term limits to win a third term in elections, his regime has suffered a significant fall from grace.

Ending the war would not only redeem Museveni’s image abroad, but deal with the rejection his government has met in north for last 20 years. Success of the talks before the 2007 Commonwealth meetings to be held in Uganda would also be an accomplished for the Kampala government.

Museveni has made clear that he will offer amnesty to all rebels if the peace talks succeed within the stipulated period that ends September 12.

While Humanitarian bodies have criticised this as undermining the ICC, northern Ugandan leaders have expressed full support, conveying that long-term issues of justice can be addressed after the cessation of violence.

Acholi Paramount Chief senior aid told The EastAfrican that once the basic rights to their people have been restored, local leaders will help set the agenda for long-term restoration, using traditional restorative justice mechanisms.

The Acholi culture already has a built in mechanism, Mato Oput, to deal with reconciliation. Mato Oput is a process usually facilitated by Rwodi (clan leaders) in which the person who has wronged another or others gives a truthful account of the wrongs, accepts responsibility for what they have done, and makes a gesture of restitution in the form of something physical.

After this gesture is accepted by the aggrieved party, the two share a drink made of bitter herbs in front of witnesses to seal that reconciliation has occurred.

In the ongoing negotiations, the government and LRA will have to consider issues of reconciliation, truth telling and even some form of power sharing. While structural change is unlikely, Northern leaders say all parties should be supportive of the processes that build trust and relationships between segments of society that have been polarized and separated for several generations.

According to parliamentarians from the north and cultural leaders, lasting peace in northern Uganda will require addressing northern marginalization.

The war in northern Uganda has persisted for twenty years and has been described by U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland as “One of the worst forgotten conflicts in the world, and worse in magnitude than that of Darfur or Iraq.”

As a result, any form of economic activity has been brought to a grinding halt. A whole culture, people, and their environment are being systematically destroyed by Uganda’s government counter-insurgency policy.

Human development indicators in the north have gone into a free fall: 95percent of population lives below poverty line, 70% of them in absolute poverty. This is a contrast with the situation in the Southern and Western Uganda where 37 percent live below poverty line.

“This situation cannot continue without serious action being taken to reverse the fortunes of Northern Uganda for the better. It is also a threat to peace and stability in Great Lakes region” said Betty Amongin, a legislator from the North

However in the 20 years of conflict there have been opportunities for resolution. Even greater opportunities have existed for conflict management, which could reduce the destructiveness of this confrontation.

One could even go as far as to say that the continuation of this conflict is the legacy of missed opportunities. The peace talks of 1988, Operation North in 1991, the Bigombe talks of 1994 are all examples of missed opportunities that had the potential to end this conflict.

The Government undertook a number of operations to end this insurgency in its initial phase including mobilisation of civilian population to form defense units. Lack of technical competence in the armed forces to deal with insurgency is said to have prevented complete victory.

The LRA, now based in Garamba, DR Congo have terrorised the northern population to challenge the Ugandan government and sustain its existence. It has abducted more than 25,000 children, using them as cannon fodder and sexual slaves and displaced 1.6million.

When words summarise events

2006-03-08T17:21:00.000+03:00

The Rape Case

It was interesting reading the ruling of Justice John Bosco Katutsi in the rape case against Ugandan opposition leader Dr Kizza Besigye.

The High Court Judge said in his ruling that the prosecution had “dismally failed” to prove its case against the opposition leader. He is accordingly acquitted and set free forthwith,” he said.

But those were not exciting words anymore for Ugandans who had been following the case. Just as a friend wrote in an SMS to me,-“we knew Museveni and click would lose”

As I read the story in Daily Monitor, one of Uganda’s local daily newspaper. I decided to pick these quotes and I believe, even those who have been following this case will know what it was right from the beginning.

By citing a 300-year old ruling by an English judge, Justice Katutsi said yesterday, “The evidence before this court is inadequate even to prove a debt, impotent to deprive of a civil right, ridiculous for convicting of the pettiest offence, scandalous if brought forward to support a charge of any grave character, monstrous if to ruin the honour of a man who offered himself as a candidate for the highest office of this country.”

You think that was hard,
“While I did not go to the length of imputing fraud on prosecution, I would like to point out to you that the circumstances of this case seem to me to indicate an attempt to secure evidence-using methods that seem to amount to abuse of process,” Waaoooo!!!!!

So, how do you describe the investigation my Lord?
“The best way to describe the way the investigations were conducted and carried out is that it was ‘crude and amateurish’ and betrays the intentions behind this case.”

But the Victim testified and was a credible witness.
“No she is no ordinary and rustic girl”.

And... “I wondered how a woman who claims to have been sexually assaulted was quite ignorant of the date, let alone the month during which she claims to have been sexually assaulted”.

But rape is too traumatizing to remember all that…
“Surely could an undergraduate offering BA in Arts forget the date and let alone the month on which she experienced the trauma that she claims to have affected her mental stability?”

So how do you describe that my Lord?
“Here, a quick answer would be that Judas Iscariot betrayed his master with a kiss and for a mere 30 pieces of silver.” OOooopppppss!!!
But my Lord…
“Talk of valentine day; to them every weekend is made to appear to have been valentine day. I invite female activists to tell us whether that is the behaviour of a girl who has been raped. I need more education in that area.”

Now, do you doubt the Competence of the investigation institution?
“Here we have a situation where the CID boss has read something from a mere publication, she has not interviewed any would-be complainant, to say the least, to authenticate the publication, is directing a junior officer to open a file against a newspaper-created suspect.
All I can say here is, ‘May God bless this Pearl of Africa! It would appear to me in all fairness to the CID boss that she is gifted with extra sensory perception,” he said. “This surely must be good news for the Pearl of Africa! Suffice it to say that there was no scintilla of evidence suggesting that either Dr Besigye or Kyakuwa were HIV positive, and indeed that if they were, they had the same HIV strain!”

Sorry, My Lord what was the case before you agian?
“The so-called first information for whatever it is worth was not on rape”.

Mr Simon Byabakama Mugenyi, you are the deputy DPP who prosecuted the case, what do you have to say?
“I am not surprised. The judgment was concluded long ago on the judge’s advice to the assessors.”

Mr David Mpanga, you were the defence lawyer, what do you think?
“This sad case was born in the deluded mind of Ms Joanita Kyakuwa, it was nurtured and developed in State House, and cooked to imperfection in the Criminal Investigations Directorate of the Uganda Police. It was presented in full inadequacy by the Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions”.

Dr Besigye, any comment on this ruling?
“I am very happy that another case of abuse of the legal process has been successfully disposed of. The role of especially President Museveni himself and the director of CID in originating, building up and prosecuting this abuse of the legal process is crystal clear and unprecedented.”

And my dear President Museveni, your last word on this?
“Dr Kizza Besigye would not be tried for terrorism and illegal possession of firearms in the General Court Martial”.

Redefining the boundaries of free speech

2006-03-02T20:32:00.000+03:00

The publication of cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad in the European media that provoked reactions across the world has threatened the world press.

The event not only raises the questions of fundamental rights but also that of civic obligation.

Not only is the Islamic world asking journalists to define where the boundaries of free speech lie but the entire world.

The cartoons published in the Danish Paper were meant to illustrate the difficulty encountered by the writer Kare Bluitgen, in finding an illustrator for his children’s book on the life of Mohammed.

The newspapers had the right to publish them and I agree with my colleagues in the profession who urge that our’s is an era marked by growth of religious belief, politicisation and all religion must be open to a full range of opinion and analysis

But I do not believe it is not the duty of a journalist to criticize any religion as such or to make fun of other people’s deeply held beliefs. It is one thing to lambaste exaggerated radical fringes of a belief system, and quite another to attack that belief system as a whole

Satire is a form of analysis, but freedom of speech is not absolute and does not give a journalist the right to cry ‘fire’ in a crowed theater

And this takes us back to one of the most debated topics at journalism school- “Social Responsibility”- where should the lines be drawn. There are three issues here that the journalist world needs to put in mind.

First it is against Islamic principle to represent in imagery not only Muhammed but all the prophets of Islam. This is a clear prohibition in Islam.

Secondly in the Muslim world, no jokes or laughter is made at religion and there are hardly any jokes both in the Quran and the Bible. For that reason, these cartoons are seen by average Muslim as a transgression against something sacred, a provocation against Islam.

My colleagues need to understand that; this is not a legal issue or an issue of rights. Free speech is a right and protected. No one should contest that. But at the same time we are working in a complex dynamic society with diverse cultures and there should be sensitivity to this.

There are no legal limits to speeches but there are civic limits. In any society there is a civic understanding that free speech should be exercised responsibly so as not to provoke sensitivities.

It was unwise to publish these cartoons as a way to raise or start a debate, such a move inflames emotions, and it does not court reasons. It is useless provocation.

Indeed, cartoonist Lars Refin has not understood how to use his undeniable freedom of expression wisely.

The Law in Africa

2006-03-02T20:19:00.002+03:00

Yoweri Museveni’s election victory did not take the World by surprise; he is a strong man on this part of the earth. I took much interest in the electioneering in mu country-Uganda largely due to the fragile East African Community and the belief that Africa is noted to have become full of fresh democratic air. I received a text message that made me get very angry with Africa during the voter counting in Uganda. It read in part… “Pray for us. Preliminary results in 49 counting points show that Bisigye is leading. Some people are scared and most offices are locked.” Why on earth should a country that claims to be a democracy create a scenario where ones victory can be synonymous to chaos?

Note; my fellow country man wanted prayers not because he didn’t vote for Besigye, but because he was scared that a Bisigye victory will unleash the old bush Museveni on Ugandans. East Africans have witnessed increased democratic space ever since Julius Nyerere relinquished power followed by Daniel Arap Moi. This however does not mean that citizens in these three countries breathe freely; they are constantly harassed by the thought police.

Please allow me to digress a bit… a text message just landed from my Kenyan editor,where government has stomped the East African Standard Newspaper offices. It reads in part, “The Law. It is a great book. I now see clearly how the state protects the interests of the powerful under the guise of enforcing the law…” a Kenyan Managing Editor is being held by the police for publishing a story that alleged that a former ‘rebel’ minister, now an opposition luminary held secret talks with the Kenyan president! May those up and high left with some space for reason release him in one piece.

Just incase you are not familiar with the World of books, get hold of the book ‘The Law’ by Frederic Bastiat and you need not get surprised when you read about leaders claiming to be helping the masses. And so stated Bastiat, ‘The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.’ I hope the Kenyan government operatives will buy past newspaper issues where they have advertised extensively about freedom of _expression…all Kenyans of goodwill need it.

Back to my story, Ugandans had to weigh between sustaining tranquility at the expense of popular vote. The Ugandan case, just as it is in the Kenyan media freedom scenario, point at the need to stop individuals from turning into institutions unto themselves. People in Africa must be wary of any one who attends to them in the name of saving or helping them. So Museveni, as you take up your final term (that is, if you don’t change your mind again) note that Ugandans respect the fact that you stabilized the country, but they too know that a savior can turn to a devil if he overstays his calling.oops!! hope my minister for Information does not read it

At the Heart of Germany

2006-01-20T17:22:00.001+03:00

In Deucthland-Berlin-at the Heart of Germany where I was based and clouded most of my experiences, during my four months stay International Institute for Journalism.

At the heart of Germany's old-new capital, Berlin, a heady mixture of symbols confronts the visitor, start with the Reichstag, restored as the unified nation’s parliament: a ponderous Prussian hulk of a building with an awkward history, renovated and now capped with a delicate glass dome, proclaims a peculiar yet suitably mixed message of old solidity and adventurous novelty.

Then look across to the Brandenburg Gate, a mocking reminder of Germany's division that until 1989 stood gloomily alone in the border wasteland near the site of Hitler’s old bunker. Now that it has been restored, the horse-drawn chariot on top of the majestic gate seems poised to take off eastwards into territories soon again to fall within Germany’s economic embrace.

And the bunker itself, a place that most Germans would rather expunge from their capital, if not from their historical memory. The country’s leaders have courageously decided to erect, close to the site of the bunker, a massive and eerie memorial to a crime that must not be forgotten, however normal Germany has now become and however blameless today’s Germans are for the appalling crimes committed by their grandparents.

On the face of things, Germany has finally come out of its post-war shell. Twelve years ago it emerged united, suddenly much more populous and with a far bigger economy than its chief counterparts in Europe—although, by taking in the poor east, it became less wealthy.

It now has 82million people which make it the undisputed giant at the heart of one of the two richest continents in the world-Britain and France.

The European Union has 370 million people against America's 270m, and a combined annual GDP of $7.9 trillion against America's $10.1 trillion.

In little more than a year’s time, if the 15-country EU expands as expected to take in another ten countries, mainly in Central Europe, the Union’s population will rise to 460million.

Hence the symbolism, once again, of moving Germany’s capital in 1999 from the sleepy little Rhineland town of Bonn, just 55km from the border with Belgium, to raucous, once-imperial Berlin, just 80km from the frontier with Poland.

Victory Statute

2006-01-20T16:59:00.001+03:00

Victory Statute
The victory statute standing at the entrance to Berlin city

Bamong at Holocust sit

2006-01-20T16:59:00.000+03:00

Bamong at the sit where over 6million Jews where killed in what is called the Holocuts.
it was quiet a thrilling experience. sad this things happen in a world that people cliam God exist. i wonder where he was.