WE NEED TO REGAIN OUR COMMON SENSE IN UGANDA

It is reported that in the by-election in Bushenyi - Ishaka municipality where NRM's Nasser Basajjabalaba lost to FDC's Tayebwa, over shs 1 bn was released to bribe voters. Whether the voters got the money is not the issue. If this is anywhere near the truth, Uganda is doomed. We are going through hard economic times more so after the Uganda Shilling got badly depreciated given the amount of money the NRM got into circulation to facilitate their re-election, call it bribing voters! Common sense would dictate that after the experience the Ugandans are going through, no one worth his salt would again put such money into buying voters, but NRM does! The same NRM sings patriotism as if they are really patriotic - what the irony! We need to get back to our senses and do things the sensible way. It is a shame upon all those behind such hopeless schemes. William Kituuka Kiwanuka ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why FDC candidate won Bushenyi by-election WHY FDC CANDIDATE WON BUSHENYI BY-ELECTION Thursday, 14 June 2012 23:00 Written by Wilber Muhwezi Bushenyi-Ishaka municipality voters have spoken: they want FDC’s Odo Tayebwa to replace NRM’s Nasser Basajjabalaba in Parliament. Wilber Muhwezi looks at some of the reasons behind Tayebwa’s victory: Urban elite As Kampala and Jinja demonstrate, NRM always has difficulty winning in Uganda’s elite bastions – urban areas. Ishaka and Bushenyi are small towns, but they have a significant peri-urban electorate which must have made Tayebwa’s work easier. Of the 22 municipalities, at least eight are represented by opposition MPs. By-election It is easier for the opposition to win by-elections given that they have a smaller area to concentrate on in terms of mobilisation and plugging loopholes that could result in rigging by the ruling party. Of the five by-elections so far held, only Busiro North has gone to Gilbert Bukenya of NRM. The other four have gone to FDC and DP with two each. Basajja arrogance Nasser Basajjabalaba is a protégée of his elder brother, Hassan Basajjabalaba, who is perceived as an arrogant man who believes his money can buy everything. As NRM district chairman, he created sharp divisions during the NRM primaries in September 2010. Despite President Museveni’s best efforts, these wounds have not healed. For instance, junior health minister, Richard Nduhura, has never forgiven Basajjabalaba for sponsoring Mawanda Maranga (Igara East) against him. Mawanda defeated Nduhuura in the primaries. Nduhura didn’t appear at any of the rallies. Perhaps due to pressure from his colleagues and the party, he recorded a message of support that was aired on Bushenyi FM on Monday. Other area MPs like Maria Karooro Okurut, Mawanda and Magyezi spent substantial time in the constituency campaigning. Local heavyweights Amanya Mushega contemplated standing for this constituency in the 2011 elections and even won FDC primaries. But he abandoned the race after Tayebwa, who had lost to him, insisted on standing as an independent candidate. This must have cost Tayebwa some votes, as he came third. However, the FDC big guns put their differences with Tayebwa aside and worked for his victory, with Mushega, Mugisha Muntu, Salaamu Musumba and Jack Sabiiti among those manning polling centres. Others were Ingrid Turinawe and Francis Mwijukye. Besigye was reportedly out of the country. Unspiring campaign Basajjabalaba’s campaign team was made up of mainly old political failures in the district politics. These included Elidad Katunda, who served as LC-III chairman for Bushenyi-Ishaka town council for a long time until he was defeated by Jackson Kamugasha in 2006. In 2010, he tried to run for the divisional chairmanship for Ishaka but again lost to Deus Mukyenga. Others were: former minister, Prof Tarsis Kabwegyere, who lost Igara West to Raphael Magyezi, and Yoram Tibasiima, who lost to Willis Bashaasha in the NRM primaries for the LC-V chair – among many others. Capturing DP, UPC While Tayebwa managed to galvanise all opposition supporters in the constituency, Basajjabalaba, a former Youth MP, failed to win over the youth who make up the majority of voters. Influential youth like Douglas Rwamutojo didn’t support his bid and are, instead, believed to have quietly supported Tayebwa. Weak candidate Basajjabalaba’s poor performance in Parliament dates back to when he was Youth MP in the 7th Parliament. He was ranked one of the worst legislators at the time. During the last one year that he has been in Parliament, according to The Hansard which was distributed by his Igara West counterpart, Raphael Magyezi, Nasser only contributed in the Budget and Finance committee meetings but never ever spoke in the plenary, whose proceedings are televised. “We don’t want to vote a dumb [man] again. This is our opportunity to vote for an MP who will talk about our problems,” said Nicholas Niwagira, a youth councillor. Protest vote Many voters said they were tired of the biting economic situation. Goodman Kamuntu, a central ward councillor, told The Observer by phone that a protest vote against President Museveni cost the NRM candidate. He made reference to the state of the nation address in which the President belittled teachers, saying that they could be replaced with ease. Sociable too Tayebwa is a man of the people who goes to every funeral, party or gathering whether during campaigns or not. He has risen steadily from a town councillor to district speaker and now to MP, gaining immense experience and contacts along the way. He is a good mobiliser and this was not lost on the President who said while campaigning for Basajjabalaba on Monday that Odo was “very busy in women’s gardens digging and harvesting crops”. Religion Religion is believed to have been a factor in the election, as Tayebwa did very well in the areas of Bunyarigi, Ruharo, Ward II and St Kaggwa which are predominantly Catholic.

FINDING CAUSE FOR HOPE IN RIO+20 DISAPPOINTMENT

Beyond Rio: Pursuing ‘Ecological Citizenship’ By ANDREW C. REVKIN I’m posting a few final reflections related to the “Rio+20” United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which marked the 20th anniversary of the first “Earth Summit” and concluded ingloriously in Rio de Janeiro on Friday. If there is to be a 40th anniversary, what approaches or initiatives would you want to see there that weren’t in play this time around? Here’s Ilan Safit, a colleague of mine at Pace University who teaches philosophy and religious studies with a focus on the environment. He sees the focus of Rio and related discussions as too mechanistic, and skirting around the need for fostering a new kind of “ecological citizenship” as a precursor to progress on planet-scale environmental issues: The focus of the United Nations Rio+20 conference was, in a non-derogatory sense, largely technical — on a “green economy” and the Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development. It seems that the U.N. has given up on the role it can play in shaping a global community along the lines of ideas, identity, and identification, rather than restricting such important summits to practicalities, important as they are. I am talking about the ideas that deal with the reshaping of our identities, as both individuals and communities, given what we now know about the changing living conditions on our planet, and of a new sense of identification with, and commitment to, those who will be affected in the future by the way we live right now, by both what we are doing and what we are not doing yet. I am talking about a new notion of citizenship that is called for by the demands of the ecological crisis, an “ecological citizenship” of a global scope, that can best be promoted by, well, the one global body of nations we have. The notion of ecological or environmental citizenship has been theorized in academia for the past decade or so, with British political theorist Andrew Dobson taking a leading role in combing the discourses of political and environmental theory to construct a new concept of citizenship. According to Dobson, who prefers the term ecological to environmental citizenship, this kind of citizenship is centered around an obligation to reduce one’s ecological footprint, an obligation that carries the status of citizenship from the public sphere to the private one. After all, much of our energy consumption and waste production takes place at home. It is — please notice this, U.N. officials — a non-territorial citizenship, departing from the nation-state as the source of citizenship. Yet, Dobson emphasizes, those who reside in the regions of greater negative impact on the ecosystem have a greater obligation to reduce their own ecological impact. A resident of Bangladesh, for example, has very little to reduce in terms of negative impact and everything to lose from the cumulative effects of North Americans’ life styles and habits of energy consumption. Non-territorial, asymmetrical, non-contractual, and couched in obligation, such ecological citizenship bets its stakes on the embracing of virtue, the virtue that dictates that being a good citizen means being a minimal impactor (for one use of this new term, see The Impactors). These are some possible theoretical dimensions within which particular meanings of ecological citizenship can be formed and specific actions and activities could be introduced. In a panel discussion I chaired recently at Pace University’s Center for Ethical Thinking, Dr. Mirele Goldsmith, a New York based environmental psychologist, recounted a case of communal activism as an example of a specific kind of environmental citizenship. This case concerned the coming together of unlikely partners, the affluent communities of southern Westchester County and the pronouncedly less privileged residents of the Northwest Bronx, in a failed attempt to prevent the city’s plan, currently well underway, to build the country’s largest water filtration plant beneath Van Cortlandt Park in order to treat the water flowing into the city from the Croton portion of its system of reservoirs. The action here was political in the old sense, its partnerships new, its instigation human activity in relation to the environment, its source of fear the impact of the transformed environment on the humans residing within it. Laurel Whitney, an energetic environmental activist and blogger who teaches at Pace’s program in Environmental Studies, described a project she assigned her students in which they followed the example of No Impact Man, Colin Beavan, in minimizing their ecological footprint. Showers, laundry, food, electricity usage were all slashed in this two-week experiment. Jessica Lagoutte, a student in Prof. Whitney’s class, survived to tell the audience about her experience and the realizations it triggered. Dr. Rachael Sotos, who teaches philosophy at Pace, contributed philosophical reflections on the notion of environmental citizenship examined through the prophetic political thought of German-American philosopher, Hannah Arendt. So what does this new kind of citizenship mean? Whether named “environmental” or “ecological,” participatory membership in societies whose habits contribute to the deterioration of living conditions on the planet means taking part in a process of transformation. Speaking politically, we live in times of revolution, an ongoing revolution in which the perils of the future dictate the change of everything now. Whether we cycle, recycle, buy local, or write academic papers on the meaning of the environmental crisis, we are already repositioned through these acts and newly acquired habits in a joint effort and in trends of communal change. This makes for change in the meaning of citizenship and the roles of the citizen, now understood as an ecological citizen in the times of environmental crisis and a silent spring of political revolution. Naming this new kind of citizenship, still in search of its full identity, “ecological” seems fit. For it is ecology on both ends of this thinking that refashions citizenship: thinking ecologically leads to a reformulation of citizenship with the specific goal of reducing ecological footprints. But what does it mean to think ecologically? Ecology, which is a relatively new science, offers also a new conceptual paradigm; studying the life of organisms in relation to their environment and to other organisms around them, ecology from the start sees relationships. No entity, living or nonliving, the science of ecology recognized at its inception, exists on its own. The full picture of life in an environment can be produced only through a study of the relationships that constitute each entity in its position and its function within the whole. This model is immediately applicable to citizenship, understood as the participatory, active and reactive, life of individuals in a community residing in a shared space, even as the borders of this space extend globally. Ecological thinking views citizens and citizenship within co-defining relationships from the start, and by doing so it incorporates ecological impact into the picture it draws: as an element in a system, a citizen is both impacted by and has impact on this system. Thinking about citizenship through the ecological paradigm makes it impossible to overlook our ecological impact. But it is the role of ethical thinking—the one that poses the question of responsibility—to unblind us to the impact we have as such citizens, whether we assume this citizenship actively or “passively” (the passive has an impact too!), and to translate the new visibility of ecological impact into obligation. This obligation is not merely a question of individual responsibility, as there are no individual citizens without a community, nor a community without individual citizens. Citizen responsibility, obligation, action all have a meaning, a semantic meaning, only within the set of relationships that reciprocally define citizens and communities. Hence action, too, can only have an impact when larger units, societal systems, transform their practices on a scale larger than the one of the individual. Ecological citizenship is the framework in which we can see both the need for individual responsibility and the absurdity in laying the onus of responsibility on the individual, both the ecology that sustains communities and the sustainability demanded from communities in order to maintain a balanced ecology.

PARENTS SHOULD BE LECTURED TO AS A STRATEGY TO SEE GRADUATE EMPLOYMENT A REALITY

Many parents are the type who see their obligation complete when the children graduate. However, if these parents are talked to such that they either give their children to work with them on the job ventures they are involved, chances are that many graduates will get into employment. Many have businesses where the children could provide some input, but the children in many instances have not been given chance. I have attended a graduation party where the parent openly showed that his load was now complete. Parents need to be lectured to so that they either give children to come up with ventures which the parents can finance or allow them to develop family and and where possible improve on agriculture where there is agricultural land. I believe when the parents realize that they can play a role in seeing their children employed, the unemployment levels may gradually get reduced. William Kituuka Kiwanuka

EMPLOYMENT OF GRADUATES IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES

The high unemployment levels of graduates in Uganda is not news. However, Government should review its focus on funding graduate employment which is to see the opening of retail business outlets. My opinion is that Government should encourage graduates who can go on ground in rural settings where they can be involved in mobilization of the communities into better productive entities. A case in point is that many people in the rural settings are yet to get on board as regards mobilization of savings in groups out of which members can borrow to see to expansion of their entities. The focal point of my argument is that Government should encourage and promote grants to graduates who can prove that they have projects or proposals that can see better community mobilization for increased productivity, hence increased output. A graduate could for example come up with a proposal targeting mobilization of farmers to increase production by using better methods, knowing that with a budget say of shs 5 million in the 1st year, he/she will be able to see more output by farmers who are organized in groups and when shs 5 million gets invested in increased production, that money is capable of creating more value, out of which the graduate can be able to get a salary as well as see increased productivity and production hence greater returns to the farmer , and this process should be able to carry on without additional support from government. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? We are aware that many people have redundant land. A graduate can come up with a proposal to mobilize these people to come together and work as a group. They may then embark on clearing land collectively under the graduates supervision, and in the end, many acres of unproductive land can end up producing so much in tonnes of Maize. The seeds for planting may be procured from the grant the Government may have released to the graduate. The same graduate could advise farmers to undertake crop and animal enterprises at a go where droppings from the animals are used as fertilizer to the crop enterprises. And at the same time, a graduate can advise farmers on managing fewer animals, but constantly improving the breeds through artificial insemination. the productively will definitely be boosted. Giving graduates grants of the nature outlined can be very positive and many graduates will get down and work on feasible proposals and where possible consult with technical personnel to see that the ventures they get involved in actually work out, as grants may be for once. Given the regional markets, graduates employment can be greatly enhanced if they are given the challenge to sit down and come up with proposals that can positively boost the income for the people in rural communities where poverty is most concentrated yet when the people have land resources that are basic to see to better income. William Kituuka Kiwanuka

I WILL ONLY TEACH POLITICIANS TO STOP EATING PEOPLE’S MONEY, SAID ARCHBISHOP ELECT NTAGALI

I am not a politician, says Arch Bishop elect The outgoing Assistant Bishop of Kampala Arch Diocese Bishop Zac Niringiye (L) hands over a crozier to retiring Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi of the Anglican Church after handing over office at All Saints Church in Kampala yesterday. Photo by Stephen Otage By George Muzoora, Francis Mugerwa & Stephen Otage ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Posted Monday, June 25 2012 at 01:00 The archbishop-elect of the Anglican Church of Uganda, Stanley Ntagali, says he will be a spiritual leader, not a politician, in the first public comments about what kind of leadership he intends to offer. Bishop Ntagali of Masindi Kitara Diocese was elected on Friday as the eighth archbishop of Uganda to replace the retiring Henry Luke Orombi in December. He made the comments Saturday before a mammoth crowd that gathered at St Mathew’s Cathedral in Masindi Municipality to celebrate his election. “I will only teach politicians to stop eating people’s money,” Bishop Ntagali said. The archbishop-elect’s statement comes amidst a quiet fight between Church and State, with President Museveni publicly accusing religious leaders of turning their pulpits into political campaign platforms. Bishop Zac Niringiye, the face of the religious leaders who want the church to be more vocal about the governance of the country, yesterday delivered his last sermon at All Saints Church, Nakasero, in which he said he is retiring from the church to work towards the restoration of justice in the country. The outspoken assistant Archbishop of Kampala Archdiocese, who was once tipped as a potential successor to Archbishop Orombi before he chose to take early retirement, said he was worried about the state of the country and the impunity of those who commit crime. He said people behind killings and human rights abuses in the country have been glorified as heroes while corrupt ministers are recycled in Cabinet and receive support from Christians and church leaders. “The church is falling apart yet we have a false impression that things are well,” he said. “Look at corruption; there are no people telling the truth, and they keep saying the cases have been lost on technical grounds. Share This Story 7Share “We are satisfied with mediocrity. We cannot get plumbers to do a good job. When I visit churches on Sunday they are empty and here we collect offertory of 30 million yet among the congregation, there are people who blow Shs 100 million in a week.” Bishop Niringiye is expected to continue his public campaign for a restoration of presidential term limits as well as improved teaching and feeding in public schools. editorial@ug.nationmedia.com

UGANDA AT 50 YEARS IS A MUST VISIT DESTINATION

A few useful websites to a prospect visitor to Uganda: Uganda Tourist Sites http://www.ugandatouristsites.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to Uganda | The Pearl of Africa http://www.visituganda.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Uganda Country Specific Information http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1051.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Uganda Tourist Attractions http://www.acaciasafari.co.ug/ugandatouristattractions.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Uganda Tourist Attractions http://www.whenwegetthere.com/tourist_destination_attraction/africa/uganda/5_320/uganda.jsp --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By William Kituuka Kiwanuka. Email: wkituuka@gmail.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blog:www.williamkituuka.blogspot.com

WE SHOULD WORK WITH BISHOP SAMUEL KAZIMBA MUGALU TO GET HIS PLANS WORK FOR MITYANA

i got disappointed when Bishop Samuel Kazimba Mugalu was not elected new Arch Bishop of the Church of Uganda. However, the plans and effort which the Bishop had for the Church of Uganda should be concentrated into the development of Mityana diocese to be a leading diocese in Uganda. I wish to appeal to the children of and from Namutamba to work together as a force starting at Namutamba through the whole of Mityana diocese so that our Bishop has no regrets. Below I have the dream of Namutamba Parish which I believe the Bishop can give a hand given the contacts he has as we mobilize ourselves to see Namutamba shine again. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NAMUTAMBA MUST DEVELOP (NAMUDE) For a child who was nurtured at Namutamba, I cry tears when I get there. The place is so backward yet it would be among the most progressive in Uganda. To me Namutamba was one of the 1st places in Uganda to get civilization in the actual sense. The role played by the Lea Wilson Family when they got to Namutamba and eventually evolved the Namutamba Tea Estate and Dairy Farm as well as a primary school which later came to be called Namutamba Demonstration School was very instrumental in the initial fame which Namutamba enjoyed. It was real civilization; there was a lot of togetherness more so with the Rwandese who came from Rwanda to work on the estate. Today, Namutamba is a sad story. It is poverty, yet there are resources which can see the area come up very fast, however, these have to be nurtured and the community can easily be got to participate in their eventual welfare. I would love to spearhead the Namutamba Must Develop (NAMUDE) initiative. As a trained Rural Economist, an innovator, a man who loves to see the welfare of others, it is my desired goal to see the area which saw me in childhood develop given the current indicators which are symptoms of poverty. This to me would be a worthy task as a reward to the area whose manpower (teachers) I was able to get a bursary to one of the best schools in the country – St. Mary’s College Kisubi after being one of the top 10 pupils at my primary Leaving Examinations in the then Mubende District. Currently, Namutamba a parish is found within Bulera Sub – County in Mityana district. The focal area I wish to have my base is about 12 – 15 miles from Mityana town along Bulera road via Kitemu. The development I wish to be part of should see the following among others: 1. Easing of transport to and fro Mityana. Currently, if one misses the very early vehicles to Mityana, he/she has to hire a commercial motor cyclist for 12 or more miles at the cost of shs 7,000. This means that there should be improved taxi availability so that people are sure of getting a taxi to and fro Mityana at anytime they wish to travel; 2. There is need to use a better health facility as a magnet to attract people to be party to the innovations that may eventually change them, this, to offer services at highly discounted rates is in the right direction and also offer a number of services including maternity, antenatal, laboratory, admissions and a full time doctor and other specialized medical personnel. People to be encouraged to have savings with the facility and also be allowed to get treatment on credit or even pay in kind using what they produce in their gardens may all go a long way in promoting the health facility; 3. Conducting a baseline survey to bring out the people’s ills and endeavouring to cater for them can go along way in easing the lives of the people at Namutamba. These may include: i. Availing a Filling station in close vicinity. Currently, those with vehicles can only fill from Mityana! ii. The mobile money facility calls for going to Mityana to cash or even to send. Getting these services to the people is critical and very time saving; iii. There are a variety of goods which people have to buy from Mityana yet they would buy them from some big shop around in the area and save, this calls for opening up such a shop with a hardware component; iv. Setting up a collecting centre for merchandize which may be taken to market in Mityana or beyond; v. 4. There is need to set up an NGO arrangement to oversee most of the community mobilization in the area this may undertake among other things: a) Encourage the formation of single sex Self Help Groups (SHGs) as a vehicle to enhance the savings culture among the people and the working in group arrangement for their betterment; b) Help with better innovations, for example the area has many cattle keepers who need to move from quantity of animals kept to quality as well as undertake zero – grazing; c) The NGO may be able to encourage innovations which may help farmers to grow in bigger quantities and hence get means to process so as to get a bigger margin from their products; d) There is poor agricultural undertaking. Better soil management as well as enterprise management can help the poor people move away from the misery they are currently in; e) 5. There is need to work on the roads. The road from Mityana gets bad when one starts climbing Namutamba Hill after Bakijjulula. If there is away this road can be worked on, chances are that greater economic activity will be undertaken. The above is my dream, it is my prayer that the Almighty God helps me to get partners with whom we can see the development of Namutamba real.