It is a moral question: Where did the 3rd term come from?

President Yoweri Museveni's 2001 Election Manifesto
Consolidating the Achievements of the Movement
The Public who are in for the 3rd term of the President may be ignorant of the facts in the manifesto.
Page 9 of the Manifesto, under President Museveni's leadership, the Movement system of Governance has helped Uganda reverse the effects of more than two decades of Political turmoil. The country has achieved Unity, Peace, Stability and Economic growth. The Movement system means pluralism - in - unity, in otherwords, pluralism without factionalism. If there is political harmony for long enough, based on all - inclusive national organisational structures, democracy will be achieved without the risk of unhealthy polarisations. This will give the country time to develop a healthy foundation for multi - partysim in the future. When President Museveni completes his second and final term as directly elected President, the Movement, under his leadership, will, for the first time in history of our country, have created a legacy of an orderly leadership succession.
Page 11
I am once again offering myself to serve the people of Uganda because of my conviction that, together with you, we still have a mission to accomplish. I am taking on the challenge of contesting for a last residential term for the following reasons:
1. Consolidating the work of building a professional army;
2. Consolidating our gains in th economy, in infrastructure reconstruction and development,
3. Consolidating our gains in democratisation and putting in place mechanisms for an orderly leadership succession; and
4. Making a contribution to the process of creating a vibrant regional market and penetrating the global market under the World Trade Organisation.


The undersigned realises that the Constitution of Uganda Article 3 (4a) says: All citizens of Uganda shall have the right and duty at all times:
a) To defend this constitution, and in particular, to resist any person or group of persons seeking to overthrow the established constitutional order; and
b) To do all in their power to restore this constitution after it has been suspended, overthrown, aborogated, or amended contrary to its provisions.
Clause 5 of the same article says: Any person or group of persons who, as require by clause 4 of this article, resists the suspension, overthrow, abrogation or amendment of this constitution commits no offense.
It is clear that those who got involved in removing Presidential term limits were so short sighted as they entrusted the future of Uganda into one man's interests that is President Museveni forgetting that this has the potential of turning the country back to turbulent times. The petition therefore seeks signatures to see that the old constitution order can be re -instated.
Given that background, it is unfortunate to see that people who have spearheaded the promotion of Good Governance in Uganda to the extent of waging a 5 year bush war which brought NRM Government to power in 1986, can turn around and decide to promote own interests suiting selfish interests using legislation; which is likely to cost the country so much in the near future.
MEMBERS of Parliament overwhelmingly voted to remove presidential term limits from the Constitution, paving the way for President Yoweri Museveni to contest in 2006 elections and beyond! During the voting at the committee stage where each clause in the third Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 2005 has been subjected to independent scrutiny, 220 MPs voted in favour of lifting term limits, while 53 opposed.


Uganda's history since Independence 9th October 1962; has been characterized by political instability. Against that background, the Constituency Assembly unanimously agreed that any President after the enactment of the 1995 Uganda Constitution was to have a maximum of two terms in office. It is most unfortunate that the good in the Constitution was reversed by Parliament in 2005 to give chance to the incumbent President Yoweri Museveni to contest for President in 2006!
Right thinking Ugandans are opposed to this move which was undertaken against the background that NRM had majority in Parliament which was used with the alleged facilitation (bribe of shs 5m) said to have been given to NRM legislators as a token thank you for removing the term limits!

Below Kathleen Sullivan puts his point against Constitutional Amendments worth reading.
Constitutional Amendments and the Constitutional Common Law
Adrian Vermeule
Harvard University - Harvard Law School
September 2004
U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 73
Abstract:
Constitutions obsolesce rapidly, and must be updated over time to reflect changes in the polity's circumstances and citizens' values. What institution or process should be entrusted with the authority to do the updating? If periodic wholesale replacement of the constitution is infeasible, the plausible choices are the constitutional amendment process set out in Article V, flexible interpretation by judges under the banner of constitutional common law, or some mix of the two. Here I explore the question by comparing the relative merits of formal amendments and the constitutional common law as means of constitutional updating. I attempt to dispel some prominent arguments that unjustifiably privilege constitutional common law over the amendment process, and also attempt to sketch the empirical conditions under which either process proves superior to the other.
My principal target is a standard academic view that I shall call "the generic case against constitutional amendment." On this view, there are good general reasons to reject, or to indulge a presumption against, any proposed amendment. Among these reasons are the following claims: it is bad to "tamper" with the Constitution; the Constitution should not be "cluttered up" with amendments that will "trivialize" its majesty; constitutional amendments are "divisive" or "polarizing"; constitutional amendments may have bad unanticipated consequences; and constitutional amendments diminish the coherence of the constitutional text or of judicially-developed constitutional doctrine. Something like this view has become the conventional wisdom in the legal academy, following explicit arguments by Kathleen Sullivan and others.
I argue that the generic case against constitutional amendment fails. The generic case rests on a nirvana fallacy that implicitly contrasts a jaundiced view of the amendment process with a romanticized view of common law constitutionalism. The real alternative to constitutional amendment is flexible judicial interpretation that updates the Constitution over time - a practice that can also be seen as tampering with or trivializing the Constitution, that is at least as polarizing or divisive as constitutional amendment, that equally risks bad unintended consequences, and so on.
Once we have dispelled the nirvana fallacy underlying the generic case against amendment, constitutional updating is seen to pose a comparative institutional question. Constitutional amendment, on the one hand, and constitutional common law, on the other, are alternative institutional processes for managing the inevitable updating of constitutional law over time. Under what circumstances might one process or the other prove superior? What institutional considerations, or variables, determine their relative performance? I consider the strengths and weaknesses of each process: relative to common-law constitutionalism, the amendment process is less focused on the facts of particular cases (both for good and ill); puts less weight on the views of past judges (both for good and ill); allows for the participation of decisionmakers from a broader range of professions and backgrounds (both for good and ill); produces more enduring constitutional settlements, albeit at higher initial cost; and trades the benefits of flexibility for the benefits of rigidity.
Amendments show to best advantage, relative to common-law constitutionalism, where the constitutional changes in question involve large value choices as opposed to technical improvements in the law, where constitutional change must be systemic and simultaneous rather than piecemeal, and where irreversible change is more valuable than reversible change.

Working Paper Series

It disturbs the way Dr. Kiggundu ended

Dr. Kiggundu was my lecturer when a 1st year student at Makerere University in 1980. We were having Economics Lectures from the Education Lecture Theater. He used to call petrol gasoline. He was driving a Volkswagen the frog type and he could get his coat behind some students' chair. He was always a confident man who new his stuff. It is unfortunate that he is long gone.
Dr. Kiggundu came to lime light when together with the Late Prof. Kyesimiira that credited Musoga diagnosed the ills of Uganda's economy including inflation. The currency exchange took place when Dr. Kiggundu was the Governor of Bank of Uganda; a reward for his efforts. The mistake Kiggundu made at that time was being party to the currency exchange which say Ugandans pay 30% tax and eventually the savings people had were reduced to nothing yet those with assets were not badly affected. The deal which was wrong on part of Dr Kiggundu was the way he parted with money of shareholders of Greenland investments in buying Grain Milling Company. And the last deal, the involvement of Greenland Bank in the buying of Uganda Commercial bank which according to the law could not be accepted, and summing up his mistakes created his early death.
God grant him eternal peace.
William Kituuka

Greenland sale is fraud - Kiggundu
Former Greenland Bank managing director Sulaiman Kiggundu
2002-11-11
Former Greenland Bank managing director Sulaiman Kiggundu yesterday said the sale of Greenland Towers was fraudulent. The 8-year-old 11-story building on Kampala Road was sold Friday to Hilton Insurance Services at $4m (Sh7.4b). The building was co-owned by Greenland Bank and FIBA, its associated company that owned 75 percent.
“I have never at any one time mortgaged this building to Bank of Uganda as it is claimed, that building has been sold under a mortgage,” Dr. Kiggundu said. He issued a statement from Luzira Prison where he is serving a six-month sentence for defaulting on a Shs 600m loan.
Kiggundu said that though in November 1998 he applied for a Shs 10bn loan security from Bank of Uganda to support “our clearing account” and indicated that he would give their building (Greenland Towers) as security, BOU never gave them the said money but instead took over the bank on Dec. 5. Kiggundu, who is scheduled to finish his sentence Dec. 15, said that his imprisonment was pre-planned to put him out of the way so that this “fraudulent sale of our family silverware” can take place.
“Whereas four Banks were closed, no other Managing Director except me was detained and charged. Whereas TransAfrica bank is said to have lent Sh3b out of its deposit base of Sh 6b, the Managing Director was never arrested and charged as in my case and the Bank has not been closed, instead it has been merged with Orient Bank,” Kiggundu wrote.

Sacked director to sue Uganda's Central Bank
By DAN ELWANA
The former managing director of the closed Greenland Bank, Dr Sulaiman Kiggundu, is considering legal action against the Central Bank of Uganda over his removal from office and the closure of the bank. Dr Kiggundu, who is also a former central bank governor, has blamed Finance Minister Gerald Sendaula and Bank Governor Charles Kikonyogo for the recent statements against him. He said his image and that of the bank had been tarnished by the recent events surrounding the Greenland Bank. "My reputation is the most important asset and not riches which I don't have," the banker told newsmen at his residence in Kampala. Dr Kiggundu claimed that since July, he and the bank's board of directors had sought audience with the finance minister in vain. He said his removal from the post was illegal as the central bank governor had no powers to remove a bank's managing director. All he could do was initiate legal proceedings for such action. He said the central bank was fully responsible for the closure of the bank. President Museveni on Sunday assured the bank's depositors that they would be paid their money in full.

Nobody Can 'Touch' Saleh, Says
Uganda Opposition
By BARBARA AMONG
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
AS THE director of Public Prosecution, Richard Butera, starts independent investigations of Major General Salim Saleh and Col Kiiza Besigye to obtain grounds over the loss in the purchase of two "junk" helicopters in 1997, the opposition says it doubts the government's will to prosecute officials implicated.
The Uganda Cabinet last week recommended the prosecution of army officers, businessmen and civil servants implicated by a report by High Court judge Justice Julia Ssebutinde in the purchase of the two attack helicopters in 1997 from the Republic of Belarus .
"There has been no will to prosecute the president's younger brother, Salim Saleh. The investigations to be carried out by Butera are a gimmick and are exciting the public for nothing," said Dr James Rwanyarare of Uganda People's Congress. Rwanyarare said that "no one could prosecute" Saleh.
He recalled that the president's brother had been implicated in a number of scandals including the illegal purchase of Uganda Commercial Bank Ltd in 1998, but he has never been prosecuted. In 1998, at the height of the scandal overthe purchase of the bank by a Malaysian firm, Westmont, Saleh admitted his role in helping a local bank, Greenland , to buy shares in the bank, though it was against the sale agreement.
The former managing director of Greenland Bank, Dr Sulaiman Kiggundu, was prosecuted and sent to jail for six months.
However, the prosecutor said that his office has "already taken the first step and a committee with investigators from the CID has been instituted to investigate the recommendations of the Ssebutinde report in order to establish a criminal offence."
Mr Butera said his team have to make the investigations themselves because Justice Julia Ssebutinde's report was not intended to establish grounds for criminal prosecution.
"I do not believe that the government is serious at all. There are so many reports made by Justice Ssebutinde and none of them has ever been acted upon: They have always sat on them," said Elias Lukwago, a legal counsel for the Democratic Party.
Three years ago, Justice Ssebutinde, after investigating the police force, recommended the prosecution of senior police officers, but none were prosecuted after the Inspectorate General of Government, Jotham Tumwesigye carried out independent investigations later.
Mr Tumwesigye told The EastAfrican last week that he did not find enough grounds to prosecute the police officers as recommended by Justice Ssebutinde.
"The government is just gambling on these issues. Ssebutinde cleared some of these people like Col Besigye, so why should his name come up again?" asked Mr Rwanyarare. He said bringing up Besigye's name was part of a witch hunt.
In the 2001, Besigye was runner-up in a presidential election declared by the courts as marred by violence and malpractice. Before deciding to contest for the presidency, Besigye, now in exile, was President Museveni's long time personal physician and the National Political Commissar of the ruling Movement.
Mr Butera said his team would establish their own grounds for prosecution in spite of the Cabinet's directive after reading the Justice Julia Ssebutinde's report into the purchase of the mi-24 attack helicopters.
More than $10million was lost in the deal, which involved the purchase of two choppers from the former Soviet republic of Belarus .
Among the people recommended for trial are Col Dr Kizza Besigye, former Chief of Logistics and Engineering, Salim Saleh, motor rally ace Emmanuel Katto, and his wife Naomi, the owner of Consolidated Sales Corporation and former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Dr Ben Mbonye.
Others are Uganda Peoples Defence Forces deputy director Joshua Masaba, pilot Col Getahun Kassa, former Bank of Uganda, commercial banking director Cyprian Mwa, former International Credit Bank managing director Patrick Katto and businessman, Kwame Ruyondo.
The Cabinet ordered the Attorney General to lift CSC's corporate veil and proceed personally against Katto, his wife, their overseas colleagues, Max Waterman and Chris Smith and others to recover special damages for the cost of overhaul of the two helicopters.
The aircraft are now standing idle at the main military airport at Entebbe , 32km south of Kampala city. The Cabinet observed that they ought to have been overhauled before being supplied, which was not done.
The Cabinet last week ordered their immediate overhaul so that they could be put to their proper use.
The choppers were bought at the height of an insurgency in north and western Uganda by rebels of Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army and the Allied Democratic Forces. At the time, Uganda had also committed troops to back up rebels fighting the Kinshasa government.
When the case was first investigated, Saleh accepted that he had received a commission of $800,000 in the deal and his brother, President Museveni, corroborated this by saying his sibling confessed to him and that he had ordered him to use the money in the war in northern Uganda
Mr Lukwago, a long standing critic of the Movement government, said that the Cabinet should have recommended that all those implicated be produced in a civilian court, "since this is corruption and the civilian court has the provision and capacity to handle corruption cases."
In its recommendations, the Cabinet directed that implicated army officers should face an army court martial. The report also recommended that officials should be held directly liable for the loss and be prosecuted for corruption, fraud, negligence and other offences
Mr Lukwago says that the failure by the government to prosecute those implicated in the report showed that the Movement system has lost moral authority to lead the country.
The chopper deal is one of the high-profile corruption cases to have been investigated in Uganda .
Additional report by Vincent Mayanja


EXPOSED UGANDAN BANKING SLIGHT OF HAND RESULTS IN PRESIDENT'S BROTHER'S RESIGNATION

The brother of the President of Uganda resigned as a presidential security advisor (AP Dec. 7) over a controversial sale of a former state bank. Maj. General Salim Saleh bought a majority interest in a Malaysian firm, Westmont Berhad, which had earlier bought a 51% stake in the Uganda Commercial Bank. The Chairman of Uganda Commercial Bank is Mr. E. Suruma and the General Manager is Mr. AMO Oder (Alfred). Saleh said he won't be the first to go to jail and explained that he felt no remorse for trying to buy the bank in secret because he felt it should belong to Ugandans. He has written a book entitled: "What is Corruption?"

Salim Saleh
Caleb Akandwanaho (born 14 January, 1960), better known as Salim Saleh, is the Ugandan Minister of State for Microfinance, and fomerly a high ranking military official of UPDF, the armed forces of Uganda. He is a half-brother of the current President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. Salim Saleh has featured in controversies regarding corruption, including being implicated by the UN Security Council for plundering natural resources in Congo (DRC).
Military career
In 1976, aged 16, he left Kako Secondary School in Masaka to join the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA), a Tanzania-based rebel group formed and led by his brother Yoweri Museveni to fight against the regime of Idi Amin. Together with his friend Fred Rwigema and his brother Museveni, he trained in Mozambique with Samora Machel's FRELIMO rebels. It was there that he changed his name to Salim Saleh"Uganda: Our Politicians: Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho", New Vision (published online by AllAfrica), June 5, 2006. In 1978, FRONASA merged with other anti-Amin groups in Tanzania and formed the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), who together with Tanzanian armed forces captured Kampala in April 1979 – sending Idi Amin to exile. Saleh was later made a platoon commander of a UNLA unit in Moroto District.
Following the bitterly contested December 1980 elections, Museveni declared an armed rebellion against the UNLA and the government of Milton Obote. Salim Saleh joined his brother's National Resistance Army (NRA) and the guerilla war known as "the bush war", that would last until 1986. In January 1986, Salim Saleh commanded NRA's assault on Kampala, which eventually led to the demise of Tito Okello's regime, with Museveni becoming president. NRA became the national army, and was renamed Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF), with Salim Saleh as a commander.
Saleh proceeded to command the army against rebel groups that were remnants of the UNLA, including Uganda People's Democratic Army (UPDA), in northern parts of the country. He was instrumental in working out a peace deal with the UPDA. In 1989, following accusations of corruption, he was sacked from the army by his brother. He later became the senior presidential advisor on defence and security (1996 – 1998), and a commander in the reserve force (1990 – 2001), involved in resettling army veterans of the bush war.
Controversies
While still in the army, Salim Saleh ventured into private business and philanthropy, setting up a string of businesses ranging from real estate to aviation, and becoming one of Uganda's wealthiest businessmen, but also getting involved in several corruption scandals.
Uganda Commercial Bank
In 1998, Salim Saleh resigned from his post as presidential advisor, following allegations that Greenland Investments, a company in which he was a major stakeholder, had used the Malasian company, Westmont, to illegaly purchase shares in Ugandas largest bank, Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB)"The role of the International Community", Human Rights Watch"UPDF Regional Issues", Horn of Africa: The Monthly Review, 11-12/98. His brother, President Museveni, later said he'd sacked Salim Saleh, not for his involvement in the scandal, but for "indiscipline and drunkenness" in the army.
Junk helicopters
In 1998, Salim Saleh's company purchased helicopters for the army, for which he received a commission of $800,000. The helicopters turned out to be junk"Uganda: Museveni's New-Look Cabinet Shows He's in Charge", The East African (published online by AllAfrica), May 30, 2006.
Involvement in Congo (DRC)
Salim Saleh was specifically implicated in a UN Security Council report for being involved in the illegal exploitation of natural resources from Congo (DRC) during the Second Congo War"Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo", UN Security Council - S/2002/1146 (excerpts), October 16, 2002. The government of Uganda dismissed the report, and no punitive actions were taken against those involved"Museveni to blame for DR Congo scandal", Daily Monitor, December 25, 2005.
Latest developments
Prior to the 2006 General Elections, Salim Saleh went back to school and obtained an A-level certificate, the minimum requirement to become a member of parliament in Uganda. Following the 2006 general elections, he was appointed Minister of State for Microfinance"Keep out of trouble, Museveni warns Saleh", New Vision, June 9, 2006.

Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu's Curtain Falls As Tears Roll
Cyprian Musoke
26 June 2008
Opinion
Kampala — William Shakespeare, musing about the ironies of life in his classic, Othello, wrote; "They that stand high have many blasts to shake them, and when they fall, they often dash themselves."
Listening to all the testimonies that were said of Dr. Sulaiman Kiggundu (RIP), it was all too clear that he was a man of high standing. In losing Kiggundu, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party no doubt lost a formidable link that held the party together.
And yet, like many a speaker at his funeral acknowledged, the manner in which his business empire slid out of his hands bit by bit, seems to lend credence to Shakespeare's observation of the cruelty of life. "It is sad," the FDC president, Kizza Besigye, said, adding "to see that a person who had so much dies a pauper with people asking what has killed him."
Speaking about the legacy of the man who was FDC's first national chairman at his ancestral home in Ntalomwe village, Kibibi Butambala county in Mpigi district on Tuesday, Besigye made the revelation that Kiggundu had declined to hold the office of national chairman, since there was jostling between regions for the post.
It took a lot of cajoling, he added, cognisant of the political clout that Kiggundu wielded, especially in Buganda region, the Muslim and business community that he accepted the post.
It speaks of the man's humility that despite his contribution with his own dwindling financial resources to establish party branches countrywide, he had agreed to serve the party behind the scenes without an office.
The party president also revealed that the party had unanimously agreed to nominate Kiggundu one of their representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly, but again, out of humility, he declined since many people were clamouring for the prestigious but few positions that had been allotted to FDC.
Love for the Kabaka
That Kiggundu was in the good books of the Kabaka, Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II, and that they personally knew and often spoke to each other, is another indicator of what an important link the FDC has lost with Mengo.
A story is told of when the Kabaka, during his private time, used to visit Entebbe Resort Beach , then owned by Kiggundu's Greenland Group, the latter would usurp the work of the waiters and waitresses, and take to serving the Kabaka, kneeling down in the process as a sign of his unwavering loyalty.
So intense was his love for the Kabaka that many commentators compared it to idolising or worshipping the Kabaka, to the amusement of the hotel patrons and attendants.
In losing Kiggundu, the FDC certainly loses that attachment. It is, therefore, a challenge to the FDC leadership, whether they wish to retain that attachment by replacing Kiggundu with an equally loyal Muganda, of whom the party is not short of.
In his address at the burial, Besigye said Kiggundu had drawn clear plans of a Federal system of government that the FDC would adopt after taking power, an indicator of how convinced the late was about Federalism. Kiggundu is survived by six children and two wives.
Links with Salim Saleh
The beginning of the end started on April 1, 1999, when Greenland Bank was closed and its assets attached. Although a very popular man among the Muslims, a clique of Conservative Muslims were annoyed with Kiggundu when he started entering joint ventures with Maj. Gen. Salim Saleh in some of his businesses.
Many of them looked at it as carelessly courting danger. When Jinja Grain Milling was divested, it is said Salim Saleh approached Greenland Bank to form a joint venture to buy the entity. This made Saleh a shareholder in Greenland Investments, which had a string of other business ventures stretching from the banking to the education sector.
It is also said Saleh got Greenland Investments to buy the Uganda Commercial Bank behind the proxy of Westmond. Was the role of Salim Saleh in entering joint ventures with Greenland Investments purely for business or was it political? This still remains a question in many people's minds. In 2002, Kiggundu was sent to Luzira Prison on charges of causing financial loss to Greenland Bank and with his only remaining asset, First Insurance Company.
In 2005, he was elected National Chairman of FDC, which he was till his death on June 21, in South Africa 's Donald and Gordon Hospital .
Greenland struggles
Just after the closure of his bank, Kiggundu, contemplating legal action against the Central Bank, blamed then finance minister Gerald Ssendaula and Bank of Uganda Governor Charles Kikonyogo for statements tarnishing his image and that of the bank.
"My reputation is the most important asset and not riches which I don't have," he told a press conference at his residence in Kampala . He said Greenland board of directors had for sometime sought audience with the finance minister to iron out the differences between them, but had been given a cold shoulder.
He added that his removal from the position of managing director of Greenland was illegal, and that the Central Bank governor had no powers to remove him. All he could do was initiate legal proceedings for such action. He blamed the Central Bank for being responsible for the closure of Greenland Bank, and later selling off all his property.

The writer is a journalist

Ugandans should buy shares in the Oil undertakings

The World Bank Vice President for Africa, Ms. Obiageli Ezekwesili

There is good evidence that if oil mining if not well handled, many Ugandans will remain impoverished. I am of the opinion that there should be sell of shares to Ugandans not only as a means to raise capital for the works, but also to ensure that Ugandans keep interested in what is going on as oil under normal circumstances should pay off if the public invest their money in it.
For instance, if a core investor is given 30% shares, Ugandans also 30%, Government 20% and interested foreign interests 20%, chances that the oil deal would be managed well may be possible.
William Kituuka
World Bank Vice President for Africa to Visit Uganda, Tanzania
KAMPALA, April 30, 2010— The World Bank Vice President for Africa, Ms. Obiageli Ezekwesili, will visit Uganda and Tanzania (May 2 – 7) to re-focus attention on how best the governments of the two countries can seize the opportunity offered by the discovery of vast natural resources (oil in Uganda and significant reserves of gems in Tanzania) and a rebound in growth to strengthen the momentum for poverty reduction.
While in Uganda, May 2-4, Ms. Ezekwesili will meet with President Yoweri Museveni, and will, during her stay in Tanzania, attend the 20th World Economic Forum on Africa which will be hosted by President Jakaya Kikwete in Dar es Salaam.
The forum, convened under the theme, “Rethinking Africa’s Growth Strategy” is expected to attract over 1,000 participants from 85 countries, including eleven African heads of state/government.
Ms. Ezekwesili will discuss the Ugandan government’s preparedness for the management of oil and the growth prospects that would transform Uganda into a middle-income country. She will also meet with civil society organizations, private sector, and the key accountability institutions to consult them on the Bank’s Africa Regional Strategy, and how to strengthen the governance and anticorruption agenda.
Ms. Ezekwesili’s participation at the 20th World Economic Forum on Africa will involve attending sessions covering the Global Education initiative; Opportunities for Trade and Development in Africa; and the opportunities and challenges brought about by Africa’s fast-growing population. She will also participate in discussions on energy, agricultural development and new models of collaboration for economic development in Africa.
Ms. Ezekwesili’s visit to Uganda and Tanzania comes just a week after the World Bank member countries voted in favor of a capital increase for the institution; boosted the share of emerging countries on the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors from 44 percent to 47 percent; granted Africa an additional (third) chair on its Board of Executive Directors which will later this month discuss a new Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) for Uganda. The new CAS is aligned with the recently launched National Development Plan.
Ms. Ezekwesili was appointed Vice President of the Bank in May 2007. Prior to joining the Bank, she held various senior positions within the Government of Nigeria, including Minister of Education and Minister of Solid Minerals Development.

Need for Transparency in Uganda Oil Deals
Oil contracts in Uganda do not provide enforceable protection standards regarding the environment or the human rights of Ugandan citizens, relying on the oil companies to operate reasonably and altruistically. In this context, it is clear that extracting the oil discovered in the Albertine Graben is highly unlikely to bring overall benefits in terms of economic development, let alone environmental protection or human rights to the region. The Ugandan government and companies have repeatedly criticised comparisons with Nigeria, Angola, Ecuador or other oil producing countries in the global south, asking why the focus is on those countries with negative social & economic outcomes from oil. Yet despite their promises of corporate responsibility, the oil companies foremost legal responsibility is to maximize profits for their shareholders other commitments can be sacrificed to achieve this. This is made explicit in Heritage 2008 Prospectus to potential shareholders. The failure of the contracts to protect Uganda is compounded in that national law and oil policies do not currently provide enough specific and enforceable obligations to promote responsible regulation of [the oil & gas] sector, especially with regard to protection of the environment. While the government claims that it will present a new oil law to parliament imminently, there is as yet no sign of it. Current negotiations over development plans with the oil companies continue to place the cart before the horse.


When the petrodollar cannot save Nigerians from food insecurity
Okello Oculi
The British coloniser robbed villages of the men who would have produced food while, buoyed by petrodollars, the generals silenced everybody —
including farmers — into inactivity as the sector stagnated, writes Okello Oculi
It has become a cliché to blame oil wealth for the food insecurity in Nigeria . This widely-held view ignores the destruction of the agricultural sector by the colonial and post-1966 military dictatorships.
To appreciate the destruction brought about by British military dictatorship, politicians and officials of the Ministry of Agriculture should read doctoral theses and other researches by historians at the Ahmadu Bello University in the 1970s and 1980s.
For instance, Mahmoud Tukur’s doctoral work contains reports by provincial commissioners in which British settlers and District Officers celebrated deaths from famine of hundreds of thousands of villagers and traditional Hausa urban communities.
The famine had been predicted by them after they had herded thousands of able-bodied males to build government offices, construct railway lines and roads; and dig soils on the Jos Plateau to extract tin and other minerals. No provision had been made to feed families whose crop productions had drastically fallen because the women, old men and children left behind could not compensate for the labour stolen from their traditional agricultural sector.
Orphaned farmers
The new regime of famine only deepened as British colonial dictatorship grew in length and economic greed. No wonder, Nigeria ’s independence in 1960 was welcomed by profound food insecurity.
The post-1966 military regimes denied political power to the voices and hunger of the over 80 per cent of the population that lived by agriculture and agricultural trade in the rural areas. Military dictators banned elected parliaments, state assemblies and local councils.
The groups of politicians that rural farmers could have put pressure on to improve agriculture were silenced. The orphaned millions of rural farmers and urban food marketers and processors had no voices to demand that huge amounts of wealth earned from oil exports be invested in agricultural development.
Instead, hundreds of millions of naira was spent to import beef and frozen chicken from Brazil and elsewhere; canned juices and beer from Holland, Israel and elsewhere thereby denying investment in new levels and forms of production by rural communities.
The silencing of rural communities also had the terrible effect of stopping them from making demands on the education sector. Village communities could not demand that the content of primary school education should reflect the needs of their economic activities. Likewise, with the subjects taught in secondary schools.
Village communities could not put pressure on technical schools and colleges to create tools for sinking boreholes and building small dams and methods of preserving mangoes and fruit juices over long periods. In fact, the vast local food sector, including cassava, yam and vegetable sub sectors were insulted as non cash crops.
That exciting legend in American economic history of black Americans inventing technologies for storing pounded fried groundnuts (into peanut butter) making and preserving marmalades and jam, etc, remained unknown and shut out from these military epochs in Nigeria’s economic history.
The contrast is more dramatic at university levels: Whereas American farmers and local tax payers demanded that their local and federal governments should create and support 106 “land grant” universities to serve their needs for scientific and industrial knowledge and tools for economic progress, the American scenario had very limited echoes among the vast majority of Nigeria ’s economic producers.
The experiences of thousands of Nigerians who studied in America’s land-grant universities (like Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, the University networks of Wisconsin and California) failed to resonate back into Nigeria’s policy towards agriculture and agribusiness precisely because the political pressure group that would have forced politicians to do so vegetated in silence under military boots.
This political disease was not limited to Nigeria . It is remarkable that it is only at its January 2007 summit that African presidents (meeting as the African Union), announced that they would encourage “more African youth to take up studies in science, technology and engineering, and invite Member States to pay special attention to the teaching of science and technology”.
To achieve this they stated that they would ensure “the enhanced role and the revitalisation of African universities and other African institutions of higher education as well as scientific and technology and engineering education and development...”
This new wisdom came after over 40 years of independence for most African countries. Military dictators all across Africa had failed to see that the military might of the United States and the European Union countries had vital roots in agricultural and agriculture-related industrialisation. Not needing votes from rural communities, military dictators worried more about guns and death from bullets as key tools of their power.
Yet the post-1966 military rulers are not the only ones to blame. Nigeria ’s private sector also remained blind to the linkage that the Japanese, Koreans, Americans and Europeans had always made between universities and economic productivity. Those of them who were merely retail and wholesale traders were comfortable with dealing with goods whose production techniques they cared little about and were not interested in supporting research that would have resulted in their being produced locally.
They were comfortable with having their stomachs and throats colonised by whiskies, brandies, beers, imported beef and confectioneries that were products of external universities and technical institutes.
Bankers remain contemptuously indifferent to calls for loans to kick-start the growth of cottage technologies to fuel small and medium scale enterprises. The rich field of scientific innovation (from work in biotechnology, raw materials-related technology, and from agricultural products, etc), remains too imagination-intensive to compete with more exciting money-spinners like recycling foreign currencies or funding oil bunkering, or holding in their vaults salaries for staff of ministries, parastatals and universities and funds for capital projects.
Bankers have also failed to intervene in the vital field of effective transport for moving agricultural products. In their book: Nigeria’s Economic Crisis: Causes and Solution, a team of academics at the Ahmadu Bello University, showed that British companies that once controlled the importation of motor vehicles for the Nigerian market, conspired with local officials in charge of railway administration to cripple the country’s railway transport system.
In the 1970s, these British companies found new local allies in owners of oil tankers as and road building contractors. Oil tankers destroy roads thereby sustaining demands for contracts for road repairs.
The reliance on roads and non-existent roads causes severe problems for farmers. Cattle alone are tortured and starved in trips from markets in Maiduguri, Yola, Sokoto, Kano (in the far north) to consumer sites like Port Harcourt, Enugu, Lagos, Ibadan (in the far south). Tomatoes and mangoes rot under un-refrigerated conditions as they are trucked to the markets.
Strange banking logic
Despite their awareness of this destructive economic regime, Nigeria ’s bankers have failed to lobby for and put pressure on the media and civil society groups to campaign for pro-rail transport policies.
A strange banking logic has grown as more branches are opened to serve increasingly impoverished and stagnant rural agricultural and semi-industrial sectors.
Finally, the banking sector has continued to ignore the fact that of the highly developed economies of the world, only Switzerland has a record of less than 50 per cent of its population being university graduates.
Moreover, industrial success stories like Japan , South Korea and Singapore have combined compulsory universal primary education with heavy investment in large numbers of students and professionals in high technological colleges, academies of engineering, and institutes engaged in the promotion technological innovation.
By a bizarre conspiracy, bankers have remained silent as high visibility has continued to be given by the media and elite culture to student enrolments into Law degree courses and the practice of Law that have no planned linkage with increased productivity in agriculture and industry. In this blame game, Nigeria ’s diplomats may not be innocent.
It is clear for example, that Gambia imports rice from Thailand in massive quantities. The imports enter markets as far away as Mali and Nigeria .
In this game, the immediate losers are rice producers in the inland delta on the River Niger inside Mali ; rice producers in the Niger , Kano and Ebonyi states in Nigeria .
Gambia is, therefore used as pathway of economic sabotage. It is not clear that Nigeria ’s diplomats (who habitually work behind the backs of peasant farmers who lack this information and its implications for their prosperity), have evolved a policy for dealing with this challenge of economic diplomacy.
They have certainly not mobilised students of colleges of agriculture to mount demonstrations against Gambia ’s economic diplomacy and its implications for the prosperity of citizens of Ecowas. Neither have they urged these students to demand that Japan ’s monopoly of the car market in Nigeria be compensated by capital to support technological innovation in processing shea-butter nuts into products ranging from cosmetics to medicines.
The way forward is to view Nigeria ’s food security within a framework that is historically and sector-wise wider than ensuring adequate supplies of cereals.
The vital issue of democratic politics; of developing the power of voices of the rural communities in influencing economic policies and economic diplomacy; of industrially innovative and relevant education; and the role of the intellectual leadership of the private sector, must all be brought into debates and policies relevant to the agricultural sector.
Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media
Network Project.

It is alleged by the Observer; a Uganda Newspaper in a story run on February 8, 2010; " Deal tilted in favour of oil companies.
Contract could make Uganda poorer" The 40-page report titled: Contracts Curse: Uganda%u2019s Oil Agreements Place Profit Before People, that extensively quotes the agreements the government has kept under wraps, reveals that oil firms will reap extra-ordinary profits. The report by PLATFORM, a London-based organization, says that as a result of this, extraction of millions of barrels of crude oil on Block 3A is most likely going to exacerbate poverty, increase human rights violations, entrench the power of military forces and distort the Ugandan economy.
Don't you think a petition to the Government of Uganda over this matter is rightly placed now?
The matter has a new twist when a Member of Parliament for Mbarara Municipality; John Arimpa Kigyagi says that the Parliamentary Committee on Natural Resources received copies of the oil sharing agreements but are barred by a confidentiality clause to release the information to the public; while the New Vision newspaper of Friday, 5th March 2010 reports that, "yet another company in the name of Dominion Petroleum, a UK firm exploring for oil and gas in Kanungu and Rukungiri districts is to sell $50million to raise funds for its drilling campaign."
The above developments call for greater transparency by the Government of Uganda. It is not clear why an organ of the Government of Uganda; Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) does not handle the transaction.

Oil Drilling to Start in Uganda by 2010
Source: www.gulfoilandgas.com 9/5/2006, Location: Africa
Drilling
Uganda is expected commence oil drilling by 2010 following the recent impressive exploration results by Australian-based Hardman Resources Ltd., Minister for Energy and Minerals Development Daudi Migereko told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday.
Migereko said that, based on the current exploration results, Uganda could produce an estimated 14,000 barrels of oil a day. The ministry is currently formulating a national gas and energy policy that will guide the oil exploration and exploitation, the policy is expected to be in place by the end of this year.
The Ministry of Energy and Minerals says Hardman plans to present an oil development program to the government by 2008, to secure a petroleum production license. For its part, the government says it is working hard to provide a peaceful environment to ensure that the oil exploration and mining companies carry out operations without any disruption.
As part of its move to develop the mining industry, the government has signed a $5-million contract with South African-based Fugro Airborne Surveys to conduct mineral surveys, Migereko said.

Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media
Network Project.
Eni to Buy Heritage's 50% Interest in Uganda
Source: www.gulfoilandgas.com 11/23/2009, Location: Africa
Oil & Gas Companies
Eni and Heritage have reached an agreement with respect to the assignment of the 50% interest which Heritage holds in blocks 1 and 3A in Uganda for a total amount of 1.35 billion US dollars. An additional consideration of US$150 million, in cash or assets, is also foreseen provided certain conditions are met in the future. The agreement also envisages the transfer of the operatorship in the two blocks to Eni.
Blocks 1 and 3A, which are located in the Lake Albert basin, one of the most important African sedimentary basins, have resources for more than 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, of which approximately 700 million have already been discovered from about 28 wells drilled in the area.
The development of these resources will require great synergy with Uganda's infrastructure programs, in respect of which Eni intends to play a leading role in partnership with the Authorities.
The transaction is part of Eni's growth strategy in the African continent and in the Sub-Saharan region in particular, where the company is committed to pursuing an approach of sustainable development through its staff, expertise and technologies.
Eni considers Uganda, which has achieved economic growth through effective policies, an ideal partner for the development of cooperation programs aimed at sustaining the region's social, economic, and industrial development.
The agreement is subject to finalization of a full sale and purchase agreement, approval by the competent authorities and other customary conditions. Eni has been present in the Sub-Saharan region since the 1960s, and is currently also an operator in the main oil-producing countries of Angola, Ghana, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Gabon and Mozambique. Eni's operated production in the region amounts to about 450,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Cnooc May Join Tullow in Developing Uganda’s Oil
Source: Bloomberg 1/26/2010, Location: Africa
Oil & Gas Companies
China National Offshore Oil Corp. is interested in teaming up with Tullow Oil Plc to help develop Uganda’s energy resources, the president’s office said. Company officials from China National and Tullow held talks with President Yoweri Museveni yesterday, his office said in an e-mailed statement.
China, the world’s second-largest energy consumer, is seeking assets in Africa to secure fuel for its booming economy. Tullow is engaged in a battle with Eni SpA, Italy’s biggest energy producer, for oil assets being sold in Uganda by Heritage Oil Plc.
Last week, Tullow exercised its right of first refusal over the blocks which it co-owns with Heritage, in an effort to thwart an agreed $1.5 billion deal with Eni.
“The government of Uganda will reach a decision in the coming weeks on the current process of pre-emption that will respect the contractual rights of the existing companies,” the president’s office said.
International energy producers are competing for assets in Africa as traditional fields go into decline and after nations from Venezuela to Russia curbed access to their resources.
Uganda is an “attractive zone,” Jean-Jacques Mosconi, head of strategy at Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil company, said last week.
The Financial Times reported today that Tullow has presented Uganda with the choice of Cnooc or Total as potential partners. Total spokeswoman Phenelope Semavoine declined to comment when reached by phone.
Uganda’s government is trying to maximize the benefits of its oil resources after economic growth slowed last year. Per- capita income in sub-Saharan Africa dropped for the first time in a decade in 2009, with 7 million more people falling into poverty in the region, the World Bank said on Jan. 21.
Uganda plans to bank all its oil revenue then use a percentage of the accrued interest to fund its budget, government minister Henry Okello Oryem said Dec. 29.
The Tullow delegation was led by Chief Operating Officer Paul McDade and Elly Karuhanga, the company’s president for Uganda.
The Ugandan government “looks forward to welcoming new companies” in the oil industry as well as discussing proposals by existing operators, the president’s office said.
Li Shiqiang, a Beijing-based press officer at China National, didn’t answer calls to his office telephone.
Shortlist
Tullow, the U.K. explorer with the most licenses in Africa, has drawn up a shortlist of partners to help with the estimated $5 billion cost of developing its Ugandan oil fields. Tullow had wanted to sell as much as 50 percent of three combined blocks in the Lake Albert region.
Detailed plans regarding field exploration, a refinery, power generation and a possible pipeline across Tanzania or Kenya to export oil will be presented to Uganda’s government in the first week of February, Tullow’s Chief Executive Officer Aidan Heavey has said.
Provisional Backing
Last week, Uganda’s Energy Minister Hillary Onek gave his provisional backing to Eni in preference to Tullow over the assets being sold. Heavey flew to Uganda late last week to press the company’s case with Museveni.
The dispute centers upon Heritage Oil’s 50 percent share in Blocks 1 and 3A in Lake Albert which are up for sale. Shareholders in the St. Helier, Jersey-based company approved the proposed asset sale yesterday, with 99.99 percent of votes cast in favor. The sale is expected to be completed in the first quarter.
Eni said Nov. 23 it had signed a letter of intent with Heritage to buy its share of the fields for as much as $1.5 billion. The sale may yield as much as $400 million in capital gains tax for Uganda, Onek said last week.
The Italian energy producer has been seeking to expand reserves with fields in Africa, central Asia and the Gulf of Mexico after output cuts from disruptions in Nigeria.
About 1.5 billion barrels of oil are still to be discovered in the Lake Albert Rift Basin, according to Tullow estimates. More than 700 million barrels have already been found.
Tullow, which operates in 15 African states, plans to produce at least 5,000 barrels a day in Uganda in 2012, with output rising to 150,000 barrels a day within five years.

Power is the most disturbing problem in doing business in Uganda

Hon. Hilary Onek, Minister of Energy & Mineral Development
It is becoming very hard to do business which has to depend on UMEME formerly Uganda Electricity Board (UEB) power supply. It is very disturbing,and the Minister; Hon. Hilary Onek must be the most disturbed because his area is a good reflection of the role of poor planning. It disturbs to see that in some areas like Lweza on Entebbe Highway,power has to get off at least once a day! And you fail to understand why an area over a mile always has similar power problems. If it is the load,why can't those concerned balance it?
William Kituuka

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development is a government ministry of Uganda, with offices in Kampala. The mandate of the Ministry, according to its website, is "To establish, promote the development, strategically manage and safeguard the rational and sustainable exploitation and utilization of energy and mineral resources for social and economic development"
The Monitor (Kampala)
Uganda: Mr Hilary Onek, Be Very Careful What You Ask for
Fredrick Masiga
10 November 2009
When I read that Eng. Hilary Onek - Energy minister - would seek the counsel of President Museveni over the 'indiscipline' of his Permanent Secretary Fredrick Kabagambe-Kaliisa, I thought immediately that the 'oil fever' had taken over his thought process. But I will return to this point later.
Onek is hardly 10 months in office but fights in the Energy ministry started as soon as it was rumoured that he was being proposed for the portfolio. And since his ascendance, there have been countless rumours, back stabbing and head-on accusations. Perhaps that's the difference between him and his predecessor. He is a light-footed 'trouble maker' where everyone minds his own grocery.
By any measure Onek's proposal to cut down power tariffs and stop the hemorrhaging of taxpayers' resources within the energy sector is welcome and must be supported by right thinking Ugandans. Ordinary folks who consume electricity do not know the extent to which they are being fleeced, and at a time when there is an oil rush with parties waving treasury-bursting tenders and eager to sign off concessions at a 'small fee' it is important that a keen eye is kept on what Uganda will walk away with.
Onek has proposed a review of the Umeme concession agreement with a view to delete what he sees as unfair clauses in the agreement that have caused tariffs hikes and financial loss to the country - isn't that just fair for all Ugandans? Unfortunately it turns out he does not seem to trust anyone below him. So, he constitutes a commission of inquiry to investigate Umeme - the electricity distributor. The commission, it is said, was actually picked for him by President Museveni because as a hydrologist Onek on his own would know better than to pick a 'layman' as the chairman of such a highly technical inquiry.
So, mistake number one; the composition of the commission lacked the sophistication required by the job it was meant to perform. Mistake number two; the investigations focused on a finished product and left out generation and transmission processes. The concession agreements for the three arms of the sector are very interrelated, it would only be wise to overhaul the whole sector instead of doing what is now being perceived as a 'witch hunt' on Umeme.

Salim Saleh's team found out that Shs300 billion had gone missing and Onek is blood thirsty to get somebody account for it. However, he is perhaps oblivious of the fact that his ministry is the most sought after because it has the most lucrative deals available in government. The political interest in the energy sector is only second to the ministry of Defense. That only means that there is not a pin that will drop in the hallway of those two without the knowledge of highest authority in the land.
This brings me to my first paragraph. The sight of Onek rushing away to Museveni with a running nose over Umeme and other issues in the ministry draws only sympathy for a man on trial.

We -the taxpayers - wait with nostalgic expectation that one day, just one day power tariffs will reduce. That however is being overtaken by global events. The current trends in the global energy industry indicate that power will continue to be expensive for a long time to come - not even when Bujagali and Karuma are completed. As a confessed environmentalist, Onek should concentrate on preaching renewable energy sources and leave groceries to those who have both ambition and might to fight for them. Onek only has ambition.

Kampala's erratic electricity supply has had a significant impact on businesses across the board. From large corporations to small companies, all have had to adapt to lengthy power cuts. Stuart Price reports from the Ugandan capital.
On the day that African Business visited the Paradise Internet cafe along Entebbe Road, business was brisk. Of the six functioning computers allowing users to surf the internet, write word documents or chat online, some machines had three people huddled around its VDU and keyboard.
Waiting patiently both inside and out of the modest, open-front establishment, were perhaps another dozen individuals, eager to take full advantage of the electricity which was coursing through the mains.
But it is not always like this in Paradise. Since the introduction of a '24 hour on-24 hour off' electricity supply to Kampala, many businesses have been straining under the new schedule.
Fred Sebaggaala, the 20-year-old manger of Paradise Internet says they used to open from early morning until midnight, but since the introduction of the new load-shedding programme, they can only open while they are serviced with electricity from the national grid.
"It has reduced our income greatly as people work during the day," he says. "Now, when the power is off, they cannot come and use our services in the evening. I estimate our weekly income has been reduced by around 70% as a result."
He adds that the business has not increased its prices as it would scare customers away. "Our only option during periods of no power is to close. Generators and fuel are too expensive for a small outfit like ours; it is an extra cost we cannot afford."
For such a small operation with modest earnings, the new schedule has hit it hard and there are few choices other than to just suffer the lengthy outages. "We are looking at alternatives and are planning to bring in more computers to increase our facilities when we have power. This is the only way we can cover the loss of revenue when the power is off," Sebaggaala adds.
But things could be about to change. From the beginning of 2007 the introduction of thermal power will account for 150MW of electricity in addition to the 135MW that is created by hydro-power. Originally, the combined capacity of Nalubaale and Kiira, the two dams which make up Owen Falls, was 300MW. They are currently only producing 120MW.
Uganda's current peak demand period requires around 380MW, while the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) estimates only 122MW is available.
Until earlier this year, the vast majority of Uganda's electricity was provided by the Owen Falls dam at the beginning of the White Nile which flows directly out of Lake Victoria. However, due to persistently below average rainfall over recent years, the level of water in the lake has reduced significantly, thus lowering the amount of water flowing out into the Nile and passing through to the hydro-electric power generating dams.
As a result, operational capacity has been reduced by about half, which has led to the current load-shedding programme of 24 hours on-24 hours off.
Who is to blame for the power crisis remains unclear. Accusations have been flying from all sides over who is responsible; from Mother Nature and the environment, to the government and incompetent management, to the colonialists and companies' bad planning when the two dams were designed and built.
What is clear, though, is that the Victoria Basin, the catchment area from which rainfall feeds Lake Victoria, is one of the most densely populated areas on the planet. And with rainfall persistently failing to reach previous and required levels--perhaps as a result of global warming and changing weather patterns--and with the population continuing to expand and grow, it appears there is not going to be any form of quick-fix solution to the current quandary and crisis. Alternatives are needed.
Concern over higher tariffs
With thermal power costing an estimated three times that of hydro-power to produce, tariffs are set to rise yet again for the consumer. This comes on the back of already increased prices of 37% in June, a further 25% in October while another 20% revision is expected in February 2007. The hikes come as a result of the main national electricity distribution company, the South-African led consortium Umeme, putting up prices because of the decreased amount of electricity being produced.
For many in Kampala, this poses something of a dilemma. The current schedule is frustrating to say the least, and although it is a well-used cliche, you really do not realise what you have got until it is gone. So for some, all that is required is a regular power supply in order to operate normally. However, with the forecast increases, it is a possibility that only a percentage will be able to afford it.
Concerns over price increases have led to nervousness throughout the business community. So much so that President Yoweri Museveni was compelled to comment on the situation. Speaking at Uganda's 14th International Trade Fair Exhibition, he said tariffs would be raised without his direct consultation.
"This is the last energy crisis we shall have in Uganda, even for the future. This issue of electricity in the next three years shall be history. We have learnt enough lessons," he told the applauding crowd of manufacturers and businesspeople.
The introduction of extra power through thermal generation will undoubtedly be welcomed by many, but as a result will leave tariffs dictated by the international market.
Already the early predictions look ominous. The regional weekly newspaper The East African suggested...


50,000 clients sue Umeme over bills
By Ephraim Kasozi
Posted Tuesday, April 27 2010 at 00:00
Kampala
The High Court yesterday permitted some 50,000 electricity consumers to sue the national power distributor, Umeme Limited, over alleged wrong power billing and use of defective meters.
Ms Gladys Nakibuule, the Commercial Court registrar, said it is in order for four complainants; Joseph Kasozi, Paul Kazinda Kasozi, Marcellinus Idumu and Ismail Dabule to institute litigation on behalf of their colleagues. “[The] applicants are granted permission to institute a representative suit against the respondents [Umeme] on their own behalf and on behalf of other numerous electricity consumers who have [the] same interest,” Ms Nakibuule said.
The petitioners are seeking a court declaration that Umeme over-charged its clients by inflating monthly electricity bills and using faulty meters. “[Our prayer is for] a declaration that the complainants’ current electricity bills and accounts should be adjusted to reflect the true billing and that the applicants are entitled to compensation because of the overcharges ...,” reads part of complaint.
However, Umeme Head of Corporate Communication Charlotte Kemigyisha said last night she could not comment because the company was not yet aware of the court action. She had not returned our calls by press time.
It is understood the litigation derives from findings by an ad hoc government team, headed by Gen. Salim Saleh, President Museveni’s brother, which reported that Umeme is charging its clients exorbitantly and recommended an immediate reduction in the electricity tariffs.
Last year, Energy Minister Hillary Onek appointed Gen. Saleh to head a commission to inquire about alleged high electricity tariffs. The government is studying the report.

The trials of Betty Kamya

SHOWING LOVE: Some of Ms Kamya’s supporters who were blocked from getting to the FDC head offices yesterday. PHOTO BY ISAAC KASAMANI
Kayihura blocks anti-FDC protest
By Gerald Bareebe & Sarah Gauvin
Posted Wednesday, April 28 2010 at 00:00
Kampala
The Inspector General of Police, Gen. Kale Kayihura, yesterday ordered the police to block supporters of MP Beti Kamya from reaching the FDC headquarters in Kampala citing security concerns. The supporters of the Rubaga North MP were protesting her expulsion from the Forum for Democratic Change party, saying she was not given a fair hearing.
Deserter
The FDC disciplinary committee expelled Kamya two weeks ago after she thrice failed to honour its summons. In the decision announced on the eve of the party’s delegates conference, Ms Kamya was expelled after being found “guilty” of desertion and hostility towards the FDC.
Yesterday’s demonstration, political watchers said, was meant to be a show of strength by Ms Kamya against the party she helped found five years ago but disagreed with, leading to her suspension in February last year and eventual expulsion this year. In a letter to the commander of the Kampala Metropolitan police, Gen. Kayihura, said, “In the interest of peace and security, no demonstration by the group should be allowed.”
The protesters had planned to march from Nakulabye to FDC head offices at Najjanankumbi, a Kampala suburb, to deliver a petition to party president Kizza Besigye challenging Ms Kamya’s dismissal. But as news of the planned demonstration spread to Najjanankubi, the FDC youth wing led by vice chairman Francis Mwijukye and party secretary for internal affairs Francis Natukunda organised a counter force.
About 50 youth carrying clubs stood at FDC headquarters waiting to “deal with” the dozens of the pro-Kamya protesters. “We are waiting for them now and (are) ready to handle them,” Ms Alice Alaso, the FDC secretary general, said. “These are members of another party who want to disrupt our programmes. Kamya said she left FDC a long time ago but she is now organising hooligans to attack us. We have informed police and our youth are ready for them.” But some officials at Najjanankumbi had apparently alerted the police, fearing possible chaos which prompted preventive deployment to foil the demonstration.
Daily Monitor was told yesterday that Gen. Kayihura, after a telephone conversation with former Army Commander, Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu, ordered the Katwe Division Police Commander to block protesters from going past the Kibuye round-about.
Ms Kamya’s supporters had apparently earlier mobilised at Nakulabye to plan their march towards Najjanankumbi. “FDC members in Rubaga applied to be allowed to demonstrate against the expulsion of Hon. Beti Kamya from FDC without a fair hearing. They planned to deliver a petition to FDC but since the recipients of the petition have not responded as being ready for the same, no demonstration shall take place,” read Gen. Kayihura’s instruction signed on his behalf by one Joseph Mugisa. He instead asked the pro-Kamya group to drop their petition at Kibuye Post Office so that it can get delivered to Dr Besigye peacefully.
“We are very surprised that our bosses in FDC can refuse to meet us and even entrust the police to stop our demonstration, yet, they always lead us in demonstration against the government even when the police says we should not,” read a statement signed by Robert Lwatutte, calling himself the FDC general secretary for Rubaga constituency. “This means that FDC is really worse than NRM, if they can even instruct the police to stop our demonstration. What if they were in government! Wouldn’t they have teargassed us?”
The members said they were giving FDC leadership a two-week ultimatum to respond to their concerns, warning that failure to do so would mean returning 5,000 party cards.

Beti Kamya warns Besigye
RUBUGA North MP Beti Kamya has warned Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) President Kizza Besigye and other party officials against fighting her.
“It is dangerous for FDC leaders to fight me because if I choose to fight back, which I have not yet done, the party has more to lose than to gain,” she said.
In an interview with Saturday Vision on Thursday, Kamya said she had been keenly following Besigye’s efforts to isolate and destroy her politically.
She said in a recent meeting of FDC supporters in London, he spent a lot of time speaking ill about her, alleging that she was sent by President Yoweri Museveni to destroy the party.
Kamya’s problems with her party reached a climax in July when she resigned from her post of special envoy to the party president. She accused FDC of manipulating its constitution to favour some officials while marginalising Baganda. “It is not wise for FDC to fight me as an individual instead of addressing the issues I raised. Who cannot see the marginalisation of Buganda in FDC?
Who doesn’t know that Sam Njuba is the only Muganda holding a senior position in FDC?” Kamya asked.
Her sentiments are shared by a number of Baganda FDC members. The FDC mobiliser for Masaka district, Hajji Abdu Kitandwe, says the Baganda are better represented in the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) than FDC.
“The party president, chairman, the treasurer, chief mobiliser, administrator, deputy spokesman, electoral commission chairman and deputy secretary general are all from the west. From Buganda, we have only Njuba holding a senior position. We are right to say that Buganda is marginalised,” Kitandwe told Saturday Vision.
In the NRM government, Vice President Gilbert Bukenya, Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi, the Speaker of Parliament Edward Ssekandi and six of the 22 cabinet ministers are Baganda.
The ministers from Buganda include The Attorney General, Kiddu Makubuya, the IT minister, Peter Mulira, the environment minister, Maria Mutagamba, the gender minister, Syda Bbumba and the trade and tourism minister, Janet Mukwaya.
Kamya said she is disappointed by Besigye for not appreciating her devotion and loyalty to him since 2001 when he first stood for presidential elections.
“It is shocking that such a person I have unreservedly served and supported could make ploys to undermine my political career,” Kamya lamented.
She was recently quoted in the media as saying that her FDC party is worse than NRM when confronted with divergent issues.
But Besigye argues that Kamya’s fight is unjustified since the party’s National Executive Committee resolved her matter.
“Kamya’s main concern is that we tampered with the constitution. We held a meeting and we unanimously agreed with the help of legal advisors including Yusuf Nsibambi that the constitution was not broken,” he told Saturday Vision.
In an interview with the Weekly Observer earlier this week, Besigye said Kamya’s resignation was not a disaster for the party. He said grassroots dynamics matter more than the actions of individuals. “Loss of any member is hurtful but you need to understand that sometimes even loss of a member can be advantageous,” Besigye said.
“If a member is lost because of genuine grievances, then it is something to worry about. But if there is no grievance and somebody, for personal reasons, decides to go, I don’t think there is something to shed tears about.”
Tuesday meeting
A meeting of party officials from Buganda was called and chaired by Besigye on Tuesdayl. It resolved that disciplinary action should be taken against Kamya over “continuous provocative statements.”
During a memorial service for Ben Kiwanuka at Rubaga Cathedral last week, Kamya had said DP’s slogan ‘Truth and Justice’ was the best.
“DP’s slogan is the reason we are fighting,” she was quoted saying.
Kamya had been invited to the Tuesday meeting to inform the party whether she was still committed to the party’s interests but she did not turn up.
It is reported that members were dismayed over Kamya’s negative statements about the party and her action of attending DP party activities while refusing to attend FDC functions and activities.
The meeting also recommended that the National Executive Council pardons John Kikonyogo, Kamya’s ally in the early days after her resignation, so that he continues serving as the party’s deputy secretary for mobilisation and organisation.
Kikonyogo, who attended the Tuesday meeting, had been suspended together with 11 other officials over making radio announcements to cancel the FDC grassroots elections in Buganda. As a result, the FDC elections flopped. The party has since made several unsuccessful attempts to organize elections.
Others suspended over the radio announcements include Kawempe chairman Joseph Jingo, Kampala district publicist Joseph Byayi, Badru Ssekyanzi, Jimmy Mayanja, and Dan Muwonge.
The party has also suspended the six ring leaders who recently led a group of about 100 Baganda FDC youth to Masaka. In Masaka, the youth held rallies where they attacked their party leader, accusing him of being anti-Buganda, sectarian and undemocratic.
Kamya’s resignation and the suspension of other FDC officials have impacted negatively on FDC in the strategic Buganda region.
The Tuesday meeting, therefore, decided that mobilisation in Buganda should begin immediately, spearheaded by the Buganda leadership in the party, to counter Kamya’s statements.
Aaron Mukwaya, a political analyst, cautions that maligning popular individuals within a given party could hurt that party badly. He believes that because multi-party politics has not matured in Uganda, individuals are stronger than their parties.
“Be it NRM or FDC, the strength of each of those parties is in its leaders. An NRM without Museveni would be like what UPC is now. The same applies to FDC without Besigye.”
He, however, notes that Kamya is the most influential Muganda in FDC. “An FDC without her may mean no FDC in Buganda. That is why the grassroots elections that had been organised without her flopped,” Mukwaya argued.
Her next move
So what is next for Beti Kamya? She says she plans to mobilise a ‘block vote’ of Baganda in the next presidential elections and give it to the candidate who will meet the region’s demands.
Kamya says the Buganda bloc will enter negotiations with political parties and sign a formal agreement with the one that gives them the best deal.
About two weeks ago, on Idd day, she started her drive in Masaka district, where she addressed a big crowd at Lusozi playground in Kalungu. She told the gathering that Baganda have been used as ladders by all the past regimes and that it was time they devised measures to stop that.
“I have been studying the behaviour of politicians. The way they talk when looking for support is different from the way they act when they assume power,” she said in the interview.
“That is the mistake Buganda made in fighting and supporting the Luwero war. If a formal agreement had been written between the Baganda and the NRA leadership, we would not be demanding for federalism and our property.”
She says the idea of a formal agreement has been received well by the Mengo government, the Baganda, and several Members of Parliament.
Kamya has allegedly sought an audience with the Buganda Lukiiko (parliament) and the Bataka (elders) committee.
She is also reportedly organising meetings with prominent Buganda activists like Makindye West MP Hussein Kyanjo and the vocal DP spokesperson and leader of Buganda civic education committee, Betty Nambooze, on how to package the idea.
Kamya recently traveled to the US together with Nambooze, Kyanjo, and Kabaka’s special advisor, Dan Muliika, for the Diaspora Baganda annual Gwangamujje meeting, whose theme was “the past, the present, and the future of the Buganda kingdom.”

In memory of the exemplary Dr. Wilson Bulega

Dr. Bulega and wife at the Clinic at Seguku Trading Centre – 6miles Entebbe Highway where he proved a real professional doctor given the touch he had for the patients. His organized office is still in place but without him. He had a well organized library just in front of his work table which he could refer to as a serious professional would.

Dr. Bulega loved his family. On many occasions he tried to show love to his children and would spend precious time with them.
Dr. Bulega worked for International Rescue Committee – a critical global network of first responders, humanitarian relief workers, healthcare providers, educators, community leaders, activists, and volunteers. Working together, we provide access to safety, sanctuary, and sustainable change for millions of people whose lives have been shattered by violence and oppression. Founded in 1933, the IRC is a global leader in emergency relief, rehabilitation, protection of human rights, post-conflict development, resettlement services and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression.

Dr. Bulega took a photo with the baby that had miraculously recovered after the treatment at the clinic under his guidance and supervision

With the child's mother after successful treatment

Dr. Bulega busy performing an operation "He was a doctor with a calling and as such loved patients and always went out of his way to bring them back to normal," says Dr. K. L. Matovu, one of his contemporaries. Bulega's friends say he had gotten saved four years ago, after which he lived as a complete physician -- he treated people physically and spiritually. Bulega went to Kitende Primary School , Kasasa Secondary School and Nyakasura School in Fort Portal , from where he left for Russia to do a degree in medicine. He specialised in surgery. He returned to Uganda in 1986 and did his internship at Mulago Hospital , after which he was posted to Lacor Hospital . He later went to Lesotho in 1991, where he worked as the hospital superintendent at Scot Hospital for one-and-a-half years.


On Congo border Dr. Bulega and some of our nurses ministering to pygmies.

Dr. Wilson Musisi Bulega, 46, died at 4:00am on April 26, 2003 at Mulago hospital. The cause of death was identified as a ruptured heart and liver while waiting for an operation on a brain tumour.

Dr. Bulega’s children on installation of the heir immediately after the burial
Dr. Bulega is survived by a widow, three children, Daudi, Oliver and Victoria who by then were by then 15; 10 and 8 years respectively .



Time runs very fast. It has come to my notice just today that April 26 2010 made 7 years since my good friend and a friend of many departed this world.Dr. Bulega, you were a friend indeed. may the Almighty God grant you eternal peace.



I came to know the late Doctor Bulega in 2001. It was shortly after a motor accident in which I was the only victim. We were taking a dead body to Gomba in Mpigi district. It was late in the night around 1.00 am. The driver of the pick-up who happened to be related to the deceased girl got dozing and the car got off the road (Masaka – Kampala Highway ) around Mpigi Town . I was ejected from the back and thrown by the road pavement, then, I feel in the ditch. Fortunately, the vehicle did not get serious damage so we continued on and delivered the body. However, I developed serious pains and the solution was to get me to Kampala and there I was at Dr. Mayanja’s Victoria Medical Services. The good doctor gave me good treatment and I went home. The treatment which followed gave me opportunity to interact with doctor Bulega. He did not only counsel me, but on many occasions gave me treatment without bothering whether I had any cash to pay!

It is no surprise that patients around Seguku hinterland found his clinic very convenient and relief. These had praises for the doctor as he proved good at handling operations in the theatre at Seguku as well as handling general medical cases.

There are good lessons we learn from the likes of Doctor Bulega. For them, it is excellence at work which promotes their image.. We should emulate the likes of people who are dedicated to their professional work and do it professionally throughout with a lot of ethics. For such people, there is no need to make campaigns as the output of their work speaks for itself. Dr. Bulega abandoned pride and esteem and went with members of his church to diagnose and treat patients in villages; and during then, he sacrificed comfort and was in the field serving mankind! These acts, the professionalism, concern and care for the needy, service before thinking about money, the love for the people all went far in promoting the doctor into the inner persons of those in Seguku hinterland community.



Death is a great thief. It robbed us of the most precious public good in for of a human being by the name of Dr Bulega. It is still hard to get to terms that the good doctor departed this world. He showed ethics in his work and left no time to himself as at all times he was ready to receive patients and he went a step further to train nursing assistants/aids who helped him with the work volume and indeed a number are in viable employment elsewhere. Dr. Bulega’s name had become a household name.


Dr. Bulega was buried at their ancestral home at Kitende 9 miles Entebbe Highway (those who go to St. Mary’s Kitende S.S) passby this burial ground just meters to the school. They share the same ground with the Late Lt. Kato Kiragga; the man believed to have implemented the plot that liquidated Major General Oyite Ojok.


I get short of words in describing the Late Dr. Bulega. The news of his demise was hard to believe, but given that he had been sick, it wasn’t a great shock. The love people had for him was testified at his burial, the crowd was clear testimony that his death was a real pain to many.

God Grant Dr Wilson Eternal Peace


Great Physician Falls (From New Vision ( Uganda )
Byline: Juliet Kakeeto
THE medical profession has lost a distinguished member. He was a great physician many will continue to miss. He was a surgeon who loved his job more than money
"He was a doctor with a calling and as such loved patients and always went out of his way to bring them back to normal," says Dr. K. L. Matovu, one of his contemporaries. Bulega's friends say he had gotten saved four years ago, after which he lived as a complete physician -- he treated people physically and spiritually.

Bulega went to Kitende Primary School , Kasasa Secondary School and Nyakasura School in Fort Portal , from where he left for Russia to do a degree in medicine. He specialised in surgery.

He returned to Uganda in 1986 and did his internship at Mulago Hospital , after which he was posted to Lacor Hospital . He later went to Lesotho in 1991, where he worked as the hospital superintendent at Scot Hospital for one-and-a-half years.
Dr. Bulega in Rwanda after the genocide

He worked in Transkei shortly, and later joined Port Saint Johns hospital, as the superintendent in 1993 and thereafter worked in Medusa hospital, both in South Africa . In 1994, he joined the International Rescue Committee and was posted to Rwanda to handle genocide victims. He was later assigned to Kosovo in 1998 to handle war victims there.

Dr. Matovu says because of his bravery to work in war situations, at one time he was referred to as the Ugandan war doctor. After working in Kosovo, he had landed a deal to work as a consultant in London , but he changed his mind and returned to Uganda "to help his own people," says Pastor Jackson Molly of the Crusades International ministry, with whom the deceased worked as a preacher in different villages.

"Despite his busy schedule, Bulega found time to go with us in villages, preaching and treating the sick. We only had to buy medicine and Bulega would treat anybody who approached him for free. You could find him in his tent holding a filthy baby, trying to diagnose its illness, and you would envy his courage and love for his work," Pastor Stephen Mayanja, of Seguku Worship Centre, the deceased's church, said of Bulega. " Wilson was a great friend who was trustworthy, selfless, a loving father to his children and husband to his wife and a doctor who loved his profession," said Pastor Molly, who was one of the deceased's great friends.