News analysis Health Business

Outlawing political Impotence: Quest for Shs39tn budget

meetings in homes attractiveness to blame concerns

Issue No. 605 Jan. 17 - 23 2020 Ushs 5,000,Kshs 200, RwF 1,500, SDP 8

The 1000 ‘special’

Museveni trekkers
Why they matter more than
the 195km trekked

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inbox

Issue No. 605 Jan. 17 - 23 2020

News analysis Business Health Arts Motoring

Cover story
The 1000 ‘special’ Museveni trekkers
Why they matter more than the 195km trekked

5 The Week
30 Comments
Rwanda releases four
Ugandans in reciprocal move Allocating resources to
agriculture: Issues to consider
by the Ministry of Agriculture
9 The Last Word
in the process of developing the
Museveni opens a Pandora’s box: Third Sector Strategic Plan
How the president’s intervention to
halt the procurement of Kampala- 32 Health
Jinja expressway is a disaster
Men becoming infertile:
Quest for peak physical
14 Analysis attractiveness to blame
Outlawing political meetings in homes: That’s
stupidity, say Opposition but experts blame the law

35 Arts & Culture

27 Business The Endangered Ones:
Bird art warns of the
Shs39tn budget concerns: CSOs danger ahead
want government to control debt,
increase budget for key social sectors

MANAGING DIRECTOR: Andrew M. Mwenda WRITERS:Ronald Musoke, Ian Katusiime, Patricia Akankwatsa, Julius Businge.
MANAGING EDITOR: Joseph Were DESIGN: Sarah Ngororano
BUSINESS EDITOR: Isaac Khisa CARTOONIST: Harriet Jamwa

PUBLISHER: Independent Publications Limited, Plot 82/84, Kanjokya Street, P. O. Box 3304, Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256-312-637-391/ 2/ 3/ 4 | Fax: +256-312-637-396 E-mail: editor@independent.co.ug | advertising@independent.co.ug
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2 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
 inbox

“We are going to go ahead with

our meetings and specifically those
ones in our homes which have been
banned and we shall not notify the
police about them.” Erias Lukwago, vice
president of the ‘People’s Government’
Prime minister, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda(R), hands over a plaque to Sarah Namayengo (3rd
R), Makerere’s 70th graduation best science student and her parents on Jan. 14, during
the ceremony held at Makerere University.

Businessman,
Matthew
Kanyamunyu
and his girlfriend
Cynthia
Munwangari in
Kampala High “The courses you are running here
Court on Jan.09. at the university, which problems
They are accused
of shooting and of the society will you solve? If
killing Kenneth you answer this question, you will
Akena, a child appreciate the courses you are giving
rights activist in
2016.   INDEPENDENT to learners here.”President Museveni at
ALFRED OCHWO the graduation of Gulu University

The Executive Director

CSBAG, Julius Mukunda
(gesturing) said they are
worried that 2020/21
budget funds will be
diverted to campaigns
demanding for details of “This is an act of goodwill which
the planned expenditure we hope will be reciprocated by
on elections in the the Rwandan government by
financial year 2020/2021.
This was at a press dealing with the other issues we
conference held on 12 have raised.”Sam Kutesa, Minister for
at their head offices in
Ntinda.  INDEPENDENT/ Foreign Affairs after the release of nine
ALFRED OCHWO Rwandan suspects

Rwandans Years Lwanda health Projects in Bukedea

9 released by
Uganda last week
10 centre III in Rakai has spent
without electricity
Shs8bn district that have
stagnated

Jan. 17 - 23 2020 3
week
Makerere hit by gown crisis
in Graduation week
On Monday morning, groups of
frustrated students gathered near
the senate building and freedom
square venting their anger about the
gowns crisis. They demanded that the
administration avails the gowns which
they paid for Shs. 98,000 each.
Last week the university said that
only 6,383 gowns, 900 caps and 6,792
hoods had so far been delivered. The
administration accused M/s Team
Uniform the company contracted to
supply graduation gowns of breaching
contract terms by delaying to deliver
the gowns. “The number of gowns
caps and hoods delivered so far are
less than what is required for the 70th
graduation”, the university secretary,
Yusuf Kiranda said in a letter to
the supplier. He said that the delay
has subjected graduands and their
guardians to unnecessary tension and
stress and given negative publicity to
the university which dents its image.
The information minister, Joshua
Muhwezi accused the administration of
involvement in syndicated procurement
deals, leaving the students to bear the
brunt. He said Makerere’s problem
is not the lack of resources but rather
the mismanagement of the available
resources.
MP Ssekikubo charged with illegal possession of gun
Lwemiyaga County Member of Parlia- day petitioned Parliament protesting what
ment, Theodore Ssekikubo, who was arrest- they called the unlawful and arbitrary block-
ed for inciting violence, faces a fresh charge ading of Lwemiyaga cattle market.
of illegal possession of guns. The residents handed over the petition to
The vocal legislator was arrested for the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga,
allegedly inciting residents of Lwemiyaga to and called for investigations into the role of
defy cattle quarantine in the area and force- the security minister Gen Elly Tumwiine in
fully open a cattle market. the market blockade.
They also explained that the blockade
Ssekikubo reportedly shot Habibu Nsam- has nothing to do with the alleged Foot and
ba Kanyarutokye, a security operative, in Mouth Disease (FMD).
the private parts during the hotly contested “There is no FMD in Lwemiyaga,” Sseki-
party primaries where Ssekikubo was con- kubo said
testing with Patrick Nkalubo. “Police is hiding behind movement per-
Musoke accused police of being used to mits to impoverish our people. They are
play politics in the case. He said already the working for people in Kampala who have
police was breaking the law by keeping the personal interests in the market. The security
legislator in the cells beyond 48 hours. minister is using police to deny our people
The incident comes after cattle traders and livelihood. They are using extra-judicial
residents of Lwemiyaga County led by their methods to play politics,” Ssekikubo added.
Member of Parliament Ssekikubo on Tues-
Rwanda releases four Ugandans in reciprocal move
A week after Uganda
released nine Rwandans
earlier charged over
espionage; an act Foreign
Affairs minister Sam
Kuteesa said was a gesture
indicated that Kampala
wants to mend relations
between the two countries,
Rwanda also returned the
gesture by releasing four
Ugandans who had spent
close to a week in custody.
Rwanda security forces
on Saturday, January Arinaitwe, Ernest Bangirana Police Station but that they
11, transported the four Ernest Agaba and Ambrose were not tortured.
Ugandans and handed them Twesigomwe, who are “We had crossed into
over to Immigration officials residents of Kabale District. Rwanda to look for our
at Katuna border post in Speaking to journalists, relative who was mentally
Kabale District. the group said they had ill and had crossed into
Those released are Samuel been detained at Mirundi Rwanda without our

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 week
NSSF in five day blood
donation drive

Byarugaba donates blood on day one of the campaign.

The National Social Security Fund

(Top-bottom)Beatrice Anywar and Hamson Obua swear in as ministers of state
for environment and sports respectively at State House Entebbe on Jan.13
Six perish in collapsed building
There was mourning in Kampala last
week when a building collapsed in Kam-
pala and killed six people on the spot. The
incident occurred along Mitala road when
the building supported by concrete poles
caved in burying six builders. The fallen
builders were identified as Martin Owori,
Robert Okech, James Ochwo, Nicholas
Ocheng, Joseph Oburu and Etiang Okong.
Witnesses said there has been no inspection
by KCCA officers since the construction of
the building commenced a few weeks ago.
Other reports said that the builders were
not known residents of the area.
kicked off its five day blood donation
exercise on January 13 with a call to all
eligible donors to join.
Richard Byarugaba, the Fund’s
managing director said that the target
for this year is to collect 10, 000 units
of blood to save lives. Byarugaba said
17% of the patients do not get blood
in hospitals because it is not available.
“Given that blood is unique and cannot
be manufactured, it therefore means
that regular donations by unpaid
blood donors remain the only source
of sufficient, quality and safe blood.
Our campaign is aimed at recruiting
voluntary, unpaid blood donors across
the country,” Byarugaba said.
According to data from Uganda
Blood Transfusion Services, Uganda’s
healthcare system uses about 1,500 units
of blood daily, but only 1,250 units are
collected.
“The problem of shortage can become
critical especially during December and
January when learning institutions are
closed,” said Dorothy Kyeyune, the
executive director of the UBTS.
Byarugaba said that for sustainability
purposes, the NSSF Blood Donation
campaign also aims at promoting a blood
donation culture amongst Ugandans,
thus enabling Uganda to meet the health
sector’s safe blood requirements. NSSF
has been doing this exercise for the last
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week
EC petitions Supreme Court over dismissed MPs
The Electoral Commission has
filed an application in the Supreme
Court seeking to stay the execu-
tion of the recent Constitutional
court ruling which dismissed the
election of six MPs in the newly
created municipalities.
Last year’s judgment affected
Apac Municipality MP Patrick
Ocan, Sheema Municipality MP
Dr Elioda Tumwesigye, Ibanda
Municipality MP Tarsis Rwaburin-
dore Bishanga, Nebbi Municipality
MP Hashim Sulaiman, Kotido
Municipality MP Abrahams Lokii
and Asuman Basalirwa for Bugiri
Municipality.
The judges noted that the affect-
ed MPs contested for non-existing
positions because their constitu-
encies’ villages or cells and other
administrative units had not yet
been demarcated by the Electoral
Commission.
In their application filed on Fri-
day before the Supreme Court, the
Electoral Commission is seeking
to stay the execution of the orders
pending the determination of an
6 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
appeal which has also been lodged
before the Supreme Court.
They argue that during the hear-
ing of the interim application, they
will base on the grounds stated in
the affidavit of one of their lawyers
Hamidu Lugoolobi who says that
the Constitutional court exercised
the jurisdiction vested in it with
material irregularity or injustice.
The commission also contends
that the result of the lower court
decision impeached or infringed
on other elections envisaged
under the Constitution. This is
because also the Constitutional
court among a number of orders it
issued, it pronounced that no seats
should be created after the general
elections have been conducted.
The applicants further contend
that the judges also misapplied the
considerations for demarcation
of constituencies enshrined in the
Constitution and arrived at an
erroneous conclusion. Also, they
are being faulted for having issued
a decision which contravened the
constitutional right to fair hearing.
NWSC MD Mugisha inducted into
African Leadership CEO’s Hall of Fame
Silver Mugisha
The International
Advisory Board of African
Leadership Magazine,
a publication of African
Leadership (UK) Limited
meritoriously selected
NWSC MD Dr. Eng Silver
Mugisha from a shortlist of
nominees to be inducted into
the AFRICAN LEADERSHIP
CEO’S HALL OF FAME
2020.
In the same vein,
Eng. Mugisha has also
been nominated to be
conferred with the Africa
Public Service Excellence
Award and he shall
be featured in the African
Leadership Magazine’s
February 2020 edition.
These honours are billed
to be conferred on him
on February 28th, 2020 in
Johannesburg, South
Africa, on the sidelines of
the African Leadership
Magazine’s Person of the
Year awards.
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Humour Did you know?
The Olympics used to
award medals for art

Art has a long history as part of

State minister for Labour Mwesigwa Rukutana has described President Museveni as a superhuman. the Olympic Games, in lockstep
with sport. In the early days of the
Olympics, medals were given for
works of art inspired by sport. The
first-ever Olympic champion in
swimming, Hungarian Alfred Hajos,
later won a medal in architecture.
The modern Olympic Games under
the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) were in 1896 in Athens, Greece.
From 1912 to 1948, medals were
awarded for art at the Olympics,
although rules for the various art
competitions varied. However, the
core of the rules remained the same.
All of the entered works had to be
inspired by sport and had to be
original, meaning that the artists
were not allowed to publish them
prior to the competition.
Similar to the athletic events at
Makerere has run back to Wandegeya tailors to secure more graduation gowns the Olympics, gold, silver, and
for the 70th graduation ceremony as very few were imported from China. bronze medals were awarded to the
highest-ranked artists, although not
all medals were awarded in each
competition. On a few occasions, in
fact, no medals were presented at all.
Competitions took place in the
fields of architecture, literature,
music, painting, and sculpture.
However, in 1949, a report presented
to the IOC found that practically
all of the contestants taking part in
the various art competitions were
professionals and not amateurs as the
rules stated.
A few years later during the 49th
IOC Session in Athens in 1954, the
IOC members voted to replace the art
contests with an exhibition for future
Olympics.
Several attempts were made after
that to re-include art competition,
All medical students will have to take a national examination before they graduate and are given practicing licenses. although they were not successful.

Jan. 17 - 23 2020 7

Inbox
Letters are
welcome !
The Editor welcomes short and
concise letters from our esteemed
readers on topical issues. Please
send them to:
The Editor, The Independent
Publications Ltd,
P.O Box 3304,
Plot 82/84 Kanjokya St,
Kamwokya.
Kampala,Uganda.
Email: editor@independent.co.ug
Kampala roads
get tiny budget
Refer to: “Kampala grinding
to a halt: How NRM politics
have made Kampala a dysfunc-
tional city and what cannot be
done about it” (The Independent
Jan.10). Interesting analysis.
The devil is in the detail. A
culture of new roads is not as
prominent as maintenance of
existing assets. Of the Shs525
billion Road Fund’s FY’s 2018/19
budget, 6% (Shs30 billion) went
to KCCA (almost similar to the
roads development allocation
of 5% cited in the article). The
total roads maintenance budget
for 2019/20 has been reduced by
Shs100 billion – and KCCA will
receive Shs25 billion. This is pea-
nuts to keep Kampala’s 2,100km
in motorable condition.
Fredrick Tumusiime
* T&C apply * Regulated by Uganda Communications Commission.
8 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
Follow us on Twitter @
http://twitter.com/#!/ugandatalks
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www.facebook.com/TheIndependentMagazineUganda
Referring Museveni to ICC same as
quoting Washington economics
Refer to: “Atubo’s disappoint-
ing lamentations: Why African
elites are deluded to think the
“international community” has
our best interests at heart” (The
Independent December 13,2019).
The Kasese massacre came to
light by a freak journalistic leak
but certainly all the apologists
were caught pants down. Ironi-
cally the police spokesman at the
time who was gloating is quoted
to have cried (oh my children)
when the assassins later hit his
car. For all l know the ICC has
Referring Museveni to the ICC
Refer to: “Atubo’s disappoint-
ing lamentations: Why African
elites are deluded to think the
“international community” has
our best interests at heart” (The
Independent December 13,2019).
Really, causes of today’s prob-
lems of Africa are to be found
in heads of people like former
minister and MP Daniel Atubo:
Apparently learned, but pseudo
educated. In all honesty, how
can one ‘terribly bad’ man –
President Yoweri Museveni
– hold a country of millions of
‘intelligent and diligent Atu-
bos’ at such ransom for three
decades, and still counting?
Either the man himself is super-
little meaning to these starving
widows and orphans as the elite
debate the merits of the action.
However, I think the Atubos
of this world reason the way
they must in the same way as
economic growth figures have
to quote some journals in far
off Washington. But one thing
I know is the strong belief the
bakonzo have in the ability of
mother mountain to avenge
innocent blood.
Godfrey Kambere
human or the millions are ‘fake’
in their imagined intelligence
and diligence.
These stupid cries for for-
eign help by people who are
supposed to have studied and
understood long-past and more
recent history is really worrying
and disturbing for Africa. Which
foreign power or even peoples
represented by such powers care
about our (African) interests –
vis-a-vis theirs? And who says
both interests coincide i.e. our
current and future well-being
necessarily matches theirs?
Their (leading foreign powers)
words, mis-advice and actions
against us in the past and today
BUNDLES IN TOWN
DATA
News analysis Health Business
Living with disability Testosterone supplements Economy to
in the digital age won’t help most men remain subdued
Issue No. 604 Jan. 10 - 16 2020
Ushs 5,000,Kshs 200, RwF 1,500, SDP 8
Bobi Wine
consultations
How People Power plans to
dodge police roadblocks
www.independent.co.ug
After the Galamba-
Bireembo Trek
Refer to: “Museveni: The
importance of the Galamba-Bi-
reembo Trek” (The Independent
Online Jan.05). I hope President
Yoweri Museveni’s young
trekkers will be able to take the
heat after 2021. The president is
inciting rebellion after his 2021
general election. My humble
advice to those young trekkers
is not to allow to be misled into
illegal and treasonous activities
because some of us will get
involved to counter it. Okay, try
and we see.
Robert okello
– all point to a clear intention to
perpetually dominate us, and if
possible, exterminate our pure
kind in due course. And here,
you have the Atubos and Co
running to them. Isn’t this is
real treason against the African
peoples?
If we are really sick of an
‘unpopular and terrible’ Musev-
eni, we must legitimately mobil-
ise ourselves and get rid of him.
If we are too timid for that, then
we as a nation, must wait him
out rather than seek pseudo help
from our sugarcoated enemies.
Pan Africanist, Dr Eng Kant
Ateenyi
CONNECTING COMMUNITIES

Museveni opens a Pandora’s box
By Andrew M. Mwenda
How the president’s intervention to halt the
procurement of Kampala-Jinja Expressway is a disaster
L
ast week, I had a meeting in Mukono,
a town only 20km east of Kampala.
The meeting was scheduled for
2pm. Knowing the heavy traffic on
Jinja Road, where Mukono is located, I left
Kampala City Center at 1pm. This gave
me one hour to navigate the traffic jam.
Jinja Road is a major artery connecting our
landlocked country to the sea. It is congested
with long queues of trailers that make
traffic jams on that road a nightmare. But
Wednesday last week was record breaking. I
got to Mukono at 4pm.
This traffic congestion, coupled with
the delays it imposes on motorists, has
serious economic implications. There is
a lot of working hours motorists lose in
traffic when going to office or markets.
Add to this the delays in transportation
of goods from the coast to Kampala. The
actual cost of these traffic delays can run
into hundreds of millions, if not billions,
of dollars per year. For a country with a
GDP of only $34 billion, this is too high a
cost.
Yet President Yoweri Museveni has
written to the Inspector General of
Government (IGG) asking her to stop
the procurement of the Kampala-Jinja
Expressway (KJE) apparently because
there is “corruption” in the ongoing
process. I have argued before that
corruption in Uganda is embedded
mostly in the efforts to fight it. Ironically
if Uganda reduced the number of
institutional checks put in place to fight
corruption, it could reduce the problem.
The KJE is a project worth $1.2 billion.
This is a lot of money for our poor
economy. Public officials everywhere
have power to allocate lucrative rights
over scarce resources. It follows that
many would seek to appropriate a
share of the profits they help allocate
i.e. be corrupt. Again as I have always
argued, these corrupt transactions do
not automatically lead to poor outcomes.
That depends on the interaction of many
other factors within a country.
For instance, there can exist within
a country’s polity strong pressures
for results: ensure delivery of the
right quality of road, done within the
appropriate time and at the right price.
In such circumstances a contractor does
The Last Word
not have to inflate the price of the road.
He can pay bribes out of his profits.
Take the example of KJE. Out of the $1.2
billion cost, the contractor’s profits (if we
assumed them at 10%) would be $120m.
He can cut only one 6th of this ($20m) to
pay bribes to officials at UNRA to buy
long-term favours from them without
affecting the price, quality and speed of
building the highway.
Alternatively, a contractor can add a 5%
mark up on the cost of the road ($60m)
to cater for the bribes. So KJE would cost
$1.26 billion instead of $1.2 billion. This is
an insignificant extra cost. Indeed, when
companies bid, the prices can vary based
on their cost efficiencies. Therefore a 5%
extra cost by any supplier does not lead to
poor outcomes. If the polity has capacity
to enforce results, the contractor will to
do the right quality road, within the right
time frame at 5% extra cost. The idea
that the existence of graft in a transaction
automatically leads to bad outcomes is
therefore mistaken.
In Uganda’s case, the costs of fighting
assumed and/or alleged corruption
in public procurement far outweigh
benefits sought. Let us assume there was
corruption in UNRA’s procurement of a
partner to do KJE. Knowing Uganda, the
bribes would not exceed 5% of the cost i.e.
$60m. This payoff to UNRA staff would
have had little likelihood of adverse
outcomes because the maintenance of
the highway will be in the hands of the
contractor for the next 25 years. If he does
a poor quality road, he would have a
crisis at his hands when it breaks down
in a few years. The firms involved are all
international with reputations to protect.
However, the intervention by the
President has led to a halt on the
procurement process, which will delay
the commencement of construction by not
less than a year. If the IGG recommends a
retendering, that will delay the project by
three years. Even a mediocre economist
will tell you that the cost of this delay on
our economy cannot be less than $900m
over three years. This means the cost of
trying to fight alleged corruption in the
current procurement process exceeds
benefits sought. I have many examples of
this stupidity in the last 17 years – NSSF
opinion
Pension Towers being one.
The greater stupidity is to assume
that officials at the IGG, the institution
requested to investigate alleged
corruption at UNRA, cannot be bribed.
With a contract sum of $1.2 million, those
who failed to qualify and are now seeking
a new chance to re-enter the procurement
process. They will stop at nothing to
cause the IGG to cancel the entire process
and order a new one so that they can
have another chance. So the lobbying
and bribing at the IGG is going to be
intense. I suspect it is agents of companies
that were not prequalified that went to
Museveni alleging corruption. Therefore,
real the corruption is these allegations of
corruption.
When I was still young and intelligent, I
used to be a big fan of institutional checks
and balances in procurement. But I was
being theoretical. As an investigative
journalist at Monitor, I learnt how the
corrupt use (actually abuse) these checks
and balances to paralyse procurement
and multiply corruption. Unscrupulous
bidders would come to the press, or go
the Central Tender Board (the predecessor
of PPDA), parliament, police, CMI, ISO,
State House, etc. to cause a cancellation of
the process.
The wheeling and dealing would get
dirty: officials at IGG, police, intelligence,
State House staff, etc. would be bought
off or accused of having been bought.
Then MPs, journalists, columnists and
pundits would be bribed to “expose”
corruption and make self righteous
arguments calling for cancellation of the
tender or contract. Companies with good
reputations would be unwilling to go
dirty. So they would pull out of the pro-
cess and leave the field to crooked ones.
What began as a seeming effort to fight
corruption, I realised, was actually a
charade to entrench it. I become critical
of attempts to halt procurement process
on the allegations of corruption. With
his instructions to the IGG on alleged
corruption in KJE, Musevnei has opened
a Pandora’s box. Please watch the wheeler
dealing that is going to dominate the
“investigation.”
amwenda@independent.co.ug
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 9
COVER STORY

The 1000 ‘special’

Museveni trekkers
Why they matter more than
the 195km trekked

By Independent Team

10 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
P
resident Yoweri
Museveni’s recent six-day
trek of remembrance of the
major battles of his five-
year war to capture power
through the so-called
‘Luweero Triangle’ was packed with
recollection, endurance, and emotion.
From Jan.03 to Jan.09, Museveni did
the trek through seven districts; from
Galamba in Wakiso District through
Nakaseke, Mityana, Kiboga, Kasanda,
Mubende and finally to Birembo in
Kakumiro District.
Major physical features and
landmarks remain but the area has
changed and the trek was more
symbolic than an accurate retracing of
the footsteps Museveni and his rag-tag
army of hungry, harried, and rain-
soaked rebels trudged 35 years ago.
In Galamba which was a thick
forested area just 30km from Kampala,
only nearby River Mayanja and Semuto
Road remain as major markers. The
rest of the landscape has new trading
centres, roads, hospitals, and schools;
including St. Edward’s College where
the march started.
Galamba is significant because it
is from here that Museveni tactically
split his 1,500 strong force into two
in a ruse that confused the enemy,
enabled the fighters to finally
successfully attack and overrun
Kabamba Barracks and grab the
biggest haul of weapons – 650 rifles,
mortars, machine guns, ammunitions,
and other items. It was the third
attempt as Kabamba I &II had failed.
When Museveni’s rebels moved here
35-years ago, across River Mayanja, on
their southern 200km trek to Kabamba
in Mubende, it was in zig-zag fashion
to ward-off trackers, through bush,
mostly at night. Museveni’s younger
brother, Caleb Akandwanaho aka Salim
Saleh led the main force that attacked
Kabamba after a seven-day trek.
He was just 25-years old but already
an accomplished commander from
the 1972 battles of FRONASA and the
1979 Liberation war that kicked out
President Idi Amin. He led 700 men,
including so-called ‘commandos’ –
the unarmed fighters whose job was
to carry loot. Saleh’s force arrived at
Kabamba without being discovered
by the enemy and therefore avoiding
attack.
It was a different story for
Museveni who led the rest as a decoy,
deliberately exposing themselves to
the enemy and coming under enemy
artillery fire from the APCs and
helicopters of government forces that
had supporting military advisors from
the armies of Tanzania and North
Korea.
Birembo, which is about 180km
from Galamba on a straight Kampala-
Mityana-Mubende-Kakumiro highway,
was significant because it is here
that Museveni linked up with Saleh
after the raid on Kabamba. For the
rendezvous, Saleh had to lead his
men, under intense enemy fire, from
Kabamba.
Birembo also marked a turning point
in the war as the enemy army became
demoralized and divided and led to
the second military over-throw of
Obote, just seven months later, on July
27, 1985.
But Museveni’s recent trek, code-
named “Africa Kwetu” to invoke a Pan-
Africa spirit in a largely local event,
has been marred by controversies;
including questions about its purpose,
organisation and criteria for selection
of participants, and why, even after 34
years in power, the area which was the
base of the war remains the poorest
part of central Uganda.
Elly Tumwine Robert Kyagulanyi
The area called Nakaseke District
today, which covers most of what
was Luweero District in the 1980s is
among the poorest areas of Uganda,
with income figures similar to the
most impoverished areas of Abim,
Kaberamaido, Katakwi and others
in northeastern Uganda. These areas
have GDP per capita between US$112
(Nakaseke) and US$104 (Kaberamaido),
according to a 2017 study by the
United States Agency for International
Development (USAID).
Residents of Nakaseke were not shy
to demand answers from Museveni
whenever he made a stop. They said
the President’s march through their
villages was perfect chance to directly
put their grievances to him. At Bukatira
in Nakaseke South Constituency they
bluntly told him they had not received
any appreciation for supporting the
war of liberation.
“You promised to give us a
COVER STORY
secondary school in Kilema Village but
we have never seen it since the war
ended. It has never been built,” said
Ismail Kasozi, the Semuto Sub-county
chairperson, when he got a chance to
address the President directly, “Mr.
President I request that you honour
your promises.”
The president, as he sometimes
does, attempted to blame opposition
politicians.
“Nakaseke (South) made a
mistake and sent in a young man
called Lutamaguzi. You sent this
useless young man (to Parliament),
Lutamaguzi. Akavubuka tekalinna
makulu (that young man is useless). So
that is your own mistake,” he told the
villagers. But the villagers remained
adamant.
Museveni cannot blame Lutamaguzi
for his failure to keep his promises,
some said. Lutamaguzi has been in
parliament for only three years but
Museveni has been in power for 34
years and done nothing for us.
Such confrontations, it appears,
must have been anticipated. And that
could explain why, from Galamba,
Museveni’s trek only symbolically
entered Nakaseke before quickly
darting westwards into Mityana
district.
That is how Museveni ended
up largely trekking outside of the
historical Luweero Triangle; the area
that starts with Kampala as the apex
of the triangle, and encloses the area
between the Kampala-Hoima road
and Kampala-Nakasongola-Masindi
road northwards to River Kafu. In the
1980s, the main districts here were
Luweero and Mpigi. Present day
Wakiso and Kiboga were in Mpigi and
Nakasongola and Nakaseke were in
Luweero.
During the actual march to Birembo
in 1984, according to Gen. Pecos
Kutesa, in his book titled ‘Uganda’s
Revolution 1979-1986: How I saw it,’
Museveni’s flank of the campaign
in fact went deeper into present day
Nakaseke; then into Bukomero and
Kyamusisi in present day Kiboga,
through Mubende to Kakumiro (which
until 2018 was part of Kibaale District).
But criticism and grumbling by
veterans who feel cheated has not
stopped the achievement of walking
195km on some of the roughest terrains
imaginable earning the 76-year old
President praise.
On Day three of the trek, Museveni
led the walkers on a 13km climb of
the Kanzira-Katora Hill from Kiboga
District to Mubende District; one of
the most treacherous sections of the
journey. Many youths failed to climb
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 11
cover story
The trekkers as they approached Birembo, the final stop in Kakumiro district on Jan.09.   PPU
and those that did, including the not-
so-youthful Government Chief Whip,
Ruth Nankabirwa, who is also the
Kiboga District Woman MP, mourned
the downhill march.
Scenes such as these have left
many in awe of Museveni although,
scientifically speaking, there is no
reason why a man in his late 70s cannot
comfortably walk 200km in six days or
35km per day.
That is the equivalent of walking
from Busega to Namboole along the
northern bypass and back. Scientists
say a 76-year old should comfortably
walk 5km per hour (about the same
distance as any adult of any age).
A journalist who reported the climb
was clearly in awe of the President.
“Armed with a walking stick,
Museveni easily rolled over the years
and exhibited admirable strength and
tenacity of the old days,” the journalist
wrote.
Politics of transition
The National Resistance Army
(NRA) regards the Luweero pilgrimage
as their ‘Mecca’ of which President
Museveni always goes before the
launch of his election campaign.
12 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
In 1999, which was two years to a
presidential election, Museveni walked
in Luweero. Back then, the President
marked out the region as a place of
pilgrimage.
“Muslims go to Mecca, the Catholics
to Rome, the Movement should also
come here where we fought. That’s
what I’m doing,” Museveni said at
the start of the trek, “I want to walk
from here to Birembo because when
you are flying or driving you will not
see much of the places, especially the
households.”
Museveni also likes to show that
despite his years, he is physically fit.
In the past, he has done push-ups
at a public rally, and sprinted to be
nominated at Namboole. He recently
thrilled watchers when he led a
quick 5km march in Kampala against
corruption.
But Museveni’s fitness and the
matter of his age have become critical
as his main challenger in 2021 will
most likely be Robert Sentamu
Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, the
Kyadondo East MP and leader of the
People Power movement. At 38 years
of age, Bobi Wine is half as old as
Museveni.
Museveni has sharp political
antennae and strategists for his camp
must have been alerted to Bobi Wine’s
youthfulness as a major magnet for
the youth voters. Recently, there
was a frenzy of comments when the
President appeared to have shed a lot
of body weight. Many said “Mzee (old
man) is tired, finished.”
Museveni, in early December 2019,
reacted to the commentary.
“I am not tired at all. I have,
however, deliberately lost weight by
shedding off that fat that I had allowed
to accumulate on my body frame
because the doctors had not explained
to us clearly the mistake of not fighting
fat.”
Museveni’s message on social media
was addressed to the youth, who he
calls his ‘Bazzukulu’ (grandchildren),
a constituency he has been courting
aggressively. Even the walk, although
public, was actually designed as a
history lesson for the ‘Bazzukulu.’
Trouble also broke out when
state information platforms started
referring to the 1000 official walkers as
“carefully selected National Resistance
Movement (NRM) supporters, mainly
youth, veterans and well-wishers.”

Many questions were asked. What was
the criteria for selecting the “special”
group? Who selected them? Who are
they?
The only name that kept popping
up is that of Alice Kaboyo, an aide to
President Museveni and the National
Resistance Army Archives Unit.
Kaboyo’s name resonated because
in 2012, the former State House aide
and member of the First Family was
convicted of corruption on her own
plea in the trial of officials that abused
funds of the Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi).
She was fined Shs20 million. She was
jointly charged with the former Health
ministers, Jim Muhwezi, Mike Mukula,
and Dr Alex Kamugisha.
According to commentators,
Kaboyo’s move is part of a deliberate
move by Museveni to create a close-
knit family of future NRM leaders. “It’s
a sort of political transition strategy,”
one source told The Independent. If
the description is accurate, the move
would be a replay of a page from
Museveni’s book on long term strategy.
In the early 1970s, Museveni built
bonds with Rwandan refugees that
would later join him in FRONASA,
The only
name that
kept popping
up is that
of Alice
Kaboyo,
an aide to
President
Museveni
and the
National
Resistance
Army
Archives Unit
UPM, and the Luweero bush war.
Throughout his administration,
Museveni has depended on a close-knit
core of people he recruited in school;
either at Ntare School or the University
of Dar es Salaam, including Gen. Elly
Tumwine. Museveni first met the late
Eriya Kategaya at Kyamate Primary
School, he met Black Mwesigwa at
Mbarara High School, and Martin
Mwesigwa when they were just nine
years old. They are all veterans of the
Luweero war. Most are deceased.
The NRM leaders operate in similar
fashion. Many form lifelong bonds.
During the attack on Kabamba, one
of the spies who fed the fighters was
a woman called Jane Komugisha
who some of the commanders of the
attackers, Pecos Kutesa and David
Tinyefuza aka Sejusa had met in school
in the 1970s. The same can be said of
the cohort in the army of Gen. Muhoozi
Kainerugaba, the First son. Based
on this, the walk could be seen as a
bonding pilgrimage. The youth among
the 1000 “carefully selected” walkers
could be seen as the future leaders and
the veterans and elders that walked
with them as their handlers and
mentors.
cover story
So why did they fight?
“It is good for the youth to know
commitment and sacrifice,” Museveni
said on Day 4 of the trek in Mubende
District, “It is good for you to know
this history and to know how people
can sacrifice, not for personal gain but
collective gain.”
Museveni was speaking during part
of the morning routine of the trek,
when the aging veterans of the bush
war narrated their experiences to the
mainly youthful walkers. Emotions
flowed. Some wept openly, others
showed scars, amputated limbs, and
listed the friends they lost in the
battles.
But others are questioning the motive
of the walk. Some say that together
with the stories of recollection, there
should have been moments of soul-
searching among the men and women
who fought the war and are now in
charge of the state apparatus.
“Recalling what happened is good
but not enough,” one pundit said,
“There should have been focus on why
they fought and questions about why
the same things they fought against
persist today.”
“They went to the bush to ‘liberate’
Uganda from dictatorship, corruption,
rigged elections, impunity, to stop
leaders clinging to power forever by
hook and crook, and so on. I can hear
some people falling off their chairs
in laughter because the Museveni
government has itself done all the
above and more,” wrote veteran
Uganda journalist Charles Onyango-
Obbo.
Onyango-Obbo pointed out that as
Museveni walked, opposition MP and
aspiring People Power presidential
flag bearer in the 2021 elections,
Robert Kyagulanyi (more known by
his musician’s name Bobi Wine) and
several of his supporters were arrested
by police as they tried to hold a
consultative meeting in his Kyadondo
East constituency. Police broke up the
meeting with teargas and live bullets.
“Someone obviously wasn’t
thinking right,” Onyango-Obbo
wrote, “arresting Bobi Wine and his
supporters for exercising their freedom
of assembly and association, some
of the things the NRA/NRM claim
they went to the bush to fight for, at
exactly the time when Museveni is on
a pilgrimage to highlight its legacy is a
mega self-own.”
“Could it be that NRA/NRM went to
the bush not to liberate the country, but
themselves – or indeed just one man?”
he added.
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 13
NEWS ANALYSIS
MP Robert Sentamu Kyagulanyi addresses the press at his home recently. Police intends to outlaw such meetings this year.
Outlawing political
meetings in homes
That’s stupidity, say Opposition but experts blame the law
By Ronald Musoke
O
pposition politicians and human
rights activists are concerned
about a recent directive by police
to its district and division police
commanders to ensure that all political
meetings being held in private homes get
dispersed. The activists want it challenged
and opposition politicians are vowing to
defy it.
Betty Aol Ocan, the Leader of Opposition
in Parliament told The Independent that the
opposition politicians find the police’s appli-
cation of the public order management law
frustrating. She says when legislators are
making laws, the legislation is supposed to
be ‘blind’ and it should apply to everyone
but in Uganda, Police interpret this particu-
lar law depending on which political party
someone belongs.
“The standards for people who belong
to the ruling party, the NRM, are quite dif-
14 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
ferent from those who belong to the Oppo-
sition,” Ocan said, “We are working under
difficult circumstances; you can call it a mili-
tary dictatorship.”
Ocan said the Public Order Management
Act says the people intending to hold public
meetings should notify the police in good
time and then it is up to the police to provide
security or not.
“Now the police have turned this into
(seeking) permission,” she told The Indepen-
dent.
Muhammad Muwanga Kivumbi, the MP
for Butambala County told The Independent
on Jan. 13 that the power to assemble and
associate is generally inherent and so police
cannot say that private meetings are within
the confines of the Public Order Manage-
ment Act.
“Even if you are an enthusiastic and
zealous police officer, your actions would
be bordering on stupidity,” Kivumbi said,
“That is the only way I can put it.”
Muwanga says laws have to be consistent
with the Constitution which is the supreme
law of the country.
Muwanga is an authority of sorts on this
topic because, on May 27, 2008, the Consti-
tutional Court made a landmark judgment
in a case he filed. In the Muwanga Kivumbi
v Attorney General, Muwanga went to the
Constitutional Court seeking an interpre-
tation of the law when he noticed police
consistently used a provision in the Police
Act to regulate political rallies or any form of
assembly.
At the time, Section 32 of the Police Act
required Ugandans to seek permission from
the Inspector General of Police before exer-
cising the right to demonstrate and assemble
which was a contradiction of Article 29 of the
Constitution.
Muwanga succeeded when the Constitu-
tional court went ahead to declare section
32 of the Act unconstitutional. The court
checked the powers that the police were

legally using to disrupt and dispatch assem-
blies citing security reasons.
But a new law, the Public Order Manage-
ment Act, 2013, was passed in Parliament
and President Yoweri Museveni assented to
it on Oct. 02, 2013. The Act, aims to provide
for the regulation of public meetings and
also provide for the duties and responsibili-
ties of police, organizers and participants in
relation to public meetings and to prescribe
measures for safeguarding public order.
Opposition to defy
Based on this, Fred Enanga, the Police
Spokesperson recently said police had
“noticed a continuous violation of the Public
Order Management Act (POMA) where pol-
iticians hold illegal political meetings in their
homes or those of their allies.”
Speaking during the Police’s weekly
interface with the media on Jan. 06, Enanga
said meetings in private homes will not
be allowed anymore since homes do not
possess enough requirements to hold pub-
lic gatherings and this according to police
exposes participants to danger.
“Even if it is your private home, once it is
a matter of public interest when you have
the public gathering in your home, it has
to meet the provisions of the Public Order
Management Act,” he said.
Enanga said District Police Commanders
will, going forward, ensure that any meeting
involving more than three people is policed
in accordance with the provisions of the
Public Order Management Act, 2013, or else
such gatherings should not be allowed to
happen.
But human rights advocates and oppo-
sition politicians responded days later
referring to the directive as an abuse of the
Constitution and a violation of the Ugan-
dans’ right to associate. They said the Con-
stitutional Court already pronounced itself
on the matter many years ago, noting that
police have no authority to licence public
gatherings but rather to provide security.
Some opposition politicians like Dr. Kizza
Besigye and Erias Lukwago have vowed
to defy the police directive citing Article 27
which prohibits unlawful search or entry
into private premises.
“Notifying police about activities in a
public space is a requirement (with the
public order management law) and we have
no objection and we shall do that,” Erias
Lukwago, the Lord Mayor of Kampala said
on Jan.08, “But in a private place or person’s
home, we won’t.”
Peter Kinobe, the current head of the
Uganda Law Society says the legal society
wants the Constitutional Court to pronounce
itself on the interpretation of the Public
Order Management Act to harmonise its
implementation by different security agen-
cies.
As Uganda prepares to go into full-blown
political campaigns ahead of the 2021 gen-
eral election in which President Museveni
is seeking a sixth term in office, Kinobe said
this is the right time for the Constitutional
Court to pronounce itself on the interpreta-
tion of the Act to stop its misinterpretation
by security agencies and politicians when it
comes to public gatherings.
Perry Aritua, the executive director of
Women’s Democracy Network-Uganda
told The Independent on Jan.13 that it will be
interesting to see how the Constitutional
Court interprets this law considering that a
decision was reached in 2005 for Uganda to
go multi-party.
Most importantly, she adds, Article 29 of
the Constitution which is the supreme law
of this country gives Ugandans the right to
assemble and associate.
Article 29 of the
Constitution
which is the
supreme
law of this
country gives
Ugandans
the right to
assemble and
associate
When police stops Ugandans from doing
so, Aritua says, they are infringing on their
rights to assemble and associate.
“It is wrong for the police to use the Public
Order Management Act in isolation of the
Constitution which is the supreme law in
this country,” she says.
Dr. Livingstone Sewanyana, the executive
director of the Foundation for Human Rights
Initiative (FHRI) also told The Independent
that the Public Order Management Act, 2013,
has no reference to any meeting being held
in homes. Sewanyana says whether there are
politicians trying to hold meetings in homes
or not, the directive is totally unfortunate
and out of step.
“It would not only be illegal but it is
uncalled for because it does not have any
force of law,” he told The Independent.
Vague law blamed
Section 4 (1) of the Public Order Manage-
ment Act, 2013, defines a public meeting
as a gathering, assembly, concourse, pro-
NEWS ANALYSIS
cession or demonstration of three on public
road as defined in the Traffic and Road
Safety Act or other public places or premises
wholly or partly open to the air (a) at which
the principles, policy, actions or failure of
any government, political party or political
organisation is registered under any law,
are discussed or (b) held to form pressure
groups to submit petitions to any person or
to mobilise or demonstrate support for or
opposition to the view, principles, policy,
actions or omissions of any person or body
of persons or institution including any gov-
ernmental administration or government
institution.
Subsection 2 excludes certain instances
from the definition of the public meeting
including; meetings convened and held
exclusively for a lawful purpose of any pub-
lic body, a meeting of members of any regis-
tered organisation held for a lawful purpose
of the organisation, a meeting of members
of a trade union, a meeting for a social, reli-
gious, cultural, charitable, education, com-
mercial or industrial purpose, and a meeting
of organs of a political party.
But critics of the law say the definition
is too vague; in as much as it tries to create
exceptions for social and other gatherings, it
in effect also regulates them.
This is because in Uganda, considering
the fact that when public gatherings by pol-
iticians have already been denied by police;
it leaves the politicians with little avenue for
meeting, communicating and discussion
with their fellow constituents or Ugandans.
“Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish
between a burial ceremony and a political
rally and this means that the police may
as per the definition have to regulate buri-
als to ensure that politics is not discussed
and possibly disperse the mourners,” said
Emmanuel Elau in his recent paper, “The
Public Order Management Act: the Demise
of Freedom of Assembly in Uganda.”
Opposition politicians and human rights
activists have always maintained that the
spirit in which the law was passed was sus-
pect from the start. They say the intention of
the law curtails two fundamental rights; one,
public assembly and two, criticism of gov-
ernment or free speech.
Sewanyana says although on paper,
Uganda is a multi-party dispensation; the
system unfortunately remains a monolithic
one which serves the interests of the ruling
NRM government.
Sewanyana told The Independent that
although many times people refer to the law
or the Constitution, what they forget is that
they are dealing with a political problem.
“The answers to the political impasse in
the country are political and they require
mass mobilization, and continuous conscien-
tization among the citizens of the country to
demand for their rights.”
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 15
NEWS ANALYSIS
Voters during the Arua by-election in 2018.
Town battles of 2021
Politicians making moves in Arua, Mbarara, Jinja, Masaka
By Ian Katusiime
A
rua. Mbarara. Jinja. Masaka. By
2021, these Ugandan towns
could be cities if the ongoing
developments in parliament are
anything to go by. Cabinet discussed the
issue of new cities last year and these major
towns with a combined population of
about 500, 000 could turn out to be major
battlegrounds for individuals and political
parties as the campaign season sets in mid
this year.
Aswa County MP Reagan Okumu, the
chairman of the parliamentary committee
on Public Accounts (Local Government),
says the government has expanded and
altered some boundaries of parishes and
villages which have been added to the
proposed cities but adds that parliament
also has to pronounce itself on expansion
and alteration of boundaries.
This gerrymandering by government has
led politicians in some of these towns into
frenzied early campaigns for positions that
will be created.
16 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
Okumu says there should be nothing
wrong with those campaigning early
since those campaigning are the people
who know the boundaries being carved
out and the areas where the particular
constituencies will lie.
“The only issue is that some people may
be excited about becoming lord mayors
and lord councilors not knowing what their
roles will be,” Okumu said. “It’s typical of
Ugandans to go into campaign mode when
the Electoral Commission has not yet made
formal announcements.”
Okumu who has been an MP since
1996 says there is no serious opposition to
creation of cities in parliament. He adds
“We are waiting for the government to table
a bill on how these cities will be managed
that is, the Local Government City Act.”
He says this because the current law only
caters to the management of municipalities.
The plan is to have Arua, Mbarara, Gulu,
Jinja, Mbale, Masaka as operational cities
by July this year while the rest like Entebbe,
Soroti, Hoima have been suggested for
subsequent years.
Okumu says each city will have two
divisions which will automatically be two
constituencies.
“It’s a foregone conclusion,” Okumu says
of the new cities.
But doubts remain. Members of the
opposition party, Forum for Democratic
Change (FDC), tell The Independent that the
decision of whether the party should take
part in the 2021 general elections is yet to be
made. This leaves the ruling party, National
Resistance Movement (NRM), and People
Power, which refers to itself as a political
movement, as the two political entities in
early pre-campaign maneuvers.
Joel Senyonyi, the spokesperson of
People Power told The Independent, about
their plans. “We are not just going for the
presidency. We have a solid number of MP
positions we are going for.”
He said many of the candidates who
want to vie as People Power are leaning
on traditional parties and they think they
might lose if they stand as such. “We will
have to zero down on one candidate which
takes a lot of time,” he said.

In 2018, People Power leader and
presidential aspirant Robert Kyagulanyi
aka Bobi Wine was vital in delivering wins
for Kassiano Wadri in Arua Municipality
and Asuman Basalirwa in Bugiri
municipality. This time though Kyagulanyi
will have his own presidential bid to
attend to and People Power candidates will
have to prove their own strength in their
constituencies.
Mbarara
Mbarara will be divided into two
constituencies; Mbarara North and
Mbarara South divisions. Originally this
was one constituency as a municipality,
and now with the two carved out, has seen
strategizing and jostling from prominent
personalities, some with positions in
parliament and others at the district level.
Mwine Mpaka, the Western Youth
MP, though quiet and reticent is heavily
involved in activities to take Mbarara
South. Mbarara is the largest town in the
south western part of the country and its
politics is watched closely by those at the
centre of power.
Mpaka is the president of Mbarara City
FC and its financial muscle. Mbarara City
FC is a galvanizing force for the district
particularly among its youthful population.
It has been in the Super League for the last
two years since Mpaka became its patron.
“We even beat KCCA FC,” a boda boda
rider told The Independent recently. KCCA
FC is a traditional soccer giant in Uganda
football and has been the benchmark for
club football development in the country.
Mpaka has sunk chunks of money
among over 2000 boda boda riders and also
supports women groups in their SACCOs.
He pays rent for their association offices
and is involved in other ventures either
as patron or as a youth MP lending them
political support. Mpaka was not available
for comment by press time.
Mbarara residents say the 32 year
old has all but secured another term in
parliament. Mpaka though is no ordinary
MP. He is the son of Bright Rwamirama, a
longtime minister in President Museveni’s
government. After the December cabinet
reshuffle, Rwamirama was re-appointed
minister for animal husbandry, where he
served for many years before. Rwamirama,
MP for Isingiro North, sits in the same
parliament with his son Mpaka.
Why observers say Mpaka has locked
the position of Mbarara South is because
Deus Tumusiime, a former LCV chairman
of Mbarara district, is the only one that
has emerged so far to go against him.
Sources say Tumusiime’s record as a district
chairman in the period 2011-2016 leaves
a lot to be desired. The sub-divisions that
fall under Mbarara South are Nyamitanga,
Nyakayojo and Kakoba.
For Mbarara North, Robert Mwesigwa
Reagan Okumu
Mwine Mpaka
Rukari, a businessman and chairman
NRM Entrepreneurs league, is putting
his bid in position. He is the executive
chairman of American Procurement
Company (AMPROC) Uganda Limited.
In this position, he will contest with
Michael Tusiime, the current MP for
Mbarara Municipality. Mbarara North has
the subdivisions of Kamukuzi, Biharwe,
Kakiika and sources on the ground say
Rukari has an upper hand because of
his financial muscle power. As chairman
of the ruling party’s entrepreneurship
league, he has been able to marshal a large
network of financial resources.
The other reason is that some voters in
Mbarara are still unhappy with Tusiime,
who vehemently supported the lifting
of the presidential age limit. Mbarara
with a population of 195,000 has also had
Rwampara district carved out of it in 2019
with Rwampara as a new district.
Arua
One of the fastest growing towns in
Uganda with a population of 62,000 per
the 2014 national population census, Arua
will also have two constituencies; Arua
Central and Ayivu division. Kassiano
Wadri, the Arua Municipality MP is
interested in the position of Arua Central
NEWS ANALYSIS
according to informed sources.
Nusura Tiperu, whom Wadri defeated
in 2018 is one of those vying for Arua
Central. Tiperu is expected by some to be
the NRM candidate in the race.
Ayivu division, the other consistency
has also attracted a number of candidates
in the race. Unlike most cities which will
have two constituencies of East and West;
Arua will have Arua Central and Ayivu
due to ethnic and religious dynamics.
“This was due to a technicality of the
local politics,” Reagan Okumu says. He
explains this is because Arua municipality
is dominated by the Aringa people who
are mostly Muslims while Ayivu is
occupied by the Lugbara who are largely
Christians. Ayivu is located mainly outside
the Arua Township.
Masaka
The coffee growing district of Masaka
will have Mathias Mpuuga, MP for
Masaka Municipality and Ugandan EALA
MP Mukasa Mbidde battle for one of the
two divisions; Kimanya-Kabonero and
Nyendo-Mukungwe Divisions.
Jinja will have the divisions of East
and West and its renowned politicians
like Moses Balyeku, Paul Mwiru, Harry
Kasigwa and Igeme Nabeta are said to be
in their respective mobilisation campaigns
for the 2021 elections.
Gerrymandering
The gerrymandering by government has
come at a cost such as the recent decision
by the Constitutional Court in Kampala
ordering six MPs to vacate Parliament
on grounds that they were elected in
constituencies that were non-existent.
The affected MPs are, Elioda Tumwesigye
(Sheema, NRM party), Tarsis
Rwaburindore (Ibanda, NRM), Hashim
Sulaiman (Nebbi, NRM), Abraham Lokii
(Kotido, NRM) Asuman Basalirwa (Bugiri,
Jeema) and Patrick Ochan (Apac, UPC).
In a unanimous decision, the court
ruled that the elections held in the above
constituencies or municipalities, were
conducted neither in general elections nor
in by-elections. The court stressed that
the six seats contested for did not have
a vacancy and were already represented
by elected MPs in the general elections of
2016.
“Vacancies would occur in the
municipalities of Apac, Sheema, Ibanda,
Nebbi, Bugiri and Kotido with necessary
demarcation by the second respondent
(EC) and would be available for contest in
the next general elections upon dissolution
of the sitting parliament or unless any
particular existing seat becomes vacant
under articles 83 and 84 of the constitution.”
The court ruling read.
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 17
interview

How legal system

tortures rape victims
Ugandan women recently took to social media platforms to share horrendous tales of rape.
Primah Kwagala, the Chief Executive Officer of Women’s Probono Initiative; a Kampala-
based civil society organisation, spoke with The Independent’s Ronald Musoke about the rape
allegations and why Ugandan society generally suffers from a gender-based violence problem.

First, tell us about the Women’s Probono What exactly does the Women’s Probono

T
Initiative? Initiative focus on?
he Women’s Probono Initiative is a We focus on vulnerable women
civil society organisation founded in and girls because we know that
July 2018 to advance access to justice there are women out there who
for women and girls through aware- can afford to pay their legal
ness creation, legal representation, research fees. For these kinds of wom-
and knowledge sharing. en, we just offer legal advice
or guide them so they work
What informed your decision to found this with our partners some of
organisation? whom include law firms
I am a first born child from a family of and other NGOs around the
eight. Seven girls and one boy. I have grown country.
up in a (patriarchal) system and seen how
girls are treated. My mom, for instance, kept Is there a particular factor to
having kids just because the community kept explain the high level of gender
piling pressure on her to get a boy who would inequality and sexual abuse in
inherit the family estate and keep my father’s Uganda?
name. My mother is a secondary school teach- The system of patriarchy largely
er and she has told me she wanted to have explains this prevalence. We know that
four children. So we grew up knowing that men have the power, the
we the girls are actually not enough. I soon resources and
realized that the exclusion is ingrained in the they are the
system, tradition and in our families. When ones who
I got into law school, I realized that the laws make the
have tremendously changed but the practice laws and
has not. Our legal system was founded by they
men; the laws are created by men because
not too many women are in the boardrooms
when these laws are being written. But also
the people enforcing these laws are men; so
you often find that the issues that are
specific to women are not incor-
porated in the legal system.So
you find that many aspects
of the criminal justice
system do not have
reasonable accom-
modation for issues
specific to women
and this is more
apparent when
it comes to
issues of sexual
violence. So
I decided to
found the Wom-
en’s Probono Initiative to represent
women and girls. But we also thought
we could start a discussion on these
kinds of issues.

18 Jan. 17 - 23 2020

are the ones enforcing the laws. So they
have the law on their side, they have
power on their side, they have money
on their side and they have society and
tradition in their corner. The law is
basically ‘steeped against’ women.
Talking about sexual abuse in
Ugandan society, what have you
made of the recent outburst of rape
allegations on social media by young
Ugandan women?
I think social media has offered
women the space and platform to
express themselves because of the
failure by Uganda’s legal system to
address women’s sexual violence
concerns. In 2018, the police crime
report noted how they received 1,580
rape cases of female adults. From
this number, 644 cases were taken to
court out of which 16 cases secured
convictions. One man was acquitted;
seven cases were dismissed, while 618
cases are still under investigation. Do
you know why over 600 cases never
got to see the light of the day? It is
because the system and the law say
the evidence is not enough to convict
someone. Since women started sharing
their rape experiences, we released a
social media statement telling them
to come here and report their cases
if they are interested in finding legal
recourse. We want to document these
cases but we also want to start a
discussion around the definition
of sexual violence. Rape is
defined as unlawful carnal
knowledge of a woman. But
when police is collecting
evidence of rape, they will
take the victim through
a medical examination
to establish whether
there was force
involved. But we
know that sometimes
there is no force
involved. You
could, for
instance, be
my boyfriend
and we have
been having
sex but on
this occasion
I don’t want
to have sex
but you go
ahead to
rape me.
Sometimes,
for women
who are
sexually
active,
there will
The government
needs to reform
the justice
system to
accommodate
women’s
concerns on
issues of sexual
violence
probably be no evidence of tear. The
doctors sometimes are looking for
things like semen to get the forensic
audit but we know that sometimes, a
man will not ejaculate. You get to the
reception area of the police and there
are male policemen and you have to
say why you have come and what you
are reporting. That is before the police
officers identify the right officer for the
victim to speak to. When they find the
right person, the victim has to narrate
their story again. Then this policeman
will say, no, the OC CID has to hear
this and the victim will repeat her story.
But for a victim, who has gone through
this, repeatedly telling this story is like
going through the entire rape incident
and before the case is filed, the victim
has gone through a whole process of
psychological torture. So, we want to
tell court that the process of reporting
rape has to befixed.
Going by the debate via social media,
isn’t it surprising that Ugandan society
has not been as outraged as other
parts of the world where the #MeToo
campaign has been running?
This is partly because of gender-
specific discrimination and sexual
violence in this country. It is historical
and it is ingrained in our society,
culture and tradition. For instance, on
the issue of rape, it is not easy for men
to believe women’s stories, because
they have never grown up in spaces
where they are subjugated. The woman
must produce the evidence (of rape) but
sometimes the people you are asked to
share the evidence with are perpetrators
themselves. Recently, a lady who was
arrested by police came in here. While
in custody for six months, she was being
interview
raped by some of the police officers.
She said she was arrested when she
was pregnant but she eventually lost
the baby. She has the names and so we
are following up the case. So you can
see that even when you are in custody,
you are not safe. So the system was not
designed to accommodate women.
How do you think the issue of sexual
abuse should be handled by Uganda’s
justice system?
Some jurisdictions elsewhere have
ruled that courts can convict on the
evidence of the victim if the judge finds
the victim a believable witness. That
is not to say that I am asking for the
lowering of the standard of proof for
sexual violence cases. We just need to
put in context when discussing issues
of sexual violence. In Colombia, for
instance, courts have held that it is
the job of the state to adopt measures
that accommodate women to give
their evidence. If I come to police to
report rape, let a fellow woman take
my statement. If you want to perform a
medical examination, let it be a female
doctor to do it and if one police officer
has recorded my story; be sensitive to
the fact that you are torturing me when
you ask me to retell it a thousand times.
When we go to police, there should
be facilities to accommodate someone
who wants to report a case of rape. In
some districts where there are no police
medical personnel, sometimes the
police detain a rape victim because they
don’t want to destroy evidence when
she goes home and showers. But the
doctor could take days before he or she
comes around. So women end up being
punished.
Isn’t it frustrating for you at times
considering that your work revolves
around listening to victims of horrific
rape incidents some of which involve
powerful politicians and businessmen?
It is frustrating but I also know that
for change to happen someone has to
start a discussion and I strongly feel
this is our role and value addition to
Uganda’s legal profession. We need to
start a discussion for reform to happen
and it does not matter how long it takes.
Your last word?
First, it is important for women to
continue speaking out because silence
does not protect them. Secondly, the
government needs to reform the justice
system to accommodate women’s
concerns on issues of sexual violence.
Finally, let there be speedy trials. Rape
cases should be heard as soon as they
are reported..
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 19
news analysis
America’s war with Iran
Many think it is now more likely as Republicans
rally behind Trump’s killing of top Iranian general
By Agencies
R
epublicans of all stripes are stand-
ing solidly in support of President
Donald Trump’s decision to kill a
top Iranian general—even though
some believe it makes war more likely.
Conversations with influential conser-
vative figures in recent days, buttressed by
exclusive polling data taken before Iranian
missile attack in Iraq on Jan.07, indicate
that many in Trump’s base see the airstrike
on Qassem Soleimani as a necessary move
against Iran’s Islamist regime. Soleimani
was the mastermind behind numerous
attacks on American troops and others in
Iraq and beyond.
Many in the Republican cognoscenti
compared his killing to former President
Barack Obama’s decision to take out Al
Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. While a
20 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
handful of Trump allies— notably Fox
News host Tucker Carlson and Kentucky
Sen. Rand Paul—have criticised the Solei-
mani strike, others are justifying it on
grounds that it is a limited move. That’s a
key point given Trump’s past promises to
disentangle the U.S. from Middle East wars.
Support for the strike extends across
various GOP factions: Some 85 percent of
Republican voters backed the decision to
kill Soleimani, according to a POLITICO/
Morning Consult survey. At the same time,
overall support for the strike is tepid, with
nearly seven-in-10 voters saying it makes
war with Tehran’s Islamist regime more
likely, including 58 percent of Republicans.
“I think people are genuinely greatly
pleased that the president has taken action
against this monster who has killed proba-
bly over 700 Americans directly,” said for-
mer Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. “Why
anybody would think this is less-than-stel-
lar is beyond me.”
Trump administration officials have
said the decision to kill Soleimani, who
was targeted by a U.S. Reaper drone while
visiting Baghdad, came amid indications
that he was plotting new attacks on Amer-
icans. It also followed a series of strikes by
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq against U.S.
troops based there, including one that killed
an American contractor.
Iran’s cleric-led government has vowed
revenge over the killing of Soleimani, who
by some estimations was second in power
only to the country’s Supreme Leader Aya-
tollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian regime
has held massive processions in Soleimani’s
honor in an attempt to show the depth of
anger over his death at U.S. hands. And
on Jan.07, Iran retaliated by sending a bar-
rage of missiles at U.S. installations in Iraq,

though early reports suggested no Ameri-
cans were killed.
The attack on Soleimani was a stunning
escalation in the spiraling showdown
between Tehran and Washington. That feud
has ramped up since Trump took office, left
the Iran nuclear deal and began re-impos-
ing economic sanctions targeting the Irani-
an government.
In many ways, Iran has been a singular
focus of ire for Trump and his aides. It’s
a favorite rhetorical target of Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo, who often makes sure
to refer to Iran by its full name: “the Islamic
Republic of Iran.”
But the administration’s sanctions-heavy
“maximum pressure” campaign against
Iran—which also involves beefing up the
U.S. troop presence in the Middle East—has
led some Trump supporters to fear that the
president will go against past pledges to
avoid ground wars in that region.
Fox News’ Carlson has become the de
facto leader of anti-interventionist Repub-
licans in the Trump era. “America appears
to be lumbering toward a new Middle East
war,” he said in response to the attack on
Soleimani, and has continued to highlight
the potential pitfalls of a confrontation.
But with other anti-interventionist ele-
ments of Trump’s base, the killing of Solei-
mani has been more popular than missile
strikes Trump ordered against Syria in
2017 and 2018. Those strikes provoked crit-
icism from several prominent pro-Trump
media figures and activists.
“Sad warmongers hijacking our nation,”
tweeted radio host Michael Savage about
a U.S.-led April 2018 strikes against Syr-
ian government targets in response to a
suspected chemical weapons attack near
Damascus.
In stark contrast, Savage greeted this
month’s strike against Soleimani with jubi-
lation, calling it a “win for free people.”
Right-wing social media agitator Mike
Cernovich, an influential figure in pro-
Trump online circles, critized the Syria
attacks, calling the president “Donald
Bush” in response to the 2018 strikes, an
unflattering comparison to George W.
Bush’s ill-fated Iraq invasion.
But the Solemaini strike does not worry
him, he said in an interview: “I don’t know
that I’m for it, but I’m certainly not against
it, and I’m not freaking out.”
Cernovich said that he, and many other
Trump supporters, viewed the Syria strikes
as meddling in a civil war, and that he
believed they could draw the U.S. further
into a quagmire. “I knew this would esca-
late immediately if there wasn’t pushback
from the base,” he said.
He, like other well-known Trump sup-
porters, views the Soleimani killing as a
justified retaliation for the deaths of Amer-
icans. Cernovich said he would vocally
oppose further escalation.
After Iran announced it had fired missiles
aimed at U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Charlie Kirk,
a White House surrogate who promotes
Trump’s message on college campuses,
tweeted: “This president proclaimed clearly
and boldly that GREAT nations do not fight
endless wars. I trust @realDonaldTrump
will do the right thing as Command-
er-In-Chief and not entangle the United
States in yet another commitment in the
Region of Sand and Death.”
Seth Weathers, an Atlanta-area Repub-
lican strategist who briefly served as the
Trump campaign’s Georgia state director in
2015, said he would support continued air-
strikes if Iran retaliates over Soleimani.
But he drew the line at a ground war.
“That would piss a lot of people off,” he
said.
One group in the Republican base that is
especially wary of Iran is evangelical Chris-
tians. Many evangelicals view Iran’s Isla-
mist-led government as a threat in religious
terms; and many link the need to neutralise
Tehran with the need to protect Israel. Iran
supports various armed groups that oppose
Israel, from Hamas in the Palestinian terri-
tories to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Earlier this year, Pompeo, an evangelical
Christian, said in response to a question
from the Christian Broadcasting Network
that it is “possible” that Trump is a mod-
ern-day Queen Esther, a biblical figure who
persuaded a Persian king not to annihilate
the Jews.
Among self-identified evangelical voters,
56 percent approve of the strike that killed
Soleimani, 10 points higher than the overall
electorate, according to the POLITICO/
Morning Consult poll.
In support of the strike, Atlanta-based
evangelical activist Alveda King, a Trump
supporter, cited Daniel 7:4, a biblical
prophecy that begins, “The first was like a
lion, and had eagle’s wings.” She said the
news analysis
eagle represents the United States and its
strength, which the president was justifi-
ably exercising.
“I would prefer peace to war,” she said.
But “we cannot be wishy-washy.”
King, a niece of Martin Luther King Jr.,
said the potential for escalation does not
concern her. “I have confidence in God, so
I know that as the president of the United
States he’s going to have God’s direction.
So, I’m going to continue to trust God. So,
no, I’m not worried.”
But, according to the poll, voters are con-
cerned about the prospect of war with Iran.
Roughly one-in-three voters, 32 percent,
say the airstrike that killed Soleimani will
make the U.S. safer, while 50 percent say it
will make the U.S. less safe. In a subsequent
question, 69 percent of voters polled said
the airstrike makes war with Iran more
likely.
While Trump’s base is solidly behind
him, the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll
shows voters more broadly aren’t rallying
to the president’s side.
His overall approval rating is 41 percent,
virtually unchanged from the last poll,
just before the holidays. A bare majority of
voters, 51 percent, say they would approve
of the Senate removing him from office in
the upcoming impeachment trial, while 43
percent oppose Trump’s removal.
The POLITICO/Morning Consult online
poll was conducted Jan. 4-5, surveying
1,995 registered voters. The margin of error
is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media
and technology company that provides
data-driven research and insights on politics,
policy and business strategy.
Source: Politico
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 21
FEATURE
What to chase in 2020
Prof. John Sellars show how to rethink your idea of success
in the new year – according to ancient Stoic philosophers
W
hat are you
hoping for in
the new year?
Do you want
to progress in your career
or perhaps buy a house?
Maybe you’re looking to
start a new relationship
or finally achieve that pay
rise?
While there’s nothing
inherently wrong with
pursuing any of these
things, by attaching your
sense of self-worth to
these kinds of external
successes, the road ahead
can be fraught with danger.
So with the help of the
philosophy of the ancient
Stoics, it’s time to rethink
what’s worth chasing.
By fixating on external
successes, most of us end
up thinking that if we
don’t achieve these goals,
we’ve failed. We often
think, “if only I were more
determined or worked
harder, then I’d fulfil all
my ambitions, because if I
don’t, I’ve only got myself to
blame”.
So what’s the trick to
avoiding this trap? The
answer could very well lie in
the ancient Stoics, who put
forward several ideas that
suggest a different way of
thinking.
Stoicism is a philosophy
that was founded in Athens
in the early third century
BC. Stoics believe that
virtue (such as wisdom)
is happiness, judgement
should be based on
behaviour, rather than
words, and that we don’t
control and cannot rely
on external events, only
ourselves and our responses.
So as you set your goals
or resolutions for 2020, here
are the three key Stoic ideas
22 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
that could help you to think
differently.
Much of what happens is
out of your control
Although we can certainly
contribute to outcomes,
such as doing our best in
a job interview, we can
never completely control
the result. Our performance
in the interview may be
excellent, but the outcome
will be as much determined
by how the other candidates
do and how the interviewer
feels on the day.
If you tie your sense of
success and self-worth
to something out of your
control, then you are turning
your happiness into a
hostage to fortune. That’s
not a good position to be in,
but something can be done
about it.
Focus on the activity, not
the outcome
The Stoics drew an
analogy with archery. As
absurd as it might sound,
the goal of archery isn’t
about hitting the target, but
simply to shoot well.
Hitting the target is out
of your control – a gust of
wind might blow the arrow
off course. So instead, you
should focus on mastering
the technique of archery.
That won’t guarantee you’ll
always hit the target – there
will still be gusts of wind
– but it will increase the
likelihood of hitting it more
often.
Most importantly, the
goal of shooting arrows as
best we can is completely
within our control, and no
annoying side winds can
stop us from achieving
that. Thinking along these
lines helps us to bring our
happiness back within our
control.
True value resides
inside, not outside
The Stoics would argue
that getting that new job,
promotion, or pay rise is
not genuinely good. Why?
Because even if you get it,
you might still be unhappy
or unfulfilled. It might even
make things worse – more
responsibility, more stress,
greater expectations. Or it
might be quickly forgotten
as you focus your attention
on climbing up the next
rung of the ladder.
The Stoics insisted that,
for something to be good,
it must always benefit us.
And they suggested that
there’s only one thing that
always benefits us when
we have it: a calm, rational
and consistent mind. This is
where real value lies.
So for 2020, try to forget
the external ambitions
that you can’t control and
instead focus on cultivating
the right frame of mind,
such as the desire to do
whatever you’re doing as
well as you can, simply for
the satisfaction of doing it
well, without any thought
for further reward.
That’s an ambition
completely within your
control. Nothing can stop
you, and you can be the
master of your own success
this coming year.
John Sellars is a Lecturer in
Philosophy, Royal Holloway,
University of London. His
most recent book is `Lessons in
Stoicism’.

Ethical decisions in business
A useful guide for CEOs on how to make them
By Kenneth Amaeshi
C
hief executive officers
(CEOs), like ordinary
citizens, are driven by
their values and convic-
tions. These may not necessar-
ily be just ‘good for business’.
Examples abound. Tim Cook,
CEO of Apple, speaks strongly
for the LGBT community. Sales-
force CEO Marc Benioff speaks
strongly against pay inequality.
Laurence Douglas Fink, chair-
man and CEO of BlackRock, is
passionate about the incorpo-
ration of environmental, social,
and governance risks in invest-
ment decisions and is against
shareholders taking very short-
term views.
One thing common among
these examples is that the
debate on how good or bad
leaders’ convictions are for busi-
ness is not yet settled.
When it comes to social
injustice or politics, business
leaders can no longer stand by
and watch from the sidelines.
They must take action: their
employees, customers and
society expect them to. But their
political views might not align
with some of their employees or
corporate partners, so how are
they supposed to take a stand
and please everybody at the
same time?
New ways to relate to society
Stakeholders are not unrea-
sonable. They understand that
individuals are free to uphold
and air views they are pas-
sionate about. They respect
such leaders, even when they
disagree with them. What they
do not like is prevarication and
hypocrisy. They can easily see
through that when it happens.
The former CEO of Unilever,
Paul Polman, was passionate
about sustainable development
goals. He did not hide this pas-
sion. He even challenged the
market on quarterly reporting of
performance, preferring a long-
term agenda. Unilever did not
suffer as a result.
Contrary to Polman’s position
on sustainability was the view
of Steve Jobs, the former CEO
of Apple. Despite his stance, he
was believed as someone who
stood for his passion in technol-
ogy and innovation.
In other words, the problem is
not necessarily having a political
view. But what happens when
a leader’s decisions have an
indirect negative impact on the
business? An example could be
boycotting a market because of
social injustice, and this leading
to reduced revenues.
Imagine a situation where a
CEO decides to take a strong
stand against bribery and cor-
ruption. Or perhaps the business
operates in an environment
where bribery and corruption is
rife and normal or where wield-
ers of state power are inclined
towards poor governance. This
is common in many emerging
economies with very weak mar-
ket and democratic institutions.
In such situations, it would
appear that doing the right thing
is a luxury (unless it pays). The
incentive to act responsibly
would be very low –- leading to
a fragmented two-tier market
system. How can a CEO who
still wants to do the right thing
compete in such a harsh envi-
ronment?
Innovation and creativity
might hold the key to success
here. Colleagues and I have
published a book, `Africapital-
ism, Sustainable Business and
Development in Africa’, that sets
out new ways for businesses
to relate to society and meet its
needs.
In it we share what we call
C.L.E.A.R. strategies, each letter
standing for an action businesses
can take to contribute to sustain-
able development goals.
Five courses of action
Collaborate. The idea here is
for CEOs to enroll other actors in
their institutional change initia-
tives (such as setting standards).
This might involve partnerships
with non-business actors like
the NGOs. There are also occa-
sions when it might be better for
CEOs to go it alone, especially
where there is a clear competi-
tive advantage to be gained by
doing so. A CEO needs to decide
on when and how to collaborate
in pursuing a responsible busi-
ness practice agenda.
Lobby. CEOs keen to do the
right thing in challenging and
threatening environments are
usually better off lobbying the
relevant authorities and gover-
nance actors. They can ask that
the players adhere to the rules,
where they exist, or ask for the
rules to be changed where they
do not support doing the right
thing.
Educate. Sometimes doing the
right thing is not appropriately
Jan. 17 - 23 2020
FEATURE
rewarded because stakeholders
lack an understanding of the
issues. For example, consumers
may not be prepared to pay for
green products and sustainable
innovation. Then the CEO may
want to engage and educate the
relevant stakeholder groups.
Enlightened consumers could
become a new market or pres-
sure group to raise the bar for
the entire industry. The same
applies to other stakeholder
groups such as regulators,
employees and investors.
Align. The CEO needs to be
consistent in practice, while
ensuring good internal and
external alignment with the
values and purpose of the busi-
ness. He or she does not want
to be seen as “green-washing”.
A good example of this would
be the leaders of BP in the early
2000s. At that time, BP claimed
to aspire towards good green
(environmental) credentials, but
it was part of a coalition lobby-
ing the U.S. government against
climate change policies that
would have catalysed the emer-
gence of the green economy in
the US. This can be damaging.
Renewal. All of the strategies
highlighted above will need
to be continuously reinforced,
and not just treated as one-off
activities. That way, the CEO
recreates and adapts to the eth-
ical demands of the operating
environment.
In sum, ethical challenges and
dilemmas will never go away.
But the way responsible leaders
deal with them will make or
break them. Sticking to one’s
beliefs and convictions, stepping
aside – or down – when beliefs
and convictions become over-
whelmingly detrimental to busi-
ness, and being innovative at
doing the right thing appear to
hold the key to effective respon-
sible leadership.
Kenneth Amaeshi is Professor
of Business and Sustainable
Development, University of
Edinburgh
Source: The coversation
23
FEATURE
Future of Nile Basin water
Why there will be more rain but less water in the basin
By Ethan D. Coffel & Justin S. Mankin
T
he Nile – the world’s longest
river – runs through 11
countries in Africa and has
a basin that covers about 3
million sq. kms, nearly 10% of the
continent’s landmass. About 250
million people are reliant on the Nile’s
waters in Ethiopia, Uganda, South
Sudan, Sudan and Egypt.
Nearly all of the rainfall that feeds
the Nile’s two major tributaries – the
Blue and White Nile – falls in the
upper Nile basin, found in South
Sudan, western Ethiopia and Uganda.
The lower Nile basin receives very
24 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
little rainfall and the countries there –
Sudan and Egypt – depend heavily on
the Nile for water.
Climate projections suggest that,
by the end of the century, the amount
of rain in the Upper Nile basin could
increase by up to 20%. But our new
paper shows that, despite more
rainfall, devastating hot and dry spells
are projected to become more frequent
in the Upper Nile basin.
These conditions will occur
simultaneously with the region’s rapid
population growth, anticipated to
double by the middle of this century.
This will increase water stress in the
region, irrespective of the modest
rainfall increases.
At present, around 10% of the basin’s
population faces chronic water scarcity
due to the region’s seasonal aridity
and the highly unequal distribution of
water resources. By 2040, according to
our research – in a year with average
temperatures and rain – the number
of people facing water scarcity could
reach 35%. That’s more than 80 million
people without enough water to
function in their daily lives.
Hot and dry conditions will make
this worse. These conditions will kill
crops, reduce hydropower, diminish
the water available for people and
industry and heighten tensions over

the distribution of regional water
resources. By 2040, a hot and dry year
could push over 45% of the people
in the Nile Basin – nearly 110 million
people – into water scarcity.
Even without these developments,
population growth would drive water
scarcity in the Upper Nile. But larger
deficits in the amount of water flowing
into streams and rivers during future
hot and dry years will amplify this
effect. This will leave an additional 5%
to 15% of the future population in the
Upper Nile basin facing water scarcity
in hot and dry years.
These climate and population
changes will project onto an already
complex and tense socioeconomic and
political landscape.
The Nile’s 11 riparian states vie with
one another for the river’s water. The
downstream states of Egypt and Sudan
try to assert control over the Nile flow,
while upstream states try to find ways
to secure water for their well-being.
Coupled with the region’s strong
dependence on subsistence agriculture
and political instability, the region
is at risk of severe food and water
shortages.
More hot and dry years
For our research, we wanted to
understand how much more frequent
hot and dry years could become,
despite the slight increase in overall
rainfall.
To do this we assessed historical
climate trends in the Upper Nile
Basin using eight observational data
sets. These recorded rainfall and
temperature in the Upper Nile basin
between 1961 and 2005. We also
used climate models to estimate how
temperature and precipitation will
change over the remaining century.
Our findings show that hot and dry
years have become more common
over the past four decades in the
Upper Nile basin and that this trend is
likely to continue. These hot and dry
conditions will be similar to those that
have resulted in crop failures, food
shortages and humanitarian crises in
the region over the past decades.
By the late 21st century, the
frequency of these hot and dry years
may rise between a factor of 1.5 and 3.
In the past, hot and dry years occurred
about once every 20 years; but this
increase in frequency means that in the
future a hot and dry year could occur
once every six to 10 years, making
them a common experience for people
in the region.
In addition to becoming more
frequent, they will also become more
severe. Temperatures during heat
waves in the region could rise between
2°C and 6°C, putting far more stress on
people, animals and crops than occurs
today.
We estimated the number of people
facing water scarcity by comparing
the total runoff – the amount of
water flowing into streams and
rivers – which is available for human
consumption with the amount of water
every person needs to meet their basic
needs. When we make this comparison,
we find that despite the small projected
increase in rainfall, as the population
rises and hot and dry years become
more frequent, the total water supply
will be far less than needed to meet the
region’s needs.
What’s causing all this?
Like the rest of the world, the
Nile Basin region has been warming
due to rising global greenhouse gas
concentrations. Because rainfall is
projected to slightly increase in the
region, the frequency of dry years
FEATURE
won’t change significantly. However,
the rise in temperature means that
when dry years happen, they will be
hot.
Compounding this drying is a
projected increase in the year-to-year
variations in rainfall, which may be
due to projected intensification of El
Niño and La Niña cycles. This creates a
precipitation “whiplash” in the region,
where severe wet and dry years occur
in quick succession.
What can be done
One critical priority is to ensure
that food and water are more equally
available to all. Despite there being
enough food and water on average,
many people cannot afford or access it.
This will get worse.
A critical first step is for basin states
to create an equitable water allocation
scheme among them that not only
addresses “historical rights” – such as
Egypt’s long-held claims to two-thirds
of Nile flow – but also to the needs of
upstream countries like South Sudan
and Ethiopia, which require water to
build their economies.
Cooperative water-sharing
institutions within the basin could
help avert contentious situations.
For instance, Ethiopia is currently
constructing the Grand Ethiopian
Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile
River. Without strong regional
institutions to provide political and
legal assurances of fair Nile water use,
the dam’s construction is provoking
worries in Egypt, as it would likely
reduce irrigation water availability for
the country’s agriculture.
Water may be often pointed to as
a source of conflict, but as with the
case of Israel and Jordan, it can also
be a means to cooperation, getting
nations to the negotiating table. In a
future world with more people and
less water, countries in the Nile Basin
will need to work together to ensure
the best use of the region’s resources
to catch and store rainfall in the wet,
flood risk years, and equally distribute
that water in dry years.
If the region’s governments fail
to work together to prepare, the
consequences for their people could be
catastrophic.
Ethan D. Coffel is Neukom Institute
Postdoctoral Fellow, Dartmouth College
and Justin S. Mankin Assistant Professor,
Department of Geography, Dartmouth
College
Source: theconversation
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 25
Shs39tn budget
concerns
CSOs want government to
control debt, increase budget
for key social sectors

C
By Julius Businge

ivil society organisations

under their umbrella body,
Civil Society Budget Advocacy
Group (CSBAG) have listed a
number of concerns that they
would like the government to
pay attention to as it debates and considers
approving the new budget.
Speaking to journalists at CSBAG head-
quarters in Ntinda on Jan.12, Julius Mukun-
da, the coordinator and Agnes Kirabo, a
member and others said that
the government needs to
expedite the finalisation
of the National Develop-
ment Plan III so that the
planning process of the
next financial year is not
distorted.
They said the National
Budget Framework Paper
for FY2020/21 seeks to
achieve the objectives of
the NDP III which is at
formulation stage but it
is in contravention with
Section 9 (3) of the Public
Finance and Management
Act, 2015, that requires
the minister to prepare a
Budget Framework Paper
which is consistent with the
National Development Plan
and with the Charter for
Fiscal Responsibility.
They also said that sup-
plementary budget requests
have continued to distort
planning and budgeting
process and hence affecting its
credibility.
Some of the supplementary
items in FY2018/19 such as the

26 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
 business
Shs2.28bn for Soroti University for Student ment should effectively implement all pro- ministries, departments and agencies given
enrolment, Shs60.212bn for e-passports and posals it has committed to mobilize and raise that the country continues to face several
Shs1.2bn to the Education Service Com- national revenue as guided by the Domestic challenges. For instance, in FY2018/19, gov-
mission for recruitment of 3,000 education Revenue Mobilization Strategy to close fund- ernment MDAs returned Shs350bn to the
service staff were not unavoidable, unfore- ing gaps. treasury, of which Shs210bn was at the cen-
seeable and unabsorbable. Whereas the government targets to tre for agencies like the NAADS Secretariat,
“Whereas we appreciate that supplemen- finance the budget through domestic rev- Mulago Hospital, Uganda National Roads
tary budgets are part of economic perfor- enue at a tune of Shs21.5trilliom (54%), the Authority while Shs139.5bn was from local
mance, we call on enforcement of the PFMA group is greatly concerned about URA’s low government including Wakiso district, Gulu
regulations of unavoidable, unforeseeable, revenue collection performance and delay in district, Kitgum and Kabale district.
unabsorbable,” officials said. implementation of digital stamps. The group is also calling upon the upward
The group also notes that there are gaps in The group is also bothered by the govern- revision of budgets for social sectors which
Petroleum Fund management. They are con- ment’s continued creation of more adminis- are largely relied by majority of the poor
cerned about the lack of petroleum expendi- tration units which have no funding, a con- citizens. This comes as the government plans
ture plan which encourages ad-hoc spend- cern that the Secretary to the Treasury, Keith to cut budgets for key social sectors such as
ing of the petroleum revenues. For example, Muhakanizi, seems to agree with. agriculture and health.
they said, Shs700billion from the petroleum While appearing before MPs on the In the agriculture sector, the government
fund has been depleted just in two years to Finance Committee on Jan.9, Muhakanizi plans to reduce the budget from Shs1trillion
finance the budget and no funds have been blamed the perennial budget deficits on gov- in FY2019/20 to Shs950.615bn in FY2020/21.
allocated to petroleum investment reserves ernment officials. In relation to the health sector, the budget
contrary to sections 58 and 59 of PFMA 2015. “When I go naked, the Ministers get is projected to reduce to Shs 1.55trillion from
“We call for review of the PFMA, 2015 to angry. When you increase wages, that is Shs2.58trillion in FY2019/20.
include an expenditure cap Meanwhile, the develop-
on Petroleum revenues trans- ment budget is set to reduce by
ferred to Consolidated Fund Proposed Sectoral Nominal Allocations for FY 2020/21 Shs1.4trillion while recurrent
and also MoFPED should SECTOR FY 2019/20 FY 2020/21 expenditure is projected to
establish petroleum revenue   increase by Shs1trillion.
utilization plan to avoid ad-hoc Ushs Bn % Ushs Bn %
spending,” the group said. Works and Transport
Interest Payments
6,404.6
3,145.2
19.6% 5,952.5 19.7%
9.6% 3,599.9 11.9%
2020/21 budget strategy
It is also concerned about the Education 3,397.6 10.4% 3,286.5 10.9% The budget strategy for
country’s debt status given the Security 3,620.8 11.1% 2,863.6 9.5% FY2020/21 will be anchored on
poor performance of projects Energy and Mineral Development 3,007.2 9.2% 2,468.4 8.2% the medium-term growth and
for which this debt is attained. Accountability 1,627.8 5.0% 1,852.6 6.1% development objectives of the
Justice/Law and Order 1,732.6 5.3% 1,766.3 5.9%
For example, they said that Health 2,589.5 7.9% 1,550.4 5.1% third National Development
the works and transport sector Water and Environment 1,092.8 3.3% 1,351.0 4.5% Plan, under the theme, ‘Indus-
received $912.40million out of Local Government Sector 1,260.3 3.9% 1,062.3 3.5% trialization for Job Creation
the $2,602.40million committed Public Administration 979.1 3.0% 1,058.7 3.5% and Shared Prosperity, accord-
loans representing 35% level of Agriculture 1,053.6 3.2% 950.6 3.2% ing to the NBFP.
disbursement. Public Sector Management 887.8 2.7% 727.6 2.4% The new budget, which
Legislature 687.8 2.1% 667.8 2.2%
As of December 2018, Tourism 193.7 0.6% 193.7 0.6% is projected to reduce from
$3.86bn (34% of the public and Social Development 219.2 0.7% 172.5 0.6% Shs40.48 trillion to Shs39.6
publicly guaranteed debt) was Lands, Housing and Urban Development 227.0 0.7% 172.3 0.6% trillion, will be the first budget
loan commitment, which have Trade and Industry 202.8 0.6% 172.0 0.6% to operationalise the National
Science, Technology and Innovation 186.0 0.6% 163.3 0.5%
not yet been disbursed, thus ICT 146.2 0.4% 136.2 0.5%
Development Plan III to guide
negatively affecting service national planning for the next
delivery and general perfor- Source: Nbfp Fy 2020/21 five financial years.
mance of the economy. Expenditure on non-
“Government needs to wage is projected to amount
ensure that we get more returns from these cabinet and President, remember these are Shs17.56trillion (49%) in FY2020/21 inclusive
projects, starting with improving project powerful people. When you create perma- of Shs9.85trillion for interest payment.
performance, and critically assessing our nent structures, like cities, we can’t cry over Expenditure on wage will amount to
Public Investment Management (PIM),” they something you have created. (Moreover) Shs4.7trillion (13%). External development
added. these things are created without my knowl- expenditure will account for 18% (Shs6.6tril-
edge. How can I manage when powerful lion) and domestic development is 20%
Interest payments people aren’t respecting my advice?” asked (Shs7.32trillion).
In FY2020/2021, interest payment is pro- Muhakanizi. The FY2020/21 NBFP comes at a time
jected to be the second budget priority tak- According to CSBAG, government lacks when the Uganda Bureau of Statistics
ing a budget share of 11.9 percent (Shs3.6tn). funds to fully operationalize the newly cre- (UBOS) has just rebased Uganda’s economy.
This percentage is higher than the 9.6 ated 364 sub counties, 352 Town Councils Over the same period, Gross Domestic Prod-
percent (Shs3.1tn) in FY2019/20 and 10.2% units. uct (GDP) Per capita rose marginally from
(Shs3.5tn) in FY2018/19. “We recommend that Government Shs3.160million to Shs3.295million.
The group said that interest payments reviews the policy of creating new admin- Mukunda said their hope is that the
has continuously made great demand on istrative units and start rationalising the rebasing of the country’s economy is com-
domestic revenue which could be allocated existing ones. The same applies to rationalis- plemented with favorable economic policies
to capacitate social sectors hence consuming ing Government agencies and reducing the that trigger inclusive growth to translate the
a huge chunk of national resources thereby numbers of MPs,” the group said. budget theme into reality.
cheating other service delivery efforts. The group is also concerned about the
Going ahead, they said that the govern- poor absorption capacity of government

Jan. 17 - 23 2020 27
business
Coffee export
earnings drop
UCDA is hopeful that farmers will reap more in 2020
By Isaac Khisa
L
atest figures indicate that Uganda’s
coffee export earnings dropped in
2018/19 season (October-September)
but the regulator is optimistic that
the industry performance will rebound in
2019/20 season.
Coffee, the country’s second largest com-
modity export behind tourism, recorded
4.43million - 60 kg bags in exports worth
US$433.9milion in the 2018/19 season (Oct-
Sep) compared with 4.3million 60 kg bags
worth US$462.8million exported in the pre-
vious season.
This represents a 3.12% increase in quan-
tity and 6.24% drop in value during the peri-
od under review.
These figures are from the Uganda Coffee
Development Authority (UCDA).
The UCDA Executive Director, Emman-
uel Iyamulemye Niyibigira, told The Inde-
pendent in an interview that the drop in
earnings is attributed to a reduction in price
for the commodity at the international mar-
ket owed to surplus in production.
Globally, coffee prices fell from an aver-
age of US$2.47 per kilogram in 2017/18 sea-
son to US$2.23 per kilogram in the 2018/19
season, according to the International Coffee
Organisation (ICO).
The world coffee production in 2018/19
season is estimated to be 3.7% higher than
in the previous year at 168.87 million bags,
as output of Arabica increased by 1.8% to
102.68 million bags and Robusta grew 6.7%
to 66.04 million bags.
The world coffee consumption is estimat-
ed to be 2.1% higher at 164.82 million bags,
but coffee production exceeded this by 4.05
million bags, ICO data shows.
Surging exports
This is the third consecutive year that
Uganda has recorded a surge in export
volumes since 1996 when exports stood at
4.15million bags.
UCDA has since 2012 distributed more
than 317,000 coffee seedlings to farmers
across the 98 districts that grow the crop,
though low productivity, unpredictable
weather conditions, inadequate agricultural
extension officers, and low use of fertilizers
remains a big hindrance to productivity.
The replanting initiative received a major
boost in 2013 when the government unveiled
28 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
the Operation Wealth Creation aimed at
raising household incomes for poverty
eradication and sustainable wealth creation.
More than 1.7million of the country’s 35mil-
lion people are involved in coffee growing
countrywide.
The East African nation is eying at export-
ing more than at least 20 million bags a year
by 2025. It exports most of its coffee to the
European Union, Sudan, USA, and India,
with Robusta coffee accounting for 85% of
the total exports.
Regional performance
Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi
in the east African region too recorded a
sharp drop in coffee export earnings citing a
decline in price at the international market.
Kenya recorded a 20.3% decline in coffee
export earnings to US$102 million at the end
of the 2018/2019. The market report by the
Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) shows that
earnings declined from Kshs12.8 billion in
2018 to Kshs10.8billion in the 2018/19 season.
The exchanges’ Chief Executive Officer,
Daniel Mbithi, said the low earnings resulted
from a consistent trend in New York, where
Kenya trades nearly all of its beans.
“The earnings dropped on account of
the dipping in prices at New York terminal,
which touched a record low of 86 US cents
per pound in 2019 compared with a high of
120 last year,” he said.
The government has unveiled plans
of rejuvenating the sector after it recently
announced a US$30 million financial pack-
age that is aimed at improving operations
across 500 coffee milling factories.
In Tanzania, the Tanzania Coffee Board
statistics shows that coffee exports fell from
1.13 million bags in 2017/18 season to 833,300
in the 2018/2019 season. The country is now
targeting to produce 1.6million bags of cof-
fee in the next four years.
In Rwanda, coffee revenues decreased
from US$69 million in 2017/2018 to US$68
million in 2018/2019 even as export volumes
increased from 333, 300 bags to 350,000 bags
during the period under review.
In Burundi, farmers harvested 300,000
bags of coffee last season. However, the
country projected to harvest merely 200,000
bags following the outbreak of diseases.
Reports indicate that the Burundian farm-
ers are now trying to boost output to 500,000
bags by 2023 under a $55 million World
Bank-funded project.
2019/20 projections
Niyibigira told The Independent that
the government is currently strengthening
extension services at the local levels through
farmer trainings using the newly developed
coffee manuals.
He said the country hopes to export
5.17million 60kg bags worth US$527.3mil-
lion in the 2019/20 season as the newly
planted crops increase yields and prices
start to increase at the international market.
Globally, ICO notes that coffee produc-
tion in 2019/20 season is projected at 0.9%
lower at 167.4 million bags with a 2.7%
decline in Arabica output to 95.68 million
bags, while Robusta production is expected
to rise by 1.5% to 71.72 million bags.
South America’s production is expected
to fall by 3.2% to 78.08 million bags, largely
attributed to the decline in Brazil’s Arabica
output in its off-year of the biennial crop
cycle.
Production from Asia & Oceania is pro-
jected to grow by 1.9% to 49.58 million bags
largely due to a recovery in Indonesia’s
output while Vietnam is expected to remain
stable.
Central America & Mexico could see an
increase of 0.9% to 21.54 million bags while
Africa’s output is estimated to decline by
0.6% to 18.2 million bags.
Meanwhile, coffee consumption is likely
to slowdown in the 2019/20 season in line
with the anticipated slower growth of the
global economy.
 Executive Style
I am optimistic about Africa’s future
What would you say are
the three biggest challenges
I
facing Africa today?
would rather talk about
the opportunities in
Africa. I want to create
a positive narrative of
Africa. However, we know
that we still face challenges
of conflicts, disease, poverty
and hunger. That is why we
must implement the Sus-
tainable Development Goals
(SDGs) and Africa’s Agenda
2063 (the AU’s blueprint and
master plan for transforming
Africa).
What are the top three op-
portunities you see on the
continent for 2020?
There are various oppor-
tunities that can put Africa
on a very different path. For
me the greatest opportunity
right now is the African
Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA) that came into
effect a few months ago.
Africa has the potential to be
one of the biggest markets
in the world. But we need to
trade amongst ourselves as
Africans.
The second opportunity is
the “Silencing the Guns in Afri-
ca” initiative, one of the priority
projects of the AU’s Agenda
2063. The AU’s theme for 2020
will be “Silencing the Guns,”
and there will be a renewed
campaign to accelerate the ini-
tiative.
Another area of opportunity
for me is climate change. For
the first time more people are
getting involved and discuss-
ing climate change like never
before. The reality is with us.
The UN Climate Action Summit
convened by the Secretary-Gen-
eral last September saw many
countries join the climate action
agenda. Young people across
the African continent are saying,
“The future is ours.”
As you mentioned, the cam-
paign to end conflicts in Africa
kicks off in early January 2020,
Bience Gawanas is the special adviser on Africa to the
UN Secretary-General. She spoke to the Africa Renewal’s
Zipporah Musau on her role and priorities for 2020
and it is also the theme of the
African Union for the year.
What is it about, and what is
the UN’s role in it?
I see it in two ways: one is the
physical dropping of the guns
and the other one is focusing
on development, investing in
our people. We have come a
long way and have managed to
silence the guns in many coun-
tries in Africa already, but there
are still some remaining hot
spots. I think we can get there.
It is an opportunity to have
youth and women as agents of
change, not just as victims or as
perpetrators of conflicts or wars.
We have always been talking
about child soldiers, about youth
taking up arms. But there is a
new narrative—that youth also
want to be known as agents of
peace, and therefore should be
involved in the peace process on
the continent. The objective of
the campaign is to ask, “What
more do we need to do in order
to achieve a complete silencing
of guns in Africa?” The AU will
be rolling out different activities
to accelerate the achievement
of that. At the UN, the Secre-
tary-General has established
a task force, which Office of
the Special Adviser on Africa
(OSAA) is part of, led by the
UN Assistant Secretary-General
for Africa, in the Departments
of Political and Peacebuilding
Affairs and Peace Operations,
Bintou Keita, to support the AU
on the initiative.
What programmes will you
prioritize in 2020?
We are mostly guided by
what the African continent sees
as its priorities, the synergy
between the two agendas—the
Jan. 17 - 23 2020
AU’s Agenda 2063
and the global Agenda
2030. The AU and the
UN have signed two
framework agreements:
on partnership on peace
and security and on
partnership in imple-
mentation of the two
agendas. Those will
definitely remain priori-
ties for us.
What is it like to be an
African female leader
on the global stage?
I am very fortunate.
I always look back to
when, as a young wom-
an, I was at the forefront
of fighting for Namib-
ia’s independence. I
tell myself if we could
fight for independence,
surely we can also lead.
This never was really
an issue for me because
I served my country in
many positions as the
first woman to do so. I
moved from Namibia
to the continental level,
where I served as one
of the first female com-
missioners in the AU
Commission. Now I am here
at the global level. It is really a
privilege.
Are there any setbacks?
The challenge women face
is the same everywhere when
getting into a male-dominated
structure that never had women
before. We have to basically
rewrite the script and start with
a new narrative that takes into
account who we are as women.
I’ve always said that the fact
that women occupy leadership
positions does not turn them
into men. I bring my qualities
and perspective as a woman
to enrich the workplace. We
should always be objective. I
tell women, when you move
up the ladder, don’t kick off the
ladder. Hold on to that ladder so
that other women can climb the
same way you did.
29
business
AVIATION BANKING

Centenary Bank gets US$10

million for SME lending

C
entenary Bank has signed a Loan
Portfolio Guarantee agreement
with the African Guarantee Fund
worth US$10million to fund SMEs
in Uganda. The 5-year partnership aims to
unlock financing intended to facilitate the
promotion and growth and development of
Small and Medium sized Enterprises.
Fabian Kasi, the Managing Director, Cen-
tenary Bank commended AGF for choosing
the lender to be the implementing partner.
“We believe this partnership will go a
long way in improving the private sector
Passengers dissembark Uganda Airlines at the Abed Aman Karume Airport in Zanzibar on Dec.16, 2019. and economy in general. SMEs are a key
component of our economy and account for
Uganda Airlines flights to Johannesburg soon over 80% of the private sector,” he said.
Uganda Investments Authority, a stat-

U
ganda’s national
carrier, Uganda
Airlines, has made
it official that it
will unveil direct flights to
Johannesburg, South Africa,
soon.
The development will
see the airline grow its
network of direct flights out
of its hub at the Entebbe
International Airport.
Presently, the airline serves
nine destinations across
East Africa.
The southern Africa
route will be served with
a CRJ900, featuring a
dual class cabin layout of
Business – 12 seats – and
Economy – 66 seats –
capable to serve the route
even on a nonstop basis.
Meanwhile, following the
delivery of Airbus A330-
800neo this year will carrier
also unveil direct flights to
London, Dubai, Guangzhou
and Mumbai.
utory agency in charge of initiating and
supporting measures that enhance invest-
ment in Uganda, defines SMEs as entities
that employ between 5 to 100 people, have
assets not exceeding UGX 100 million and
register revenue not exceeding shs360
million per annum. AGF Group Chief
Executive Officer, Felix Bikpo said this
partnership will boost access to finance for
more SMEs which will ultimately lead to
job creation and revenue generation.

HOSPITALITY
CSR
Nairobi’s Mayfair Stanchart in new holiday campaign

S
Hotel closes

S
outh African hospitality
group Tsogo Sun is closing
its Southern Sun Mayfair
Hotel in Nairobi whose
employees have been sacked,
according to the Nairobi-based
BusinessDaily. The multinational
says it will close the hotel at the
end of this month, opting out
of the market in which it has
operated for a decade.
“Tsogo Sun Hotels confirm
that the Southern Sun Mayfair
Nairobi in Kenya will not renew
its lease and will officially cease
operations on the January 31,
tandard Chartered
Bank Uganda has
unveiled its annual
Repayment Holiday
campaign, encouraging bank-
ing customers to transfer their
salaries to Standard Chartered
and take a personal loan be-
fore Feb.29, 2020 with a grace
period of up to 75 days.
In addition, the bank
customers will also stand a
BANKING
 Absa Group secures US$497 million loan
chance to win Back to School
Gift Vouchers of Shs 200,000
with each loan of at least Shs-
50million. This offer applies
to both new and existing
customers. The bank said the
campaign is intended to make
going back to school in the
New Year smooth and easier
on parents and guardians who
are coming from the festive
season and could be financial-
ly constrained due to compet-
ing priorities.
Moses Rutahigwa, the
head of Retail Banking at the
lender said: “We are happy
to once again offer this break
to our clients which will give
them a bit of financial flexi-
bility when it is needed the
most to relieve their financial
burdens and stress.”

2020,” the company said.
“Employee contracts have been
terminated after due consultation.
All staff have been provided with
the necessary support aligned
with the labour laws.”
The 171-room hotel is said to
have faced increased competition
over the past decade as the
hospitality industry witnessed
the entry of new players and
expansion by established brands.
A
bsa Group has se-
cured US$497 million
from the Multilateral
Investment Guaran-
tee Agency (MIGA), a member
of the World Bank Group, to
extend financing across seven
countries in Sub-Saharan Af-
rica. The loans are valid for as
long as 15 years and apply to
Absa’s subsidiaries in Ugan-
da, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius,
Mozambique, Seychelles and
Zambia. The loans will help
to protect Absa against risks
related to the mandatory capi-
tal reserves that Absa and oth-
er banks are required to hold
with central banks.
They will also free up finan-
cial capacity, enabling Absa’s
subsidiaries to provide addi-
tional lending and generate
more revenue.
The subsidiaries will
increase sustainable financing
for corporates and small and
medium-sized businesses, as
well as projects with co-cli-
mate benefits.
 “We are pleased to work
with MIGA. Their guarantees
allow us to provide additional
financing in our subsidiaries,”
Absa Group Financial Director
Jason Quinn, said.

30 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
 business

UK boosts Namamve with

Shs735bn infrastructure
By Alfred Ochwo be here at this ground-breaking

K
ampala Business and In-
dustrial Park, Namanve,
has received a huge
boost from the United
Kingdom to stimulate industrial
growth.
The UK Minister for Africa,
Andrew Stephenson, and Ugan-
da’s Minister for Investment and
Privitisation, Evelyne Anite, held
a ground breaking ceremony
UK Minister for Africa, Andrew Stephenson (3rd L) cuts the tape during the on Jan.12, paving way for the
launch of an infrastructural development project at the Kampala Business upgrade of the industrial park.
and Industrial Park, Namanve, on Jan. 12. He is joined by Minister for
The upgrade expected to cost
Investment and Privatization Evelyne Anite (2nd R) and other government
officials.  INDEPENDENT/ ALFRED OCHWO. Shs735bn will include; construc-
tion of roads, water, electricity,
waste treatment facilities, sewer-
age and drainage networks and
optic fibre networks. UK-based
contractor, Lagan Group Limit-
ed, will lead in the project imple-
mentation.
Stephenson said UK is com-
mitted to investing in Uganda’s
future.
“The UK supports Uganda’s
ambition to become a middle-in-
come country by 2040,” he said.
“Boosting infrastructure,
enhancing investment and trade,
and strengthening Uganda’s
manufacturing base is vital and
that is why I am delighted to
ceremony.”
He said Uganda is an import-
ant partner for the UK and that
working together between the
two countries will deliver more
investment, jobs and growth –
benefitting the businesses and
the local population.
Anite said over 500 companies
will be constructed in the park,
creating thousands of jobs to the
local population.
“This is going to help young
people on the streets to start
working and Uganda will no
longer be known for importing
all its products from other coun-
tries as most of the products will
be manufactured here,” she said.
Earlier, Stephenson held a
meeting with President Yoweri
Kaguta Museveni a head of the
planned UK-Africa Investment
Summit in London slated for
Jan.20.
The summit, hosted by the
UK Prime Minister, Boris
Johnson, will see the UK and
African leaders, including
President Museveni, create
new lasting partnerships that
will deliver more investment,
jobs and growth.

Uganda Olympic Committee President, William Blick (L) receives a

gift hamper from Sarah Mulwana, the chairperson Board of Directors,
Mulwana Group as JESA Brand Ambassador, Isabella Blick, looks
on. Blick won a recipe challenge during the JESA Festive Adventure
Bonanza that took place at UMA Showgrounds, Lugogo.  INDEPENDENT/
ALFRED OCHWO. Share price movement (Jan.08)
Security Jan. 08 Nov.25 Movement
BATU 30,000 300 00
BOBU 125 125 00
CENT 1,085 1,075 0.9
QCL 102 127 19
DFCU 645 650 0.7
EABL 7,235 7,352 1.5
EBL 1,999 1,752 14
JHL 12,838 12,922 0.6
KA 77 104 25.9
KCB 1,971 1,790 10.1
NIC 10 11 9
NMG 1,443 1,450 0.5
NVL 319 321 0.6
SBU 25 24 4.1
Monica Kulabako – Marketing Coordinator Fresh Dairy (L) hands over an UCHM 10 12 16
assortment of Fresh Dairy goodies to poses with Ayiorwoth Dida Louise UCL 9.5 10 5
(R) winner of the Fresh Dairy Recipes- My Food Network challenge UMEME 239 297 19.5
recently.   COURTESY PHOTO. ALSI -- -- --

Jan. 17 - 23 2020 31
 Men becoming infertile
Quest for peak physical attractiveness to blame
S
By Agencies
cientists have described a new
paradox surrounding men’s
quest to make themselves more
attractive to the opposite sex
that is potentially harming their
fertility.
The Mossman-Pacey paradox, named
after the researchers who first described
it, posits the contradiction that men trying
to achieve a perceived notion of fitness or
attractiveness that will make them more sex-
ually appealing are instead damaging their
“evolutionary fitness”, reducing their chanc-
es of passing on their genes.
In the `Journal of Internal Medicine’, Dr
James Mossman and Professor Allan Pacey
describe the fitness paradox – specifically the
abuse of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS)
by men to gain muscles – as an evolutionary
contradiction.
“Some men use and abuse drugs to
enhance bodily features – presumably to
increase their attractiveness – and these
drugs are paradoxically making them infer-
tile in the process,” Dr Mossman told IFL-
Science. “Thus, their perceived ‘fitness’, and
their evolutionary ‘fitness’, are in direct con-
flict since evolutionary fitness is measured as
the number of offspring.
“In evolutionary terms, no sperm = no
babies = zero fitness.”
Steroids are most recognisably used by
bodybuilders to speed up the body’s natu-
ral muscle-building process. Dr Mossman
first noticed the connection between likely
steroid use and fertility issues while inves-
32 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
tigating male fertility and sperm quality
during his graduate studies at the University
of Sheffield.
“During the recruitment of over 500 men,
I noticed that a small proportion of them
were massively muscular with physiques
most likely obtained via steroid use. On
assessing their semen samples, it was clear
this was a group of men who were at the
very lowest end of the range of sperm pro-
duction. Most of them had zero sperm in
their samples!” Dr Mossman said.
“In discussion with Allan Pacey, he
described how steroid use/abuse was well
recognised in the infertility field, but men
poorly understood that attempting to con-
ceive while taking steroids was often futile.
This jumped out as a clearly paradoxical
situation.” Anabolic steroids are perfor-
mance-enhancing drugs used to increase
muscle mass that synthetically produce the
hormone testosterone. However, they can
block the actual production of testosterone
by fooling the brain’s pituitary gland –
which controls most hormone glands in the
body – into thinking the testes, which pro-
duce the sex hormone, are overproducing.
The glands react by stopping the production
of two key hormones that produce sperm.
However, it’s not just steroids creating
the paradox. Researchers in Denmark used
the Mossman-Pacey paradox, again in the
Journal of Internal Medicine, to highlight the
Catch-22 of using finasteride to treat male
pattern hair loss. Balding men are more like-
ly to use hair loss treatments to make them
feel more attractive, but finasteride can cause
both sexual dysfunction and infertility.
Asked why men are being driven to
extremes in the pursuit of peak “fitness”, Dr
Mossman told IFLScience: “I think the expo-
sure of ‘ideal’ body images that both women
and men suffer at the hands of advertisers,
the media, and Hollywood all but ensures
body image disorders and lowered self-es-
teem in the population... At a very early age,
children are exposed to a ‘desired’ body
shape and these imprinted images must
have a down-stream influence on perceived
attractiveness.”
The paradox is that men who on first
appearance look like they are genetically
superior and thus have a good chance of
passing on their genes, in reality, have a very
low probability of being able to reproduce
successfully.
The good news is that the damage can be
reversed once the steroid use stops, but it can
take up to a year for sperm production to be
normal again. However, long-term use can
risk permanent infertility. Dr Mossman also
points out that fertility rates are highly vari-
able in a population anyway, and any men
concerned about their fertility “should seek
professional medical advice (not from their
gym buddies) and be honest to their clini-
cians about their history of steroid use.”
Professor Pacey and Dr Mossman call
steroid use a “growing public health con-
cern” and hope that as the dangers of using
them are already well known, yet attitudes
have proven a challenge to change, perhaps
pointing out the futility of trying to procreate
while on them might get through to the men
at risk.
“The paradox we describe hopefully high-
lights that trying to conceive while abusing
steroids is an absurd idea,” Dr Mossman
said.
Source: Internet

Health danger of porn
Watching rewires the brain to a more juvenile state
P
By Rachel Anne Barr
ornography has
existed throughout
recorded history,
transforming with
the introduction of
each new medium.
Hundreds of sexually explicit
frescoes and sculptures were
found in the Mount Vesuvius
ruins of Pompeii.
Since the advent of the inter-
net, porn use has skyrocketed to
dizzying heights. Pornhub, the
world’s largest free porn site,
received over 33.5 billion site
visits during 2018 alone.
Science is only just beginning
to reveal the neurological reper-
cussions of porn consumption.
But it is already clear that the
mental health and sex lives of
its widespread audience are
suffering catastrophic effects.
From depression to erectile
dysfunction, porn appears to be
hijacking our neural wiring with
dire consequences.
In my own lab, we study the
neural wiring that underlies
learning and memory processes.
The properties of video porn
make it a particularly powerful
trigger for plasticity, the brain’s
ability to change and adapt as a
result of experience. Combined
with the accessibility and ano-
nymity of online porn consump-
tion, we are more vulnerable
than ever to its hyper-stimulat-
ing effects.
Impacts of porn consumption
In the long term, pornography
seems to create sexual dysfunc-
tions, especially the inability to
achieve erection or orgasm with
a real life partner. Marital qual-
ity and commitment to one’s
romantic partner also appear to
be compromised.
To try to explain these effects,
some scientists have drawn
parallels between porn con-
sumption and substance abuse.
Through evolutionary design,
the brain is wired to respond to
sexual stimulation with surges
of dopamine. This neurotrans-
Pornography viewers are increasingly choosing more violent forms of pornography;
this may be attributed to the desensitizing effect of regular consumption.
mitter, most often associated
with reward anticipation, also
acts to program memories and
information into the brain. This
adaption means that when the
body requires something, like
food or sex, the brain remembers
where to return to experience
the same pleasure.
Instead of turning to a roman-
tic partner for sexual gratifica-
tion or fulfillment, habituated
porn users instinctively reach
for their phones and laptops
when desire comes calling.
Furthermore, unnaturally
strong explosions of reward
and pleasure evoke unnaturally
strong degrees of habituation in
the brain. Psychiatrist Norman
Doidge explains: “Pornography
satisfies every one of the prereq-
uisites for neuroplastic change.
When pornographers boast that
they are pushing the envelope
by introducing new, harder
themes, what they don’t say is
that they must, because their
customers are building up a tol-
erance to the content.”
Porn scenes, like addictive
substances, are hyper-stimulat-
ing triggers that lead to unnat-
urally high levels of dopamine
secretion. This can damage the
dopamine reward system and
leave it unresponsive to natural
sources of pleasure. This is why
users begin to experience diffi-
culty in achieving arousal with a
physical partner.
Beyond dysfunction
The desensitisation of our
reward circuitry sets the stage
for sexual dysfunctions to devel-
op, but the repercussions don’t
end there. Studies show that
changes in the transmission of
dopamine can facilitate depres-
sion and anxiety. In agreement
with this observation, porn con-
sumers report greater depressive
symptoms, lower quality of life
and poorer mental health com-
pared to those who don’t watch
porn.
The other compelling finding
in this study is that compulsive
porn consumers find themselves
wanting and needing more
porn, even though they don’t
necessarily like it. This discon-
nect between wanting and liking
is a hallmark feature of reward
circuitry dysregulation.
Following a similar line of
inquiry, researchers at the Max
Planck Institute in Berlin, Ger-
many, found that higher porn
use correlated with less brain
activation in response to conven-
tional pornographic imagery.
This explains why users tend to
graduate to more extreme and
unconventional forms of porn.
Pornhub analytics reveal that
conventional sex is decreasingly
interesting to users and is being
replaced by themes like incest
and violence.
The perpetuation of sexual
violence online is particularly
troubling, as rates of real-life
incidences may escalate as a
result. Some scientists attribute
this relationship to the action
of mirror neurons. These brain
cells are aptly named because
they fire when the individual
Jan. 17 - 23 2020
HEALTH
performs an action but also
while observing the same action
performed by someone else.
The regions of the brain
that are active when someone
is viewing porn are the same
regions of the brain that are
active while the person is actu-
ally having sex. Marco Iacoboni,
a professor of psychiatry at Uni-
versity of California Los Ange-
les, speculates that these systems
have the potential to spread
violent behavior: “the mirror
mechanism in the brain also sug-
gests that we are automatically
influenced by what we perceive,
thus proposing a plausible neu-
robiological mechanism for con-
tagion of violent behavior.”
Though speculative, this sug-
gested association between porn,
mirror neurons and increased
rates of sexual violence serves
as an ominous warning. While
high porn consumption may
not drive viewers to harrowing
extremes, it is likely to change
behaviour in other ways.
Moral development
Porn use has been correlated
with erosion of the prefrontal
cortex — the region of the brain
that houses executive functions
like morality, willpower and
impulse control.
To better understand the role
of this structure in behaviour,
it’s important to know that it
remains underdeveloped during
childhood. This is why children
struggle to regulate their emo-
tions and impulses. Damage to
the prefrontal cortex in adult-
hood is termed hypofrontality,
which predisposes an individual
to behave compulsively and
make poor decisions.
It’s somewhat paradoxical
that adult entertainment may
revert our brain wiring to a
more juvenile state. The much
greater irony is that while porn
promises to satisfy and provide
sexual gratification, it delivers
the opposite.
Rachel Anne Barr is PhD
Student, Neuroscience,
Université Laval
33
comment
By Mildred Barungi, PhD
Allocating resources to agriculture
Issues to consider by the Ministry of Agriculture in the
process of developing the Third Sector Strategic Plan
A
world where food is nutritious
and accessible for everyone,
in which natural resources are
managed in a way that maintains
ecosystem functions to support current
and future human needs”, is what the 2030
Agenda for sustainable development seeks
to achieve. This universal Agenda, through
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
is a plan that all countries (including
Uganda) resolved to implement.
Development of sustainable food and
agriculture systems is central to whether
a significant number of the SDGs are
attained; especially those that relate to
health and improvement of wellbeing,
fostering more responsible production
and consumption, ensuring decent work
and employment, and promoting environ-
mental stewardship. It is further noted that
a transformation towards more sustainable
food and agriculture has great potential to
revitalise the rural landscape and deliver
inclusive growth in the context of SDGs. I
should quickly add that strengthening sus-
tainability in food and agriculture systems
is a process, which requires conviction,
political commitment, knowledge and peo-
ple’s participation and ownership.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Animal
Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) is in the
process of developing the third sector stra-
tegic plan that will be aligned to the third
National Development Plan (NDPIII). As
MAAIF prepares its sector strategic plan, it
should take into consideration the guide by
FAO, dubbed “A new approach for main-
streaming sustainable food and agriculture
in the implementation of SDGs”. FAO
developed this approach to support and
accelerate the transition to more sustainable
food and agriculture systems. The approach
is based on five principles and 20 intercon-
nected actions as presented below.
The first principle underscores the need
to increase productivity, employment and
value addition in food systems. Improving
productivity is key to transforming the live-
lihoods of people, yet smallholder farmers
continue to lack access to resources and
services. Therefore, in light of this principle,
MAAIF’s strategy should contain interven-
tions that will: facilitate access to productive
resources; finance and services, connect
smallholders to markets, diversify farming
34 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
households’ production and income, and
strengthen farmers’ capacities.
The second principle calls for conser-
vation, protection and enhancement of
natural resources. Food and agricultural
production depends on natural resources
and, therefore, the sustainability of pro-
duction depends on the sustainability of
the resources themselves. Healthy soil
produces healthy food and leads to better
nutrition. However, unsustainable land
use practices and human pressures on
resources are reaching critical limits. Thus,
in line with the second principle, the agri-
cultural sector strategy should contain clear
interventions aimed at: enhancing and
restoring land fertility, protecting water
and management of scarcity, protecting
biodiversity and ecosystems, and reducing
losses, partly through reuse and recycling.
The third principle is about improving
livelihoods and fostering inclusive eco-
nomic growth. Ensuring that farmers
have adequate access to and control of
productive resources, and addressing the
gender gap, can contribute significantly to
Their limited access
to knowledge,
information
and resources,
and restricted
organisational
capacity and
bargaining power
often leave them
ill-prepared, and
unable to benefit
from opportunities
meant for rural
transformation
reducing poverty and food insecurity in,
especially, rural areas. Rural populations
are among the most marginalised people in
society. Their limited access to knowledge,
information and resources, and restricted
organisational capacity and bargaining
power often leave them ill-prepared, and
unable to benefit from opportunities meant
for rural transformation. Therefore, within
the agricultural sector strategy, there
should be planned interventions that will:
empower people and fight inequalities,
promote secure tenure rights, ensure use of
social protection to enhance productivity,
and improve nutrition and promote balance
diets.
The fourth principle calls for enhancing
resilience of people, communities and
ecosystems, especially to climate change
and market volatility. Extreme weather
conditions, market volatility and civil strife
impair the stability of agriculture. Polices,
technologies and practices that build
farmers’ resilience to shocks would defi-
nitely contribute to sustainability. Thus, in
accordance to this principle, within MAA-
IF’s strategy, there should be interventions
meant to: prevent and protect against
shocks, prepare for and respond to shocks,
address and adapt to climate change, and
strengthen ecosystem resilience.
The fifth and last principle is about
adapting good governance to new chal-
lenges. The transition to sustainable pro-
duction can only take place when there
is the right balance between private and
public sector initiatives. Equally important
is accountability, equity, transparency and
the rule of law. In applying this principle,
MAAIF should have strategic interven-
tions that are aimed at: enhancing policy
dialogue and coordination, strengthening
innovation systems, improving investment
and finance, and strengthening the enabling
environment.
Therefore, as MAAIF finalises devel-
opment of the third sector strategic plan,
the five principle and two interconnected
actions need to be seriously considered.
Application of the guiding principles and
actions will certainly ensure sustainability
in food and agricultural systems.
Mildred Barungi is a Research Fellow at the
Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC).

By Dani Rodrik
The changing face of economics
The new face of the discipline shows that it must be open to
institutional alternatives and to institutional experimentation
R
esponding to pressures from
within and without, the economics
profession is gradually changing
for the better. Not surprisingly,
the populist backlash sweeping advanced
democracies in recent years has produced
some soul searching in the discipline. After
all, the austerity, free-trade deals, financial
liberalisation, and labor market deregulation
that caused it rested on the ideas of
economists.
But the transformation extends beyond
economic-policy tenets. Within the
discipline, there is finally a reckoning with
the hierarchical practices and aggressive
seminar culture that have produced an
inhospitable environment for women
and minorities. A 2019 survey carried out
by the American Economic Association
(AEA) revealed that nearly half of female
economists felt discriminated against or
treated unfairly on account of their gender.
Nearly a third of non-white economists
felt treated unfairly based on their racial
or ethnic identity.
These failings may be related. A
profession that is less diverse and less
open to different identities is more likely
to exhibit groupthink and hubris. If it is
to generate ideas to help society achieve
inclusive prosperity, it will have to start
by becoming more inclusive itself.
The new face of the discipline was on
display when the AEA convened for its
annual meetings in San Diego in early
January. There were plenty of panels of
the usual type on topics such as monetary
policy, regulation, and economic growth.
But there was an unmistakably different
flavour to the proceedings this year.
The sessions that put their mark on the
proceedings and attracted the greatest
attention were those that pushed the
profession in new directions. There were
more than a dozen sessions focusing
on gender and diversity, including the
headline Richard T. Ely lecture delivered
by the University of Chicago’s Marianne
Bertrand.
The AEA meetings took place against
the backdrop of the publication of Anne
Case and Angus Deaton’s remarkable and
poignant book `Deaths of Despair’, which
was presented during a special panel.
Case and Deaton’s research shows how a
particular set of economic ideas privileging
the “free market,” along with an obsession
with material indicators such as aggregate
productivity and GDP, have fueled an
epidemic of suicide, drug overdose, and
alcoholism among America’s working
class. Capitalism is no longer delivering,
and economics is, at the very least,
complicit.
A panel called “Economics for
Inclusive Prosperity” (EfIP), organised
by a network of the same name which I
co-direct, discussed several strands of new
thinking taking over the discipline. One
is the need to expand economists’ focus
from “average” levels of prosperity to
distributive aspects and to non-economic
dimensions that are equally fundamental
to wellbeing, such as dignity, autonomy,
health, and political rights. How economists
talk about, say, trade agreements or
deregulation may well change when
they take such additional considerations
seriously. This will require new economic
indicators. One proposal that goes part
of the way is for government agencies to
produce distributional national income
accounts.
As Samuel Bowles and Wendy Carlin
argued in a paper presented in the
same session, every policy paradigm
embeds a set of ethical values – about
what the good life entails – along with
a view of how the economy works.
Neoliberalism presumes individualistic,
amoral individuals and a free market that
delivers efficiency, thanks to complete
contracts and a relative paucity of market
failures. What we need, according to
Bowles and Carlin, is a new paradigm
that integrates egalitarian, democratic,
and sustainability norms with a model of
the economy as it really operates today.
This paradigm would place community
alongside the state-market dichotomy
and would include policies such as
wealth taxes, broader access to insurance
to reduce risk exposure, workplace rights
and voice, corporate governance reform,
and substantial weakening of intellectual
“property rights.”
Speaking in the same session, Luigi
Zingales faulted economists for foisting
their own preferences on the body politic.
This happens because economists tend to
comment
place greater value on certain outcomes
(such as efficiency) than others (such as
income distribution), and because they
fall prey to groupthink and fetishise
particular economic models over others.
Part of the solution is to value diversity
and exhibit greater modesty. Another
part, according to Zingales, is to pay
more attention to research in other social
sciences, including history, sociology, and
political science.
The implication of all these perspectives
is that economics must be open to
institutional alternatives and to institutional
experimentation. Fostering such thinking is
one of the major aims of the EfIP network.
The institutional basis of a market economy
is largely indeterminate. We can stick with
institutional arrangements that sustain
privilege and restrict opportunity. Or we
can devise institutions that, in the words of
Bowles and Carlin, are consistent with the
pursuit of not only shared affluence but
also an expanded concept of freedom.
Empirical methods – especially of
causal inference – will help, and they
have become much more central to the
profession in recent decades. This is a
very good thing insofar as real-world
evidence, with all of its necessary
messiness, displaces ideology. But the
focus on evidence also risks creating
its own blind spots. Evidence about
what does and does not work can be
obtained only from actual experience.
We necessarily lack data on alternative
institutional arrangements that are distant
from our current reality.
The challenge for economists is to
remain true to their empiricism without
crowding out the imagination needed
to envisage the inclusive and freedom-
enhancing institutions of the future.
Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political
Economy at Harvard University’s John F.
Kennedy School of Government, is the author of
Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World
Economy.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020.
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 35
comment
By Leon Willems
Demonisation of journalists must end
According to Reporters Without Borders, 49 journalists
worldwide were murdered in 2019 because of their work
F
ive years ago this month, Saïd
and Chérif Kouachi stormed the
Paris offices of the French satirical
magazine Charlie Hebdo and, in a
nightmare lasting just minutes, killed 12
people. In the days that followed, millions
marched in France and elsewhere to express
solidarity with the murdered journalists.
For Europeans, the Charlie Hebdo killings
represented the first mass attack on
journalists close to home. #JeSuisCharlie
(“I am Charlie”) became one of the most
popular Twitter hashtags ever. Press
freedom was trending.
Since then, however, the fight to defend
journalistic freedom has flagged, and
public mobilisation has proved to be
fleeting – including in the case of Charlie
Hebdo. In January 2019, the magazine’s
staff complained in an editorial that
people no longer wanted to hear about
the shootings. “Perhaps you should move
on!” they were reportedly told.
This apparent indifference has a lot
to do with what many believe Charlie
Hebdo represents: the freedom to express
yourself in a way that might provoke
others. And this freedom has come under
even more pressure in the last five years.
Such a trend is evident in the responses
directed at journalists who shine a light
on unpopular or inconvenient facts and
opinions. They are exposed to a daily
barrage of attacks on their integrity,
including by important political leaders.
In the United States, President Donald
Trump has repeatedly referred to
journalists who are critical of him as
the “enemy of the people.” And at a
press conference two years ago, Czech
President Miloš Zeman brandished a
replica of an AK-47 inscribed with the
words “for journalists.” By indulging in
such behavior, these and other leaders
normalise attacks against members of the
press.
And members of the press are very
much under attack. According to
Reporters Without Borders, 49 journalists
worldwide were murdered in 2019
because of their work. (The annual
average for the last five years is even
higher, at 81.) In addition, the number of
journalists who were arbitrarily detained
36 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
rose to 389 last year. Threats on social
media, against female journalists in
particular, are an everyday occurrence,
and journalists are routinely beaten up,
teargassed, or robbed of their equipment.
Violence against journalists is an assault
on an essential pillar of democracy. And
as long as these attacks continue, it is not
“time to move on” at all.
On the contrary, it’s time for European
Union leaders to wake up and better protect
journalists at risk. Efforts like the PersVeilig
initiative in the Netherlands, in which
police, public prosecutors, the journalists’
union, and editors collaborate to counter
violence against journalists, should be
implemented across Europe. Politicians
who verbally attack journalists must be
held accountable, and media organisations
should do more to show solidarity with
colleagues at rival outlets.
More generally, there is an urgent need
for greater awareness and a stronger
public defense of journalism’s value for
society. And there have been successful
Violence
against
journalists is
an assault on
an essential
pillar of
democracy.
And as long as
these attacks
continue, it is
not “time to
move on” at all
examples of this in recent years. The
murders of journalists Ján Kuciak in
Slovakia and Daphne Caruana Galizia in
Malta sparked mass protests that forced
these two countries’ prime ministers
to resign. In addition, the investigation
by United Nations Special Rapporteur
Agnès Callamard into the murder of
Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The
Washington Post, raised public awareness
of the criminal behavior of the Saudi
Arabian leadership.
These cases needed – and received –
long-term attention. But who has heard of
Norma Sarabia from Mexico, or Eduardo
Dizon from the Philippines, who also
paid the ultimate price for practicing their
profession? Nigerian journalist Jones
Abiri went to prison for the second time
last year on trumped-up charges, while
a Nicaraguan photographer recently
told us that he has stopped working as
a journalist for the time being, because
it meant risking his life every day. Who
is standing up for these lesser-known
figures?
The justice system should give higher
priority to prosecuting attacks against
journalists, yet a series of relevant
resolutions adopted by the UN General
Assembly and Security Council has
yielded limited results. A better way to
end judicial inaction would be to establish
an internationally mandated investigation
committee, which also would clear the
way to resolving the hundreds of cold
cases of journalists killed for doing their
job.
Dozens of journalists are murdered
every year, and in nine out of ten cases,
the perpetrators walk free. As long as
such impunity exists, it pays to kill
journalists.
Five years ago, we were all Charlie.
Today, let us also be the hundreds of
other journalists who have been killed
since then.
Leon Willems is Director of Free Press
Unlimited.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2020.
 ART | BOOKS | SOCIETY | TRAVEL | CULTURE
The Endangered Ones
Bird art warns of the danger ahead
F
By Matt Kayem
arid Mahfudh, one of Uganda’s
top bird artists, has been work-
ing on a major body of work for
the last five years and now - it’s
ready! He is showing off the
work titled `Endangered’ at the
Afriart Gallery in Industrial Area Kampala.
Visitors have been excited and awed by
Farid’s hyper realistic paintings of birds.
The artist filled the gallery space with 32 oil
paintings of different species of birds. All
paintings are highly technically done. Atten-
tion is applied to detail and, at first glance,
can easily be mistaken for photographs.
The dessert of the meal is how the artist
filled the gallery floor with dried foliage
and branches of trees to mimic the nat-
ural environment of the birds. It quite
lovely and creates an interesting juxta-
position between the dirt and the clean;
the messy crunchy foliage on the floor
and the organised paintings on the walls;
when you look at the paintings and then
below you, stepped on the. Some who
are not moved by the realistic genre
(the category I belong to) might say “so
what?” but I think it is very beautiful
and meticulous.
Farid’s work touches a subject that is
on many mouths these days – conser-
vation and the environment. But birds have
been his burning passion since his childhood
days in Masaka when he nursed hatchlings,
fed them and improvised grassy shelters
for them. His passion was rekindled years
back after news of the unfortunate death of
over two million quelea birds by spraying
at Kibimba Rice Farm in Eastern Uganda.
His concern antennae tingled and he set out
to dedicate a huge duration of his practice
to raise awareness about birds. He set out
to find the bird species that are at most risk
of getting wiped out. Birds like the African
broadbill in Kibale forest reserve and the
shoebill in Mabama and Murchison Falls
National Park. These are some of the endan-
gered species found in Uganda.
Jan. 17 - 23 2020
This exhibition reminds us that birds are
sentinel species and form an integral part of
our landscape and soundscape of our daily
lives. They keep systems in balance, they
pollinate plants, disperse seeds, scavenge
carcasses, and recycle nutrients back into the
earth hence they should be conserved. Their
familiar sounds, comings and goings bring
pleasure and interest to people all around
the world.
Farid’s work is definitely not a ‘beauty
with no brains’ affair, mostly now when
I was scrolling through my facebook and
stumbled on a post to a link on an article,
title reading “Fruit trees pollinated by hand
due to lack of pollinating insects”. The news
came from China. On opening the article,
there was an image of farm workers on
top of the trees equipped with appa-
ratus “pollinating trees”. It is such that
wake you up to the fact that Farid has
created a significant body of work that
when you put this bird picture in your
living room, it should dawn on you
about the beauty we are destroying and
your input to put an end to the catastro-
phe that awaits us ahead.
The `Endangered’ exhibition is on
at the Afriart Gallery in Industrial Area
Kampala until Feb.02.
Matt Kayem is a contemporary artist/art
writer and critic
37
Investors want to exhume CEO who took password to millions in Bitcoin to the grave
The unexpected sent shock waves
death of 30-year- through the whole
old Gerald Cotten, crypto currency last
CEO of Canadian year, especially as he
cryptocurrency took the password to
exchange QuadrigaCX, about $163 million USD
Shock as imam discovers his
newlywed wife is a man
Just days after Mohammed Mutumba,
an Imam of a village mosque, exchanged
marriage vows in Islamic culture or Nikah
(legal marriage contract between man and
woman) with his ‘wife’ Ms Swabullah
Nabukeera, things took a dramatic turn.
First, a neighbor accused Mutumba’s newly
wedded wife of stealing household items,
including clothes and a TV set, and had
her arrested by police. Mutumba rents a
two-roomed house in Kyampisi Village in
Kayunga Sub-County, Kayunga District,
where they had been staying with Nab-
ukeera. However, the wall that separates
the two rental rooms does not reach the
iron sheets. Following the arrest, as is stan-
dard police practice, a female police officer
searched the suspect thoroughly before tak-
ing ‘her’ to the cells. However, to the shock
of the officer, the suspect had stacked clothes
in the bra to look like they were breasts. On
further search, police discovered that the
suspect had male genitals. The development
shocked Mutumba who was also at the
police station. He asked the police to let him
prove for himself by allowing him to see
the private parts of his ‘wife’. The suspect
revealed that he was Richard Tumushabe, a
27-year old man who had masqueraded as
a woman to get money from Mutumba. He
was charged him with impersonation, theft,
and obtaining goods by false pretense.
38 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
in bitcoin to the grave
with him. But now
investors want his body
exhumed to confirm
Cotten’s identity and
cause of death.
Mom uses life-size cardboard cutouts of herself to trick son
Wife `sells’ cheating
husband to his mistress
A Kenyan woman recently made
international news headlines after
allegedly selling her husband to the
woman he was cheating on her with
for just KShs1700 (Approx. Shs60,000).
After catching her husband with
another woman right in their matri-
monial bed, Edna Mukwana, report-
edly kicked him out of their home
and prevented him from returning for
a week, before offering to sell him off
to his mistress for Kshs2000 (Approx.
Shs70,000). It’s unclear whether she
actually expected a reply from her
husband’s lover, but when she got the
counter offer of KShs1700 she decided
to take it. She used the money to buy
her children new clothes for the new
year. Asked if there was any chance
of taking her husband back, Muk-
wana said that there was no chance
of that happening, as she doesn’t
want to start the new year with the
nuisance of 2019.
A young Japanese couple have
come up with an ingenious way of
making their one-year-old son stop
crying whenever he notices that
his mother isn’t around – life-size
cardboard cutouts of the woman
placed strategically in the room he
is playing in. Their trick went viral
around the world. Apparently
Sato and her husband had been
having trouble calming down their
one-year-old boy, who would start
to cry whenever he noticed that
she wasn’t around. Since staying
by his side 24/7 really wasn’t an
option, they decided to have her
be around the child all the time,
while not really being there.
Single woman creates bulb that
lights when someone breaks up
As a single person, there is nothing worse than
watching happy couples doing couple things
like doing shopping together, walking through
the street hand in hand, and, obviously, posting
photos of themselves online. Luckily, a young
Japanese inventor; Japanese YouTuber Marina
Fujiwara, has come up with a way of making
other single people feel better about their situation
with the help of a simple yet ingenious device – a
smart light bulb that lights up whenever someone
breaks up with their partner via social media.
 Car battery maintenance
A few quick tricks that save you a lot
By Agencies
T
o keep your car functioning in top
condition it is important to ensure
the car battery water level is main-
tained. A good quality battery
usually lasts for years, but even with the best
this is not a guarantee. The life of your bat-
tery just like every part of your car depends
on how you take care of it. One of the sim-
plest maintenance tasks is to check the car
battery water level and topping it up when
necessary. The water in your car battery is a
mix of water and sulfuric acid called electro-
lyte. The electrolyte is what allows the ions
to move between the positive and negative
plates of the battery’s cells when the battery
is being charged or discharged.
The sulfuric acid in your car battery water
is very corrosive and can cause harm to your
eyes and skin, as well as damage to your car.
Whenever maintaining the water in your car
battery be sure to wear the appropriate per-
sonal protective equipment, and to protect
the environment around where you will be
working.
Not all car batteries require the water to
be checked or refilled. Make sure that your
battery can be opened and serviced. Main-
tenance-free batteries are completely sealed
and should never be opened. Batteries that
require regular water service often have ser-
vice instructions and warning labels clearly
visible.
Never use tap water when topping a
car battery. Filling with water from the
tap could damage it. Tap water contains
impurities such as minerals which collect
on the plates in the battery’s cells reducing
its capacity and usable life. Use pure water
such as deionised water or distilled water. In
case of an emergency and there are no read-
ily available sources for deionized water or
distilled water, use rain water instead when
possible.
Too much of a good thing is bad and
adding too much water can damage your
car battery. When the car battery is charging
or being used, the volume of the battery’s
electrolyte increases. Over filling the battery
causes the electrolyte to overflow out of the
battery cells. To keep your car in prime con-
dition regularly check the car battery water
level. This simple tip can save you from cost-
ly battery purchases or getting stuck in the
middle of nowhere with a dead battery.
There is no fixed rule to how often you
should check your car battery water level.
The suitable frequency will depend on: bat-
tery age, older batteries tend to require more
maintenance, quality of the battery, better
quality batteries lose water slower then poor
quality, air temperature, the hotter the ambi-
ent temperature the quicker the water loss.
Start by checking your battery at regular
intervals, such as weekly and recording this.
Overtime you will notice a pattern to when
you refill the battery, and this will give you
the frequency for the future.
If you notice that your battery needs more
and more frequent water refills then this can
be an indication that there is a problem with
the battery, or possibly the charging system.
At this point it is worth getting it checked
out by a professional mechanic.
Source: Internet
Jan. 17 - 23 2020 39
global comment
By Ian Buruma
America’s sacred politics
When people at the top of the US government speak
about politics in terms that rightly belong in church
C
harles Carroll of Carrollton, Mary-
land was the only Roman Catholic
to sign the Declaration of Indepen-
dence in 1776. Although one of
the Founding Fathers, as a Catholic Carroll
was not allowed to hold public office. This
changed only in 1788, when the Constitution
prevented Congress from establishing any
religion, and religious affiliation ceased to be
a test for those seeking public office.
Not everyone was happy about this sepa-
ration of church and state. Thomas Jefferson
was attacked by some as a dangerous infidel,
and zealots believed that religion would die
in America if he were elected president. To
this day, there are many people who would
like to put religion back into the center of
public and political life. This is presumably
what U.S. Attorney General William Barr, a
deeply conservative Catholic, meant when
he denounced “secularists” for launching an
“assault on religion and traditional values.”
Prejudice against Catholics as enemies of
liberty and potential traitors (because of their
spiritual allegiance to Rome) also died hard.
In 1821, John Adams wondered whether “a
free government (can) possibly exist with a
Catholic religion.” Anglo-American freedom
and democracy was traditionally associated
with rugged Protestant individualism; Cath-
olics were believed to be reactionary slaves
to an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Individualistic
Protestants were free-thinking, industrious,
and devoted to making the best of them-
selves (materially, as much as spiritually),
whereas Catholics were backward and not
infrequently lazy.
The idea that Catholics were not fit for
capitalism was promoted at the beginning
of the last century by the famous German
sociologist Max Weber (a Protestant). John
F. Kennedy, thus far the only Catholic U.S.
President, had to state clearly during his
campaign that his loyalty was to the Consti-
tution, not the Vatican. Anti-Catholic biases
also played a part in English hostility to
European unification, which was sometimes
seen as a Popish plot to restore the Holy
Roman Empire.
The strident views of a U.S. Attorney Gen-
eral are not the only sign that times have
changed significantly. Only one Supreme
Court justice is a Protestant (Neil Gorsuch),
and even he was raised Catholic. Three jus-
tices are Jewish. The other five are Catholics
(some with ties to Opus Dei, a secretive
organisation that began to flourish in fascist
40 Jan. 17 - 23 2020
Spain in the 1930s).
The other historic change, which began
in the latter half of the twentieth century, is
evangelical Christians’ political alignment
with conservative Catholics. For a long
time, American Protestants were happy to
live with a constitution that shielded their
religious lives from state intervention. Spir-
itually neutral governments could be ceded
the public sphere, as long as they left reli-
gious believers alone. This changed after the
Civil Rights movements in the 1960s, which
alarmed many white Christians, especially in
the southern states. Today, evangelicals, like
Catholic conservatives, are among President
Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters.
They, too, believe that family and faith are
under siege from liberals and secularists.
To both groups, the fact that Trump is not
known to be religious, and that his life has
been anything but a model of traditional
Christian morality, is irrelevant. Such figures
as Energy Secretary Rick Perry believe that
Trump is “God’s chosen one.” Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo suggested not long ago
that Trump had been “raised” to save Israel.
“As a Christian,” he said, “I certainly believe
that is possible.”
To call this hypocrisy is to miss the point.
Reverence of this kind does not demand that
a leader be morally irreproachable. Even a
sinner can be an instrument of God.
Not wishing to be accused of bias, people
are sometimes reluctant to point out the
religious background of public figures in
America. Yet it is important to understand
the history of certain types of belief in order
to comprehend an extraordinary era in
which a sinful president is surrounded by
believers who are convinced that God put
him in the White House to save Israel and
redeem a wickedly secular America.
Obviously, not all Catholics are reac-
tionary. Pope Francis is not, which is why
Catholics like Steve Bannon, an early
ideological influence on Trump, dislike
him deeply. Liberation theology, popular
in South America in the 1960s and 1970s,
was a movement of the radical left. And
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of
Trump’s main political opponents, is as
much a Catholic as Barr.
But there is a strain of Catholicism, rooted
in Europe, that never reconciled with the
French Revolution, which broke the tem-
poral power of the Church and overthrew
the divine right of kings on which absolute
monarchy rested. One of the most articulate
and influential reactionary thinkers, Joseph
de Maistre, believed that without the sacred
authority of monarchy and church, society
would descend into immoral chaos.
This line of anti-Enlightenment thinking
never faded away. In France, it fueled right-
wing nationalist movements, such as the
anti-liberal, anti-Semitic, and anti-secular
Action Française. But Catholic conservatives
were not the only Christians to oppose the
secularist legacy of the French Revolution.
Until they merged with other denominations
into a Christian Democratic Party, the main
Calvinist party in the Netherlands was called
the Anti-Revolutionary Party.
The attempt by contemporary Catholic
conservatives and evangelicals to infuse
politics with their religious beliefs obviously
runs counter to the ideas of the French Rev-
olution, which sought to uphold freedom
from religion, but also of the American
Revolution, which instituted freedom of reli-
gion. Both groups are targeting the carefully
erected barriers between church and state.
This is dangerous, not only because it
fosters intolerance, but also because it chal-
lenges, in the spirit of de Maistre, the idea
that political argument should be based
on human reason. Once political conflicts
become clashes of faith, compromise
becomes impossible. A believer cannot
bargain over a sacred principle. For those
who see Trump as an instrument of God, it
doesn’t matter how rational his opponents’
accusations of malfeasance are. They must
defend him. To call this unreasonable is to
misunderstand their defense. You cannot
argue with God.
It is possible that Trump’s reverential
base won’t be sufficient to keep him in the
White House past 2020. But such ardent
faith is hard to oppose with rational plans
to fix this or that problem. That is why it
is so unsettling to hear people at the top of
the US government speak about politics in
terms that rightly belong in church. They are
challenging the founding principles of the
American Republic, and they might actually
win as a result.
Ian Buruma is the author, most recently, of `A
Tokyo Romance: A Memoir’.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2
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