News analysis Health Business

'World must stand with High blood pressure; Kansai Plascon’s top
Uganda on refugees' is it always bad? management shake-up

Issue No. 564 March. 22 - 28 2019 Ushs 5,000,Kshs 200, RwF 1,500, SDP 8

The Museveni,
Kagame letters
Details and implication on
border tension

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March. 22 - 28 2019
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Issue No. 564 March. 22 - 28 2019

News analysis Business Health Arts Motoring

Cover story
The Museveni, Kagame letters
Details and implication on border tension

4 The Week
30 Comments
Kadaga wants special fund
for women refugees
Banking on Refugees: Contrary
to popular belief, refugees are on
9 The Last Word par with non-refugees when it
comes to loan repayment
Uganda’s strategic dilemma
Part2: Why Uganda’s economy is
dominated by multinational capital
32 Health
and what cannot be done about it
High blood pressure; is it always
14 Analysis bad?: New findings question that
assumption it should always be
'World must stand with Uganda on cause for concern
refugees': What UNHCR Chief learnt from
recent visit to Uganda’s refugee settlements
35 Arts & Culture
27 Business
A brainy affair: Artist
Inside Kansai Plascon’s top attempts to talk politics
management shake-up: MD shown without propaganda
exit as sales and marketing manager
faces investigations over misconduct

STRATEGY & EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Andrew M. Mwenda WRITERS:Ronald Musoke, Flavia Nassaka, Ian Katusiime,
MANAGING EDITOR: Joseph Were Agnes Nantaba, Julius Businge.
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BUSINESS EDITOR: Isaac Khisa CARTOONIST: Harriet Jamwa

PUBLISHER: Independent Publications Limited, Plot 82/84, Kanjokya Street, P. O. Box 3304, Kampala, Uganda
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2 March. 22 - 28 2019
 Offline

“I want to thank the gallant

intellectuals of Makerere for speaking
loud and clear and overwhelmingly
voting for People Power in the Guild
elections yesterday. It was resounding
to see that the two leading contenders
both identified with People Power.”Bobi
Wine, People Power leader congratulating the
Makerere University Guild-president elect

Boeing 737
MAX 8 planes
from Shanghai
Airlines parked at
Shanghai Hongqiao
International Airport
in Shanghai after
their suspension
following the
Ethiopian Airline “We have highly placed Omanis who
crash. were born here, but now serving in
their home governments and we still
have a big number of Omanis here with
us; that is why trafficking of Ugandans
to Oman is an easy job.” Janat Mukwaya,
Austin, United States: Minister of Gender, Labour and Social
According to experts
gathered at the South Development
by Southwest festival in
Austin, Texas, flying taxis
expected to take to the
skies by 2025.

Nairobi, Kenya: With the

world’s forests increasingly
under threat from climate
change and logging, leaders “That on the face of the charge sheet,
and top bank chiefs pledged
billions to help reverse the
grave inconsistencies are exhibited
steep decline in Africa’s and that the act of the DPP to continue
woodland areas. East has lost prosecuting me basing on the same is in
around 6 million hectares of bad faith” Mubarak Munyagwa, COSASE chair
forest this century.
in his affidavit to block his trial on fraud charges
at the Anti-Corruption Court

Civil servants indicted Years a UPDF soldier was Residents facing

17 after arrest by State House
Anti-Corruption Unit
80 jailed by a military division
court for murder and robbery
400 eviction in Kamwokya
due to alleged trespass

March. 22 - 28 2019 3
week
Kadaga wants special fund for women refugees
A special fund to cater for women raising
families in refugee camps should be created,
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga said during the
14th session of the Parliamentary Union of
the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
Conference (PUOIC) in Rabat, Morocco.
“Motherhood in refugee camps is a devas-
tating experience; single mothers in conflict
areas are faced with the difficult task of rais-
ing families because the fathers are either
dead or active combatants,” she said. The
conference, which attracted speakers from
OIC Parliaments, discussed conflicts in the
Middle East and North Africa, and centered
on how to bring an end to wars, death and
WFP in food poisoning
saga in Karamoja
At least two people have been reported
dead and several others hospitalised in Amu-
dat district in the Karamoja sub-region after
eating porridge supplied by World Food
Programme, UN’s frontline agency against
hunger. The Super Cereal flour is provided
by WFP through 44 government health cen-
tres across Karamoja and aims to improve
nutrition among pregnant or breastfeeding
women, and children aged 6 and below. Just
days after WFP distributed the flour, scores
were admitted in health centres while vomit-
ing and with high fever. The global agency
released a statement saying investigations
are underway to establish the cause of the
incident. “From the outset, WFP has treated
this as a matter of extreme urgency and as
a precaution in case, Super Cereal is linked
to outbreaks of sickness, WFP is stopping
distributing Super Cereal in all its operations
in Uganda including in refugee settlements
across the country and in its Maternal Child
Health and Nutrition (MCHN) programme
in Karamoja”, it read in part.
4 March. 22 - 28 2019
suffering in those troubled areas. On the
sidelines of the PUOIC, Kadaga held talks
with the Speaker of the Shura Council of
Qatar, Ahmed Abdullah bin Zaid, where
the two agreed to closer engagements in
future. Kadaga said the best solution lies
in ensuring opportunities are created at
home for youths dying in the conflicts, as
well as those taking dangerous journeys to
flee the wars. Kadaga is leading a delega-
tion comprising MPs Latif Sebaggala, Sarah
Nakawunde, and Zaitun Driwaru, Ogama
Alli Ismail, Abbas Agaba and the Clerk to
Parliament, Jane Kibirige.
NRM caucus endorses Museveni for 2021 election
In a repeat of what happened in 2014,
two years before the general election, the
NRM parliamentary caucus has again
endorsed President Museveni, the party
chairman, as the sole candidate for the
2021 presidential election. The NRM MPs
adopted the resolution after a presentation
by party Secretary General Justine Kasule
Lumumba entitled “Towards 2021:
Milestones & Strategies for the NRM Party”.
After Lulumba’s presentation, the Eastern
Rwandan businessman
speaks out on Kagame-
Museveni row
Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, a Rwandan
businessman with vast interests in Uganda
spoke out on the row between President
Kagame and his Ugandan counterpart
Museveni in an interview with New Vision.
Ayabatwa accuses Kagame of dictatorship
and cites this as the reason he fled Rwanda
years ago. There were media reports recently
that Rwanda had demanded Uganda to
expel Ayabatwa because he allegedly spon-
sors rebel groups hostile to the Rwandan
government. Ayabatwa says Kagame’s gov-
ernment seized his mall in Kigali thinking it
would force him to go back. In the interview,
the businessman reveals that there have
been several attempts of mediation between
him and the Rwandan government but they
failed because of unacceptable demands by
the latter. He says Rwanda’s closure of the
common border with Uganda is instead
hurting ordinary Rwandans. Ayabatwa has a
tobacco company in West Nile.
Region PWDs representative Hellen Asamo
moved a motion saying Uganda needed
Museveni now more than ever before for
his “firm guidance and mentorship of the
Party Membership.” The 2021 election race
is already taking shape since Kyadondo
East legislator declared his intentions to
challenge Museveni for the presidency.
Four time presidential candidate Dr. Kizza
Besigye is also expected to make his fifth bid
for Uganda’s highest office.

LDUs will sort urban criminals- Museveni
During a pass out parade for 6000
Local Defence Unit (LDU) trainees in
Kaweweta UPDF Recruit Training School
in Nakaseke District, President Museveni
said criminals who have infiltrated
Kampala City and are killing innocent
people will soon be eliminated by the
new trainees. Museveni said while the
UPDF had defeated cattle rustlers and the
ADFrebels in DR Congo, not much had
been done to sort out urban criminals.
The president made the coments after
watching maneuvers and target shooting
demonstrations by a section of the LDU
Week
trainees. Museveni also said that due to
the time it was taking to install CCTV
cameras across towns, it was strategic to
train youth to defend their country. At
the ceremony, Museveni said the LDUs
will be paid for the four months they have
spent in training.

People Power sweeps MUK, Kyambogo varsity polls

A political movement led by Kyadondo
East MP Bobi Wine is causing more
upheavals in Uganda. Over the weekend,
candidates allied to ‘People Power’ swept
university guild elections at Makerere and
Kyambogo. Julius Kateregga, a student
of Bachelor of Arts in Education scooped
3912 beating his closest challenger, Joshua
Bamugemereire queries Mukisa, an independent candidate who
scored 3365 votes. The MUK race had
eleven candidates and the other nine
contained two backed by NRM and FDC.
Across town, Jonathan Tunduru was elected
the next Guild President of Kyambogo
University. Through the campaigns, the
People Power candidates donned red berets
and donned red outfits (red is People Power
preferred colour) as they chanted people
power slogans with their followers.

Immigration board
The absence of a substantive
Immigration board could be worsening
Uganda’s murky land administration
system by aiding foreigners claim
land ownership without adequate
documentation. The commission of
inquiry into land administration headed
by Justice Catherine Bamugemereire
warned officials of the Directorate of
Citizenship and Immigration who
were appearing before the commission
recently. The commission learnt that
the Immigration Directorate has only
the chairperson, Rtd Maj. Gen. Emilio
Mondo, as the only person of the seven
member board. The officials told the
commission hearing in Kampala that
the board has not been fully constituted
for two years now. The officials pointed
out that an improperly constituted
board was hampering work. According
to Ugandan laws, foreigners are barred
from freehold land ownership. Only
leases are granted to foreigners.

AfricellUG @AfricellUG

Dial *133*2# *terms and conditions apply |

Regulated by Uganda Communications Commission

for more bundles

March. 22 - 28 2019 5
Week

Controversy over Mayiga warns district leaders on Kabaka premises

Bullion van robbery Charles Peter Mayiga, amounts of money in lease ors from Buganda King-
the Katikkiro of Buganda fees and nominal ground dom. He advised district
A foiled robbery of a Stanbic Bank- Kingdom has issued a stern rent and it is high time leaders to emulate Matia
owned bullion van early this month in warning to district lead- they paid up their dues. Lwanga, LCV of Wakiso
Kyambogo, Kampala has exposed the ers whose administrative Buganda Kingdom’s sec- who has consistently ful-
rivalry between Police and Internal Security units are on the Kabaka’s ond ranking official said filled his obligations. May-
Organisation (ISO). The two institutions premises: to either pay their this while attending a meet- iga singled out Mukono
have given different accounts of what arrears or vacate them as ing in Kampala with district which has been occupying
transpired nearly three weeks ago when soon as possible. Mayiga chairpersons, chief adminis- Kabaka’s land and has now
two hijackers of the bullion van were shot said a number of districts trative officers, sub-county started building its head-
dead by ISO operatives. ISO boss Kaka owe the Kabaka various chiefs and municipal may- quarters there.
Bagyenda says their operatives intercepted
the bullion van as the suspected robbers
had started removing cash from the van
and putting it into a smaller car. It is also
reported that ISO operatives prevented
police from taking over the van as it
spent days parked at ISO headquarters in
Kampala. Meanwhile Police has disputed
the ISO version of events especially from
the point where the van was intercepted
from. Some witnesses have also refuted
both accounts of Police and ISO. Meanwhile
Police is still on the hunt for the driver of
the bullion van. He is said to have colluded
with a guard formerly attached to President
Museveni’s security team. It is also unclear
how the driver escaped from the scene.

6 March. 22 - 28 2019
Humour
President Uhuru Kenyatta met with Presidents Paul Kagame and
Yoweri Museveni amid border tensions between Rwanda and Uganda.
MPs of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party have
endorsed President Museveni sole candidate I the 2021 poles.
President Yoweri Museveni has halted the creation
of more districts citing high administrative costs.
Did you know?
Google employee shattered
record for Pi calculations
The mathematical number `Pi’ begins
with 3.14 and goes on endlessly based
on infinite series. In practical terms,
all scientific applications require no
more than a few hundred digits of Pi,
but mathematicians have since ancient
times battled to extend the decimal
representation of Pi until it hit trillions of
digits after the decimal point.
Today, the quest is about finding
more efficient algorithms for calculating
lengthy numeric series and the desire to
break records. The extensive calculations
involved have also been used to test
supercomputers and high-precision
multiplication algorithms.
But the value of Pi, the ratio of a circle’s
circumference to its diameter, has new
meaning on this Pi Day. Emma Haruka
Iwao, a Google employee, has broken the
Guinness world record for calculating the
most digits of Pi.
In the latest case, Emma Haruka Iwao,
a Google employee and a Google team
computed Pi to 31.4 trillion decimal places
or Pi multiplied by 10 to the 13th power.
It broke the Guinness world record for
calculating the most digits of Pi set in
2016 of 22.4 trillion digits. Iwao’s effort
marked another first by relying on cloud
technology, which had never been used for
such a massive Pi calculation.
An advocate who helps developers use
cloud products, Iwao used more than two
dozen virtual machines to churn away
at the calculation, which took about 121
days to complete. The process required
a staggering 170 terabytes, or about
the same amount of data found in the
print collections of the entire Library of
Congress which is the largest in the world.
“We use Pi for everything in our daily
lives — designing buildings, building
bridges, highways,” Iwao said in a video
about her achievement. “Pi is one of the
most important constants in mathematics.”
March. 22 - 28 2019 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
Mwenda on
Museveni, Kagame
Refer to: “The Rwanda-
Uganda conflict” (The Indepen-
dent March 08). Is this really
Mwenda writing or has someone
else “hacked” his column? The
Mwenda I am used to would
back contentions with names,
places and figures. Take for
example the statement: “CMI has
been detaining Rwandan nation-
als in illegal facilities, torturing
and deporting them to Rwanda.
CMI accuses these people of spy-
ing but has never produced them
before courts of law”.
Never mind the veracity or
otherwise of this statement;
wouldn’t the Mwenda we are
used to give us some numbers,
names, dates and places etc.,
as he is well informed? It is just
not like A.M. to generalise and
issue such grave accusations
without providing supporting
information; to expect us to take
his word for it, on faith! And
say, you forgot, and said not a
word about alleged abductions
of Rwandese refugees (President
Paul Kagame’s opponents) from
Uganda which is said to be con-
tributing greatly to the bad blood
between the two countries. Any
truth in that? Andrew Mwenda,
I hope all is well with you,
brother!
Chwa
8 March. 22 - 28 2019
Follow us on Twitter @
http://twitter.com/#!/ugandatalks
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www.facebook.com/TheIndependentMagazineUganda
Kagame, Museveni: Put evidence on table
There are people who want
President Paul Kagame of
Rwanda to fail and fall; same
for President Yoweri Musev-
eni. They are failed politicians,
people with personal vendetta,
hate mongers with tribal hatred,
people in the business to ensure
that Africans should never
succeed, plain opportunists
and scavengers, they all see an
Museveni, Kagame and cassava chips
Refer to: “The Rwanda-
Uganda conflict” (The Inde-
pendent March 08). While the
arms merchants in their homes
are smiling at the little storm
in in an old teacup, I sincerely
believe that the current crop
of decision makers in both the
media and the government
can put a finger to what would
make the two countries relate
as states. It is important to look
at the relationship between the
two countries from the time
of kept written records when
Rwandans and
Ugandan citizenship
President Paul Kagame of
Rwanda expects to be given leeway
to operate in Uganda as if he were
operating in its own territory. He
wants to be given the privilege to
act as if he were Ugandan without
being one. Many of his countrymen,
formerly of Uganda citizenship,
suffer from this schizophrenic afflic-
tion; a Ugandan citizenship hang-
over. The social and political access
that accrued privileges to Rwandan
exiles in Ugandan life cannot be
switched on at will. President Yow-
eri Museveni does not have the kind
of power over the Ugandan state
that Kagame holds over Rwanda
— he is massively constrained by
numerous forces that he must bend
to over Kagame’s whining and petty
internal beefs.
Maceni
opening should there be war
between Rwanda and Uganda.
Back to the article, the theme
of which is; “let both sides put
their complaints and evidence
on the table”, my addition is;
“in the presence of a mutually
agreed, trusted and respected
regional or world leader” since
both presidents feel right about
their positions. Otherwise, in
Rwandan kings felt safe to flee
into Uganda up to the time the
Ugandan constitution recog-
nised Banyarwanda as one of
Uganda’s tribes. Mark you the
same did not apply to the Con-
golese, Sudanese or Indians that
have been part of this nation.
Recall also the communities in
which pan-nyarwanda peoples
are neighbours or linked i.e.
the Banyamulenge and Hema
in in DR Congo and the Balalo
in Uganda evidenced by recent
expulsions of herdsmen in
Gambling with economy
Refer to: “Mutebile, Kas-
ekende, Muhakanizi set to
leave” (The Independent
March 15). Old age usually
comes with experience, but
we should not disdain from
the fact that our economy
Term limits for
BoU governor?
Refer to: “Mutebile,
Kasekende, Muhakan-
izi set to leave” (The
Independent March
15). How long does
one have to be a gov-
ernor of the Central
Bank of Uganda?
Does Uganda have a
policy on that one?
Dan
News analysis Health Business
Is the Boeing 737 A cure for BUBU initiative gathers
Max safe? HIV finally? steam amid criticism
Issue No. 563 March. 15 - 21 2019
Ushs 5,000,Kshs 200, RwF 1,500, SDP 8
Mutebile, Kasekende,
Muhakanizi set to leave
What happens next?
www.independent.co.ug
a war between the two neigh-
bours, there will be no winners,
even though some may and will
win battles.
Mwenda, you should be
appreciated for your boldness.
Where simple minds see one
sided view, sober minds see a
desire to have a problem genu-
inely solved.
Joe K.
Northern Uganda, the Basongo-
ra in the Rwenzoris. The Presi-
dent of Uganda is a wrong man
carrying the correct message.
Times are his worst judge hence
the arms dealers in Europe are
assured of their place at the
corporate table while Africa’s
breed of new leaders scheme
of how to smuggle a few spies
into each other’s bedroom. Did
anyone notice the cargo that
was stuck at the closed border?
Cassava chips- in 2019!
Godfrey Kambere
has progressed and trans-
formed over the years.
Entrusting it in the hands of
younger economists is some-
thing of a gamble but one
that could eventually pay off.
Tumanye
Rest in Peace Ongom
Refer to: “Former UNEB chief
Ongom dead” (The Indepen-
dent online March 16). We shall
remember him (David Living-
stone Ongom) for the great work
he has done to the nation i.e.
Uganda when he was the execu-
tive secretary of the Uganda
National Examinations Board
(UNEB).Father rest in Peace.
Bob Ogwang

Uganda’s strategic dilemma Part2
By Andrew M. Mwenda
Why Uganda’s economy is dominated by multinational
capital and what cannot be done about it
W
e begin from where we stopped
last week. Uganda’s growing
economy served three critical
purposes: It increased govern-
ment revenues, gave greater confidence
to donors to give more aid, and increased
resources available to government to pay for
patronage, provide basic public goods and
services and fight armed insurgency thereby
aiding legitimacy and political consolida-
tion. Consequently, Museveni gradually
shifted from implementing these reforms as
an opportunistic beneficiary and became a
believer in their efficacy.
The donors also were keen to cultivate
political support among Uganda’s elite
class – politicians, the civil service, the mass
media, academia, private sector and “civil
society” (a motley collection of NGOs).
To understand the trajectory Uganda
took from the late 1980s, one has to first
understand how the donors shaped our post
conflict recovery by building the ideological
base for these policies among key individ-
uals and groups. We shall see the interests
that consolidated during this period.
Every reform benefits some and disadvan-
tages others. The losers become militants
determined to resist it. The beneficiaries
form the cadre of individuals and groups to
defend the new order. These reforms gener-
ated resistance, most especially from Mak-
erere University students whose allowances
were removed. But resistance was limited
because economic collapse had discredited
the beneficiaries of the old order.
For example, it was not difficult to return
businesses, properties and industries con-
fiscated by Amin in 1972 to their previous
owners because those who had taken them
over had run them down. Failure had dis-
credited their cause and their resistance to
reform did not attract much public sym-
pathy. Equally, the corruption, favouritism
and incompetence in public enterprises had
discredited them as vehicles for serving the
common good. And most importantly the
NRM had been a largely rural based move-
ment and these institutions and their office
holders did not form its core political base.
So there were hardly any bureaucratic and
political insiders to sabotage reform from
within as happened to many other African
countries. Besides, Museveni enjoyed such
widespread dominance inside the NRM that
his left-wing allies simply deferred to him
on these reforms.
The Last Word
Most of Uganda’s reform was carried
out by civil servants led by Tumusiime
Mutebile in the Ministry of Planning which
later merged with the Ministry of Finance.
Around him was a group of officials like
Chris Kasami, Keith Muhakanizi, Lawrence
Kiiza, Damon Kitabire (left for ADB, later to
IMF), Mary Muduli (left for ADB) and Mary
Kutesa (left for IMF) etc. This group was
inherited from the Milton Obote II adminis-
tration where they had tried to reform Ugan-
da’s economy to a more liberal dispensation.
They were convinced that liberal reforms are
necessary for Uganda’s economy to recover.
Donors proved adept at patronage. They
pampered them, supplemented their sala-
ries with dollar stipends, organised trips
abroad for conferences and workshops for
them. They took them to do fellowships
at prestigious universities in America and
Britain. They also gave them internships at
the head offices of IMF and World Bank in
Washington DC.
Donors made these civil servants their
internal surrogates within the state by
actively and deliberately bolstering their
influence inside government. Whenever
government sent these particular civil ser-
vants abroad to negotiate for aid money,
they came back with signed loans and
grants –with generous terms. Since govern-
ment of Uganda relied heavily on donors’
funding for its fiscal survival, Museveni was
quick to see where his bread was being but-
tered. Increasingly, if the president needed
to promote anyone to a strategic office in the
civil service, he picked one who had good
relations with donors. Consequently, in
all strategic ministries, Museveni began to
sideline those of his colleagues who retained
their Marxist/leftist leanings in favour of
those who embraced the free market ide-
ology. Over time all strategic positions in
both the civil service and cabinet were filled
with persons with donor promoters.
It is in this context that the local/domestic/
national/indigenous business class – in
manufacturing, banking, construction etc.
– lost out. They had little or no say in policy
formulation. Influence favoured interna-
tional donors with their local allies in the
bureaucracy. While local and international
bureaucrats who work in the public sector
and international organisations may be
ideologically convinced about the soundness
of these policies, these policies represent the
interests of multinational capital; especially
Opinion
finance capital.
Donors began integrating leading voices
in the media into this process. These were
given scholarships and fellowships at Har-
vard, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge
where they were indoctrinated into the free
market ideology. For always articulating
these policies in the press and liberalised
airwaves, they were feted at international
conferences organised by the IFIs as
speakers, invited to dinners and luncheons
at local embassies and at IMF and World
Bank conferences. This author is one of those
Ugandans.
Privatisation and liberalisation progres-
sively displaced and/or stifled the growth of
local/domestic/national/indigenous capital.
As multinational corporations took over the
commanding heights of the economy, they
recruited those Ugandans who had gradu-
ated from Western universities. Well paid
by multinational firms, these also became
defenders of multinational capital in the pri-
vate sector. Here ideological conviction and
self-interest merged.
At Makerere University, the World Bank
financed the creation of the Economic Policy
Research Centre (EPRC) to train a cadre of
economists of the type they needed to pro-
mote its particular policy preferences. They
funded NGOs that articulated the policy
preferences international donors wanted.
Even in politics, being identified with a
donor project was a sure ticket to being
elected a Member of Parliament (MP), and
being in their good books landed you a stra-
tegic cabinet post.
Henceforth, from within the state, mass
media, academia and “civil society” there
were consistent and vitriolic attacks on
local capital. Thus, when a local bank
got into trouble, there was unanimity of
opinion both within the state and in the
civic sphere of public debate that such
outcomes were because of “bad practices
typical of Africans.” The conclusion was
inescapable: we should let multinational
banks take over. Mutebile once told me
point blank in a radio show that he would
never licence any Ugandan to own a bank,
regardless of the capital they had. Why?
They cannot be trusted to behave well
with depositors’ money. Colonial preju-
dices had been recreated in Uganda. We
shall finish this next week.
amwenda@independent.co.ug
March. 22 - 28 2019 9
cover story

The Museveni,
Kagame letters
Details and implication
on border tension

10 March. 22 - 28 2019

T
By Haggai Matsiko
hree letters exchanged by
Rwanda President Paul
Kagame and his counterpart
Yoweri Museveni that might
point to how the tension be-
tween them possibly escalated
have emerged.
Most importantly, the contents of the let-
ters shed light on what might have led to
the escalation and how complicated resolv-
ing these tensions might be.
It is also important that details of these
letters are emerging at a time when, The
Independent understands, there are intense
regional diplomatic efforts towards reso-
lution. President Museveni, in one of the
letters also hinted on it and the role of a
joint Rwanda-Uganda team working on the
issues.
In the latest, Uganda and Rwanda are
said to have armies on standby following
the high watermark of Rwanda’s closure
of its border with Uganda at Gatuna in late
February.
Rwanda has denied it closed the border
and traffic to and fro continues. But most
of it is transit traffic through not originat-
ing from Uganda. The Foreign Minister
of Uganda, Sam Kutesa, has said Rwanda
has imposed a trade embargo and ordered
a raft of high cost and non-tariff barriers.
Faced with this situation, regional leaders
are scrambling a response. The most open
has been a visit by Kenyan President Uhuru
Kenyatta to both Kigali and Kampala on
March 11 to meet with Kagame and Musev-
eni respectively.
The border incident is clearly a high
stakes move by Kagame. It is not clear,
however, if the incident was pre-planned or
forced on him.
Part of the confusion is about the timing
- when President Kagame has just assumed
the chair of the East African Community.
If the border incident was preplanned,
it means Kagame must have a strategy on
how to use it to advantage.
If the incident was a result of knee-jerk
reaction to a situation, then it sends a
missed signal about Kagame who has been
the model advocate of free movement of
goods and services.
Under him, Rwanda has consistently
scored highly on the Ease of Doing Business
index of the World Bank. In 2014 he led
moves that abolished visa and work permit
requirements in Kigali for east Africans.
And last year, on March 21, President
Kagame also hosted the signing of the Afri-
can Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA),
which was signed on by 44 of Africa’s 55
states and requires members to remove
tariffs from 90% of goods, and allow free
movement of commodities, goods, and ser-
vices across the continent.
With all this weighing on his shoulders,
President Museveni, President Uhuru Kenyatta and President Paul Kagame
just what could have led to the recent deci-
sions and statements by Kigali? The letters
Kagame exchanged with Museveni offer
some clues.
Kagame writes
President Kagame was the first to write to
President Museveni late last year. His letter
arrived in September and Museveni replied
in October. Kagame did not reply and
Museveni wrote again on March 10.
In his letter, Kagame raised six points of
concern. His first concern was that Rwanda
had requested Uganda to grant Rwandan
Airways freedom rights to pick passen-
gers from Entebbe to several destinations,
including London. While the Civil Aviation
Authority pledged to respond it, they did
not. Yet Uganda and Rwanda had a bilateral
agreement on the same matter.
President Kagame also raised concerns
that while Uganda had agreed to extend
an electricity transmission line to Rwanda
to allow it purchase electricity from Kenya,
Uganda had constructed the line only up to
somewhere between Mbarara and Masaka.
The other concern was that Ugandan
migration officers were harassing Ugandan
Rwandans trying to go through migration
and confiscating their passports claiming
that they had obtained the same illegally
and were Rwandans purporting to be
Ugandans. He also raised the issue of
alleged arrest of Rwandans in Uganda and
their torture by CMI.
Another concern was that Uganda hosts
people sponsoring terrorism activities
against Rwanda. In particular, President
Kagame pointed out businessman Tribert
Rujugiro.
Kagame said Rujugiro was financing
the Rwanda National Congress (RNC),
which he said was allied to FDLR, an outfit
responsible for terrorism in Rwanda.
Also, Kagame wrote, there were people
who had been recruited in Uganda to join
anti-Rwandan activities in DR Congo. They
cover story
were arrested on their way from Uganda
to Tanzania, where they intended to cross
to Burundi and then into DR Congo. They
found that the person who was trying to
smuggle them was from Uganda’s Chief-
taincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). Ugan-
dan police arrested them and they were
taken to court and charged with terrorism
but later released.
He also noted that there was a son of the
former Justice Patrick Tabaro, and another
man called Ruvuma, who are involved
in activities of helping people linked to
Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC recruit from
Uganda. He also raised an issue that there
was another man called Rwigyema and
another called Mukombozi who are also
key points people for Kayumba Nyam-
wasa’s people in recruiting rebels to go to
DR Congo.
More than anything, accusations that
Kampala is supporting elements seeking
to cause regime change in Kigali and vice
versa have been at the centre of the tensions
between the two countries.
Museveni replies
In his reply, Museveni responded issue
by issue. On the issue of Rwanda Airways,
Museveni said that Kagame should have
raised this issue with him. He reminded
him that he had earlier on told him that he
should have raised this with him.
Museveni added that when Kagame
raised this concern at a meeting in Addis
Ababa, he promised to get back to him after
consulting with the officials at the Uganda
Civil Aviation authority (CAA). Museveni
explained that when he talked to the CAA
people, they said that since Uganda was in
the process of starting its own airline grant-
ing Rwanda these rights would disadvan-
tage Uganda.
The better option for us, Museveni noted,
is discussing how we can cooperate with
Rwanda Air or merging Rwanda Air and
Uganda Airlines or since East Africa is very
March. 22 - 28 2019 11
cover story
small, we should start East African Airways.
On electricity, Museveni said there was
no attempt to sabotage Rwanda. The prob-
lem, he said, was stemming from compen-
sation issues. To further make his point,
he said many projects have been delayed
or stalled by these compensation issues.
These were now being resolved and the line
would be extended to Rwanda.
On the issue of Ugandan Rwandans,
Museveni said that as a Pan Africanist, he
did not think that Rwandan Ugandans
should be disturbed. If Ugandan immi-
gration officers were doing it, Museveni
added, that is a wrong thing. However,
he asked why, if the people harassed are
Ugandan and not Rwandan citizens, why
was Kagame bothered? This, he said, was a
sovereign matter of Uganda.
On Rujugiro, Museveni said he did not
know Rujugiro when Kagame told him
about him. However, Museveni added that
he later remembered that Rujugiro had
come to Rwakitura and talked to him at the
time RPF was involved in the struggle to
Trucks stuck at the Katuna boarder following its closure by Rwanda.
capture power. First of all, Museveni added,
he had told Kagame that it was not good to
mix politics with business. If he disagreed
with a person politically, he should not
attack his businesses. But if he is involved
in financing terrorism, give us the evidence
and we reconsider our position, Museveni
wrote. However, Museveni added, he had
invited Rujugiro and told him the situation.
Museveni explained that when he told him,
first, Rujugiro denied being involved in
financing terrorism. Rujugiro also denied
being in contact with either Kayumba or
Theogene Rudasingwa of RNC. However,
Museveni added that Rujugiro admitted
that his only friend was David Himbara; a
former presidential principal private sec-
retary turned critic of Kagame. Rujugiro
said he would never abandon him simply
because Kagame disapproves. Museveni
also noted that even after this, he had asked
Rujugiro to sell his business and leave and
12 March. 22 - 28 2019
the latter had agreed. He added that just
before he wrote the letter, he had called and
asked Rujugiro about the same and Ruju-
giro had said that he had not yet found a
buyer giving him a good price for the busi-
ness. Then Museveni said that he was pro-
posing to Kagame that any of the Rwandan
businesses should offer Rujugiro a good
price and he leaves.
On the issue of Burundi, Museveni said
that while at their meeting in Addis, he
had offered to help mediate issues between
Rwanda and Burundi but Kagame had
refused. He said he was proposing again
that Kagame accepts and he mediates the
issues between Rwanda and Burundi.
On the issue of Rwandans who are
arrested in Uganda, Museveni said these
would be produced in court. He said that
these were spying for Rwanda. He said
that Rwandan intelligence was trying to
infiltrate Uganda without coordinating with
Ugandan intelligence.
He said that if Rwanda felt any security
threat, they should be willing to coordinate
Tanzania's President John Pombe Magufuli with Rwanda's Pr
with Uganda and Uganda helps if there are
elements trying to fight Rwanda. But for
the Rwandan government to send elements
to conduct private intelligence missions in
Uganda was a big problem.
Museveni wrote this in September.
Kagame did not reply. Museveni wrote
again on March 10. This time Museveni
dwelt specifically on his alleged dealings
with RNC. Museveni denied he supports
RNC. Museveni wrote: “As I told you when
we met, there is no question of Uganda
supporting anti-Rwanda elements. Indeed I
have not heard Rwanda saying that Uganda
`supports’ those elements. What I heard and
what you told me when we met was that
some of these elements were `recruiting,
etc’.”
Kagame had not replied by the time we
went to press. And tensions appeared far
from abating.
The climax of this escalation appeared
on Feb.28 when Ugandan customs officials
raised concerns that Rwanda had closed the
Katuna border.
Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister, Rich-
ard Sezibera called a presser and insisted
that Rwanda had not closed the border.
Instead, he said, the border was under reno-
vation. But Ugandan authorities insisted
Rwanda had closed the border, halting
trade between the two countries.
Uhuru Kenyatta intervenes
This escalation, insiders say, is what
forced President Uhuru Kenyatta to embark
on what many see as diplomatic efforts to
normalcy between the two countries or at
least prevent them from going to war.
The East African Community secretariat
appears paralysed and unable to arbitrate;
partly because its chairman; Kagame, is
a disputant. The EAC Secretary General
Libérat Mfumukeko has not taken any ini-
tiative partyly because his home country,
Tanzania, fears to antagonise Rwanda and
Uganda for business reasons.
But, insiders say, while in Rwanda Uhuru
told his counterpart that even if Rwanda has
troubled dealings with Kampala, closing the
border was an extreme measure.
Earlier, Kagame had been on a two-day
visit to Tanzania to meet President John
Magufuli. Apparently, Magufuli relayed the
same message.
The question now is whether this or any
diplomatic effort can resolve the border
incident. The main act now appears to be
Kagame acting tough versus Museveni act-
ing indifferent.
Museveni is consistently acting indif-
ferent. But days before Uhuru’s mediation
effort, Museveni in a veiled salvo at Kigali
told business people in Mbalala Mukono
where he was commissioning factories that
Uganda is stable and anyone attempting to
destabilise would be shown its capacity.
“It is big,” Museveni said, “once we
mobilise, you cannot survive if you are a

trouble-maker.” Kagame responded almost
immediately. “When I hear somebody say
‘no one can destabilise our country, I agree.
No one should actually be destabilising that
country, but that country should also not
be destabilising others. I think it is fair deal,
isn’t?”
President Paul Kagame has responded
with shuttle diplomacy. He has travelled to
Tanzania and met Magufuli. The Indepen-
dent also understands that when President
Kagame left Tanzania Magufuli talked to
President Museveni and the issue of the
border came up. What they spoke about
remains tightly guarded.
Muhoozi works on reconciliation
This is not the first time tensions are
emerging between Kampala and Kigali.
Way back in 1997 the two countries clashed
in DR Congo. But Museveni and Kagame
appeared reconciled and warming to each
other as recently as 2011.
After 13 years of rivalry and mutual dis-
trust, with accusations of mutual sabotage
resident Paul Kagame President Musveni and his counterpart President Paul Kagame at the latter's farm in Muhazi in Rwanda in 2011
and assassination plots, the two presidents
rebuilt their friendship largely relying on
family ties.
The reconciliation caught many by sur-
prise because only eleven months earlier,
Museveni had summoned Rwanda’s High
Commissioner to Uganda, Frank Mugam-
bagye and given him a message for his pres-
ident, that Kagame had allied with Libyan
leader at the time, Muammar Gadaffi, to
overthrow his government.
The Independent learned from insiders
at the time that the President’s son, Lt.Gen.
Muhoozi Kainerugaba sat with friends and
decided to take the initiative to bridge the
communication gap that had fed the dis-
tance between the two presidents and their
establishments.
Apparently, Muhoozi initiated plans to
travel to Rwanda as an informal contact
between the two presidents. It was a tough
gamble because, outside of family, many
efforts by international and regional players
had failed. Former British Prime Minister
Tony Blair had attempted to resolve the
tensions and failed. Former Tanzanian
President Benjamin Mkapa had also tried
and failed.
To initiate such a delicate process,
Muhoozi sought and got a nod from one of
the most influential people on such matters,
his uncle, Gen. Caleb Akandwanaho aka
Salim Saleh.
With Gen.Saleh on board, other players;
especially security organisations that were
feeding each side with toxic intelligence,
picked the signal of contact between the two
at close family level, and the standoff eased.
Muhoozi now needed to find out if
Kagame would welcome the olive branch.
He sent an emissary to the Rwandan
president suggesting a meeting with him to
begin the process. Kagame welcomed the
idea and gave Muhoozi a go-ahead to be the
contact between him and Museveni. With
Kagame on board, Muhoozi brought his
plans to his father’s attention.
“I have known Paulo (Kagame) for many
years and no one knows him better than
me,” Museveni reportedly said when he
was brief on Muhoozi’s move, “So I will
personally travel to Rwanda for a visit and
open the dialogue myself.”
That masterstroke by Museveni unlocked
diplomatic momentum and on April 21,
Museveni wrote a letter to Kagame.
“I would like to come and visit your
country so that we can sit and iron out these
differences amicably,” Museveni said in
the letter. It was a bold and unprecedented
move that, sources say, took Kagame by
complete surprise.
After the visits, in January 2012, Musev-
eni crowned this process by officially
recognising the role Rwandans played in
Uganda’s liberation when he bestowed
the Kagera Medal on Kagame and Fred
Rwigyema (posthumously) during the
26th anniversary of NRM’s coming to
cover story
power. Museveni also bestowed upon
Kagame the highest medal the state of
Uganda can give – only reserved for heads
of state – the Pearl of Africa Medal.
The 2011 rapprochement appears distant
today but not impossible.
Part of the reason is Kagame has revealed
a very firm hand which, for resolution,
requires that Museveni looks at the causes
of the tension from the Kigali perspective.
But that is unlikely because Museveni has
more immediate business – the 2021 presi-
dential election.
Apart from this, while the heads of Ugan-
dan security in 2011 were seen as friendly
to Rwanda, those in charge now are viewed
with suspicion. In 2011, the Uganda Police
which was at the apex of Uganda’s internal
security system was headed by Gen. Kale
Kayihura, who owing to his close family
ties with Kagame was seen as friendly to
Rwanda. Kayihura enjoyed trust from Presi-
dent Museveni.
The Internal Security Organisation (ISO)
was under Ronnie Balya, who was also seen
as friendly to Rwanda. Also at the time, Lt.
Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the president’s
son was actively involved and more influ-
ential in both police because of a good rela-
tionship with Gen. Kayihura and the army
because he headed Special Forces. Indeed,
it was not surprising that the talks were
Muhoozi’s initiative.
The circumstances are completely dif-
ferent. Col. Kaka Bagyenda and Brig. Abel
Kandiho who took over respectively at the
Internal Security Organisation (ISO) and
the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence
(CMI) and are calling the shots at the apex
of Ugandan security are seen as unfriendly
by the Rwandan establishment. Rwandan
intelligence has even linked Kahindo to
rebel activity against them.
These circumstances, insiders say, are
at the heart of what stands in the way of
any diplomatic efforts to reconcile Kigali
and Kampala.
March. 22 - 28 2019 13
news analysis

Presidents; Uhuru Kenyatta, Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame. Some analysts say the East African integration process is still a leaders’ affair.   NET PHOTO

New NGO steps into

Rwanda, Uganda conflict
AIRIS proposes a cautious approach but its
conference on integration proves explosive
By Ian Katusiime Integration Studies (AIRIS) held the to offer research, training, and advisory

F
or anyone trying to understand the
current spat between erstwhile BFFs
Rwandan President Paul Kagame
and his Ugandan counterpart
Yoweri Museveni, attending a recent
conference in Kampala by a new NGO
on regional integration in Africa seemed
perfect.
The NGO, African Institute of Regional
conference on March 15 under the theme,
`Legal, Economic and Business implications
of East African Integration.’
The venue at Naguru Skyz Hotel
was packed with lawyers, academics
and business people and they appeared
determined to unpack the integration
agenda and some of the complexities facing
the East African integration process.
For an NGO formed just last October
consultancy on regional integration, the
timing of its first annual EAC conference
could not have been better. Well, maybe not.
The AIRIS chairman, James Ogoola,
who is a retired distinguished judge of
the High Court of Uganda renowned for
interesting word-games sought to flag off
the discussion with some cautious views.
He called the integration of Uganda,
Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi,

14 March. 22 - 28 2019

and South Sudan under the East Africa
Community (EAC), now in its 20th year, an
“experiment”.
“There have been numerous experiments
on integration in the EAC since its first
days in the sixties because there was
a common currency and a common
services organization,” Ogoola said, “This
conference is dedicated to a review of the
impact of this new experiment of the East
Africa Integration.”
Then, quite aware that what was on
everyone’s mind was the closure of the
common border with Uganda, Ogoola
attempted to bring similar caution in that
debate.
“What is happening between Rwanda
and Uganda has totally nothing to do
with EAC but a lot to do with the bilateral
relations between the two countries,” he
said. It was a dexterous fumble.
Other speakers, such as Francis Gimara,
a former president of the Uganda Law
Society (ULS) and Managing Partner of
ALP Advocates and Isaac Bakayana, a
lawyer and lecturer at Makerere University
immediately rejected it.
“Bilateralism cannot be pleaded when it
comes to international obligations,” Gimara
said and advised partner states to always
honour international obligations under the
EAC Treaty.
“I am handling a case where Kenyans are
appealing to the ministry of internal affairs
over denial of work permits,” he said.
Gimara said Kenya is also denying work
permits to Ugandans in large numbers and
that requiring permits for minerals to cross
borders was another hurdle in the EAC.
And he blamed the problems in the EAC
integration on its leaders.
He said whereas the leaders are always
appearing glossy at EAC summits
purporting to make the integration a
smooth process, lawyers like him are
always handling cases of ordinary people
caught up in inter-state hurdles.
“The harmonisation of laws across
services and sectors in East Africa is far
from completion,” he said.
“Is a poor woman from Kapchorwa
crossing the border into Kenya, for example,
violating the treaty?” he asked. Yet, he said,
such people are routinely arrested.
Other speakers cited an incident in 2017
when over 1000 cows belonging to Kenyan
pastoralists were auctioned off by the
Tanzanian government over alleged grazing
in Tanzanian national parks.
Emmanuel Elau, a lawyer and lecturer
of East African Community law at Uganda
Christianity University (UCU) said the
region needs lawyers well-versed with
regional integration legal principles as
East African nations look for ways of
harmonisation at many levels. He said it
is one of the ways of bringing down the
integration process to the citizens.
Many speakers saw the conference as
an opportunity to brainstorm on a way
forward on the tiff between Museveni and
Kagame. The two have traded accusations
of plotting to destabilise each other’s
governments. Many expressed concern that
the two leaders appeared fixed on talking
tough instead of pursuing reconciliation.
Many spoke of the need for arbitration.
It was pointed out that it is ironic that two
of its members are just shy of declaring war
on each other; the EAC is short of solutions.
It cannot intervene. The EAC institutions,
including the East African Court of Justice
(EACJ) appear toothless.
“Why aren’t businessmen going to
the court?” Bakayana asked. What
advantages would they get from going to
Arusha - the seat of the court? His answer:
Businesspeople do not want their time to be
wasted in lengthy court processes.
Bakayana also queried the behavior of
some of the EAC countries.
“When you look at the laws coming from
Tanzania, you get concerned,” he said,
“They are inward looking and are all about
‘protect Tanzania’.
Uganda’s southern neighbor has gained
notoriety for its protectionist tendencies in
the last few years.
Bilateralism
cannot be pleaded
when it comes
to international
obligations,” Gimara
said and advised
partner states to
always honour
international
obligations under
the EAC Treaty
He also criticised national trade
programmes such as Uganda’s Buy Uganda
Build Uganda (BUBU) which he dubbed a
protectionist policy and demanded, instead
for laws that facilitate integration.
The issue of protectionism was heavily
debated as some speakers insisted it as an
initiative of individual countries moving on
their own.
“A little protectionism is not bad,”
Ivan Ojakol, a regional integration and
international trade lawyer, working with
KTA Advocates, said. He cited the principle
of variable geometry under Article 7 of
news analysis
the EAC Treaty that allows partner states
to progress with integration activities at
different paces.
Ojakol said whereas there is an
arbitration revolution on the African
continent, its use in majority of East
Africans still lags behind in spite of it being
provided for at the EACJ.
“People should embrace arbitration
because it is cheaper and faster,” he said.
But then he watered down the effort in his
next utterance.
“But there is a lack of proper and
specialist training for both lawyers and
judges on arbitration,” he said, “and clients
do not trust both the entire process.”
Economic implications
While presenting a paper on the
economic implications of the East African
integration, journalist and economic
commentator Andrew Mwenda said
whereas integration is a popular idea
globally, integration works best for richer
countries and tends to work against poorer
nations.
“In the EAC, investors will flock to Kenya
at the expense of the rest mostly because it
is the largest economy in the bloc,” he said.
Mwenda also disputed the theory usually
promoted by President Museveni that
growth of economies of African states lags
behind because of a small population.
“The President always argues that we
need a bigger market for each other but
what is more crucial is purchasing power
not population,” he argued.
But other speakers said size matters and a
critical population mass is the key.
Patrick Kaboyo, the MD of Alpha Capital
Partners; a Ugandan financial services
firm that specialises in sovereign asset
management, said having the region as
one big market would lead to increased
productivity.
“Integration leads to increased trade
and an integrated approach for one market
facilitates full movement of all factors of
production,” Kaboyo said, “if these factors
are efficiently allocated, there will definitely
be increased productivity.
He cited examples like the Standard
Gauge Railway under construction as fruits
of integration and better bargaining power
of 174 million people- the total population
of the EAC.
Citing more benefits from the perspective
of capital markets, Kaboyo revealed that the
East African region was the top destination
for private equity funds with a total of
$2billion for the year ending June 2018.
“These investors were targeting East
Africa as a regional bloc,” he said.
Putting all bickering aside, be it between
EAC leaders or speakers at the conference,
it was established that a number of legal
and other complexities make the integration
process a difficult one.
March. 22 - 28 2019 15
news analysis
By Ronald Musoke

K
elly Clements, the Deputy High
Commissioner for the UN refugee
agency UNHCR, recently saw first-
hand the ever-growing task of car-
ing for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable
South Sudanese refugees when she visited
Uganda.
“My lasting memory in Moyo was meet-
ing primary and secondary school students,
their parents and their teachers under a very
big tree,” she told journalists in Kampala,
“We did that because this is a school that is
bursting at the seams.”
She saw a primary school with an enroll-
ment rate of 94% because education is free
but learnt that less than 20% of refugee
children are able to attend secondary school
because they cannot afford school fees.
She was moved by a story of a 22-year
old refugee woman who committed sui-
cide after learning she would not be able
to pay school fees to complete her last year
of secondary education. The dropout rates
among refugees have had a damaging effect
including alcoholism, teenage pregnancy
and early and forced marriage.
This was Clements’ second visit to Ugan-
da in three years but it appears the scale of
refugee needs in the country still amaze her.
She was in the country for five days
starting March 07 and specifically toured
refugee settlements in the northwestern
Ugandan districts of Adjumani, Moyo and
Yumbe where 67% of refugees in the coun-
try are hosted. Clements jokes with refugee women in a market in Bidibidi refugee settlement, Yumbe District.   COURTESY PHOTO.
Flanked by Joël Boutroue, the UNHCR

'World must stand with

Country representative in Uganda and
Raouf Mazou, the director UNHCR for the
Africa regional bureau, Clements said dur-
ing a media briefing in Kampala on March
12 that keeping girls in school is a higher
priority for UNHCR and its partners. She
said the UNCHR intends to offer more sup-
port by, for instance, paying for teachers,
Uganda on refugees'
providing learning materials and furniture.
“We all want to prevent a generation of What UNHCR Chief learnt from recent
young people from being lost because they
feel the future holds so little for them,” she
said, “It is in places like Parolinya (Moyo
visit to Uganda’s refugee settlements
District) that more global solidarity with
countries and people hosting refugees must “We know that some of the schools that improve conditions in secondary schools
be demonstrated.” have been set up certainly to respond to and provide small, but critical supplies that
When Clements crossed over to Adju- the emergence are not sufficient and are can affect school attendance, like sanitary
mani to interact with women entrepreneurs overcrowded but that equally applies to pads for female students.
and refugee leaders, she was told education, Ugandan schools as it does in refugee settle- Besides partnering with international
health and environmental issues are the ments.” development agencies like the World Bank
primary concerns in the sub-region. As part of UNHCR’s focus on education, and the UNDP, the UNHCR is also looking
Clements was, however, impressed by she announced that the UN refugee orga- at partnering with the private sector in the
the good working relationship between the nization intends to re-allocate over Shs 375 areas of education, energy, technology and
refugees and local communities, particu- million (US$100,000) to ensure young stu- connectivity.
larly in Moyo District. dents can continue studying in secondary “We will identify the types of activities
“It is good that the refugees and local school in Parolinya refugee settlement. that we want to help the government of
communities are working together, are The funds will cover school fees for more Uganda with to build additional schools,
schooling and training together and they than 500 refugees and Ugandan youth who classrooms, teachers, helping with school
are conserving the environment together cannot afford to stay in school, she said. fees and supplies to ensure that more refu-
and they are co-existing peacefully.” The new support will also help to gee children go to school.”

16 March. 22 - 28 2019

“We will also have discussions on how to
help the government on further certification
of schools so that students can take exami-
nations and issues related to decongesting
schools by looking at whether schools can
do double shifts.”
“We know that the hospitality and gener-
osity of Ugandan people cannot be taken for
granted and that refugees and the host com-
munities in the country must receive more
global support,” Clements said.
Uganda continues to host the biggest
refugee population in Africa with over 1.2
million refugees, 800,000 of whom are from
South Sudan.
During her visit, Clements saw firsthand
why Uganda is praised around the world
for having one of the most progressive refu-
gee asylum policies.
Clements said her team had been
impressed with “the generosity of the
Ugandan people and the resourcefulness
and resilience of refugees.”
“I’ve been extremely impressed at how
Uganda’s inclusive policies have improved
the lives of refugees and the communities
hosting them,” said Clements.
But the ever-growing task of caring for
hundreds of thousands of vulnerable South
Sudanese refugees could soon overwhelm
the effort if new support is not found.
Clements said 2019 is a very important
year for Uganda and the international
community since the Global Compact on
Refugees was signed in December last year
calling for increased collaboration and
responsibility sharing for host communities
and governments.
“This is a critical time for the operation
and our aim is to keep the spotlight on the
important work that is being done in Ugan-
da by the government, host communities
and a number of partners who have joined
with UNHCR,” she said.
“It’s a very competitive global environ-
ment with regards to resources; so our inter-
est is to look at various programmes, look
at the programme interventions that we
wanted to place high priority coming into
2019.”
“Uganda represents the Global Compact
in action, but the country can’t do it alone,”
she said, “more global support is needed,
particularly in the areas of education, eco-
nomic opportunities and the environment.”
Although the influx of refugees into the
country seems to have slowed down a bit
in recent months, the emergence is not over
and the humanitarian response needs con-
tinue to rise.
In Parolinya refugee settlement, Clements
met with teachers, students and their par-
ents and saw some of the myriad challenges
they face every day.
news analysis
Despite having one of the best refugee
policies in the world, the country has been
struggling to meet most of its obligations
spelt out in UN refugee conventions, includ-
ing the provision of education for refugee
children.
The 1989 Convention on rights of chil-
dren and the 1951 refugee convention note
that education is a human right but many
refugee children currently residing in Ugan-
da are not studying.
By the end of 2017, about 345,000 refugee
children were reported by UNHCR to be
studying in all the 13 refugee settlements
but, almost all of them study in overcrowd-
ed classrooms, with inadequate learning
materials and other resources.
In response, the government through the
Ministry of Education and Sports, donors,
civil society organisations and other UN
agencies last year came up with an “educa-
tion response plan” for refugees and host
communities targeting close to 700,000 chil-
dren every year.
Close to 20 local and international organ-
isations involved with responding to the
refugee crisis in Uganda welcomed the pro-
gramme in a joint communiqué.
“We see countless children forced to drop
out of school; crumbling and overcrowded
classrooms; schools without buildings or
safe water and sanitation; and pupils hav-
ing to walk miles to and from school every
day.”
“What shines through is the children’s
desire to learn and build a better future
for themselves and their communities but
the global response to the unprecedented
movement of refugees has to date been
inadequate.”
But, while the plan sets out the ambition
and concrete steps to achieve this, close to
US$390 million should be found if the pro-
gramme is to be implemented.
Meanwhile, the UNHCR also intends to
concentrate on environmental restoration
projects in both the refugee settlements and
the host communities.
Although Clements noted that the nega-
tive environmental impact is not unique to
areas where refugees are, the UNHCR will
make environmental restoration a high pri-
ority in 2019.
“We will be working with the National
Forestry Authority and the Ministry of
Water and Environment to replant the
trees that have been felled for purposes of
firewood,” she said, “Large scale environ-
mental protection and restoration will go on
both in refugee settlements and the adjacent
communities.”
Boutroue, the UNHCR Country repre-
sentative in Uganda noted that in order
to preserve the country’s environment,
they are looking at planting 20 million
trees per year.
March. 22 - 28 2019 17
news analysis

Reviving Katwe By Patricia Akankwatsa

A
cool breeze and a pungent smell
like rotten eggs is what welcome

salt factory
you to the shores of Lake Katwe.
That is the hydrogen sulfide; a
poisonous and corrosive gas that occurs
naturally in the salt caves of the volcanic
crater Lake. But the men and women
scrapping the bottom of the lake for

UDB launches ambitious salt cannot smell the gas because, after
working in it for some time, it kills their
sense of smell.

hunt for investor So the women continue using hoes to

scoop the salt as the men extract the rock

18 March. 22 - 28 2019

salt. The water in this lake is 60% salty.
And in a region that is semi-arid, with
soils that do not favour agricultural
activities, salt mining has become the
major economic activity in Kasese district,
western Uganda.
Salt is mined from small ponds known
as pans. Pans are man-made features
around Lake Katwe but the salt forms
naturally within them. These ponds
which are about 10 by 12 feet or so
wide and 3 to 5 feet deep are the `plots’
demarcating sections of the shores of
the lake owned by private individuals
or families. Some are inherited from
parents to children. The salt brine is not
manufactured neither is it processed.
Miners depend on the natural salt which
naturally forms within their pans.
Mining in the center of the lake is
only done by licensed individuals. An
association for Rock Salt Extraction issues
the licenses for extraction of rock salt
from the middle of the lake. Everything
appears orderly and designed to ensure
that the salt is extracted without causing
its extinction.
Hope for the factory revival.
Salt mining at Lake Katwe is one of
Uganda’s oldest industries. For centuries
people have mined the salt by hand as
their major means of livelihood. Mining
has also played a significant political and
economic role in the history of the area.
According to Katwe Information
Tourism Centre Lake Katwe is the chief
producer of salt in Uganda. It was formed
as a result of volcanic eruption about
10,000 years ago. The lake is about 9km
wide and very shallow, with the deepest
point being six feet. There is a raised
settlement near the lake which people
from neighboring areas who came to buy
salt called “Katwe” hence the name.
This is an area of crater lakes and
cones. Lake Katwe, Lake Munyanyange,
and Lake Kasenyi are among the biggest.
All of them are said to have a salt rock
deep below them but only Lake Katwe
and Lake Kasenyi can produce salt. The
lakes are shallow depressions where
the salt liquid brine collects. This is
because the two lakes have streams that
bring fresh water to the lake which fills
numerous vents or holes which sink to
the main salt rock below and dissolve
part of the rock it into salt brine. Volcanic
pressure then pushes the compressed
liquid back on top where it is dissolved
to become a salt solution which solidifies
into salt when the water in it evaporates.
There are three major types of salt mined
from Lake Katwe; the crude salt for
animal leak, edible salt (sodium chloride)
and unwashed salt.
Starting in the late 1970s, the
government development agency,
Uganda Development Corporation
(UDC), built a factory in the area to
process the salt brine. Construction was
interrupted by the wars of the period,
but the factory was completed in 1982.
However, it operated for less than a year
and close when the salt corroded the
machinery.
Today, bats, rats, and other creatures
are the only inhabitants of the factory
on the edges of Lake Edward which is
about half a kilometre from Lake Katwe.
Meanwhile Uganda spends billions of
dollars importing salt. It is an undesirable
situation that Uganda Development Bank
news analysis
(UDB) wants to change. It wants to revive
the long dead factory.
“As a bank, we are involved in a lot
of activities and one of them is project
preparation,” says Mohamud Andama,
the UDB director for investment, “With
this we connect an idea and turn it into a
bank proposal for a potential funder.”
He says the government identified the
revival of the salt factory on Lake Katwe
as an investment project but there has
been no progress.
“This where we stepped in,” says
Andama, “We are doing a feasibility
study of revamping the factory and if we
find that it is a viable activity, then we
write a proposal.”
What locals say
“I have been mining salt since 1989 and
the pay is good,” says Eliason Bwambale
a salt miner. He says on a good day, he
can get around US$150.
“That is not bad,” he says, “but because
we use rudimentary methods to extract
salt, we get hurt. We normally use hands
and go into the lake bare footed. Some
of these salt rocks have sharp edges that
may injure our legs and arms when we
are scrapping the salt.”
“I would be very glad if some investors
came in and renovated the factory
because that way, work can be made
efficient and easy,” he adds.
Miners also say that the weather
patterns have not been favorable to them.
Salt is only extracted during the dry
season that is from January to March and
from July to September when there is
much sunshine.
“We want to find an appropriate way of
extracting salt during the wet season. This
can be done by industrialisation, using
modern solar panels to evaporate the salt
water like how it is done in other parts
of the world instead of depending on the
sunshine,” says Nicholas Kagongo; one of
the custodians and environmentalists at
the salt mines. He says they welcome the
idea of reviving the factory because they
need to improve the salt mining sector.
“With industrialisation, we can be
able to get a brand because there we can
produce purified salt that meets the world
standards and get market. Thus, boosting
the salt mining activity,” he told The
Independent.
About Lake Katwe
According to Katwe Information
Tourism Centre, Lake Katwe is about 550
kilometers west of Kampala, in Kasese
District, Kabatoro/Katwe Town Council.
It is one of about 52 explosion crater lakes
found in Queen Elizabeth national park.
March. 22 - 28 2019 19
interview

Katuntu did a good job but…

Kawempe South MP Munyagwa Mubarak Sserunga is the new Chairperson of Committee on State
Authorities and Statutory Enterprises (COSASE). He spoke to The Independent’s Agnes E. Nantaba.

What is your comment on baseless allegations. beginning but I can’t change my

your appointment as COSASE identity. The world has accepted me

I
chairperson? The appointment also attracted a the way I am and my constituents
am forever grateful to Forum lot of cynicism especially on social believe in me. Expect results through a
for Democratic Party (FDC) for media with many a commentator different style of work.
giving me the opportunity to serve saying it is a downgrade given your
as head of the biggest oversight comical character. What are your What do you make of the state
committee in parliament. I am known thoughts on this? of affairs in COSASE; including
to be an activist for a long period of One of Uganda’s biggest problems allegations of corruption that have
time and most elites have never taken is the elites and social media
me to be serious but FDC came out to commentators who hold themselves
disprove the country that Munyagwa in high regard as though they
can do something else that is more came as Mars. We all went to
challenging. The party leadership schools with some of them
wasn’t limited for options because but it was a choice for
there are other senior leaders and MPs some of them to become
who have served in the house for more corporates while we
than one term and would be equally chose political activism.
deserving. The appointment wasn’t That explains why
expected for someone of my character some people doubt if
to replace a senior lawyer and more Dr Besigye is a medical
experienced MP (Bugweri MP Abdu doctor because of what
Katuntu). Here I am ready to take the he chose to do.
mantle. We are different
brands which translate
What is your take on the appointment into a different style
being seen as a reward for stepping of work. It is true that
down for FDC president Patrick is the way I
Amuriat during the party’s last branded and
presidential race? presented
FDC doesn’t use positions to reward myself
people. All the party leadership did at the
was to prove that a different style or very
philosophy of work can also deliver.
If it was about being rewarded, we
wouldn’t see people like MP Betty
Nambooze being appointed as
spokesperson of the Minority
government or shadow
cabinet. Even the leader
of opposition, Betty Aol
Ochan was never seen
moving with President
Amuriat, Opposition
Chief Whip Ibrahim
Ssemujju Nganda
supported
Mugisha Muntu
in the FDC
presidential
race but was
named on
the cabinet.
Those
are just

20 March. 22 - 28 2019

shrouded the committee?
It is unfair to hold such baseless
allegations since no past leader of
COSASE has been proven guilty
of corruption charges during their
tenure. Even under the law, there is a
presumption that anyone is innocent
until proven guilty. Such allegations
cannot shadow our positive energy
and efforts to make Uganda a better
country.
How different is your philosophy?
My predecessor believed in budget
size; targeting where government has
invested a lot. But my philosophy
lies in interacting with all entities
regardless of budget size because
they are all equally important. We
intend to interact with all entities and
recommend accordingly but where
necessary probe. We have already
written to all entities; asking them
to submit responses in regard to the
auditor general’s report. We have also
tasked them to serve us with lists of
all origins of all employees and the
districts of origin, salary structure,
and dates of engagement and expiry
for those on contract; including board
members. They are required to share
with the committee their challenges
and achievements. Our mandate
ranges from processing auditor
general’s report to supervision. We
may rush at probing financial abuses
and indiscipline forgetting that some
entities are lacking in other areas.
For instance some agencies don’t
guarantee fair competition for jobs
because some conduct head hunting.
I don’t need to copy anything from
my predecessor because I am up to
the task. We have the capabilities
that require me and the team to do
this. The educational requirement
for someone to become MP is
advanced level certificate
which makes every
MP eligible to chair
any committee in
parliament including
me. I am above
the minimum
qualification
with a degree
in science and
now pursuing
my
philosophy
lies in
interacting
with all
entities
regardless
of budget
size because
they are
all equally
important
a second degree- bachelor of laws.
How do you intend to maintain the
standard set by your predecessor of
having COSASE as one of the most
active committees of Parliament?
I don’t intend to turn the committee
into an only probe committee. Our
work entails processing the auditor
general’s report to presenting the
findings before the house. Probing
will come in but where necessary. My
assessment is that it has not done well
if less than a quarter of the expected
entities interacted with the committee.
To start with, we expect all entities
to have submitted their responses by
March 22 and thereafter embark on
a marathon of interaction which will
see all of them covered by end of our
tenure.
As a committee, we have agreed to
divide ourselves into subcommittees
that will be tasked to handle a number
of agencies, have them processed and
report to the meeting of the entire
committee. Once we find the responses
interview
of some agencies or entities sufficient,
there will be no need for interaction.
What is your strategy to dealing
with the cyclical backlog problem that
saw your predecessor handle only 14
entities out of the 112?
Backlog is a problem that has
persisted from many regimes. Most
of our predecessors apart from Hon
Ssemujju tethered themselves on
entities with big budgets leaving out
smaller ones. For instance entities
like Allied Health Professional
Council, Uganda Dental and Medical
Practitioners Council and Uganda
Nurses and Midwives Council have
budgets ranging from Ushs1-2
billion which is very low compared
to entities like Uganda National
Roads Authority with a budget of
Ushs2 trillion. Budgets should not
dictate which entity to interact with
or probe. They are equally important
because the above regulate the entire
medical profession; therefore hold
the country’s health sector. Once the
auditor general’s report highlights
issues regarding their mode of
operation, COSASE must interact with
them.
What is your say on the COSASE
report into the fraudulent closure and
disposal of seven commercial banks?
Hon Katuntu did a commendable
job considering the observations.
Sometimes facts speak for themselves
and in this case, the facts were
substantive. He deserves credit for
trying hard to fish for facts. Although
the recommendations weren’t
commensurate to the observations, the
observations were glaring. We should
accept differences in character because
some people might be lenient and not
others.
What is not in contention however
is that my predecessor’s style of
work doesn’t match the interests
and expectations of Ugandans. The
challenge is that majority of Ugandans
are oppressed and angry people who
expected harsh treatments to some
of the individuals who were probed
and indicated to being fraudulent.
Ugandans are waiting for redemption
from all corners so for an opportunity
like the BOU probe only had them
expect COSASE to go their way by
being harsh. The committee did a
great job.
March. 22 - 28 2019 21
(L-R) Kansai Plascon Uganda Ltd outgoing Managing Director, Chris Nugent, President Hiroshi Ishino , Vice President, Kalpana
Abe, and MD Kansai Plascon East Africa, Wim Bramer, during the launch of anti-mosquito paint in Kampala on Feb. 05.

Inside Kansai Plascon’s top

management shake-up
MD shown exit as sales and marketing manager
faces investigations over misconduct

K
By Isaac Khisa
ansai Plascon Uganda
Limited has over the last
couple of months hosted
several senior executives
from the parent com-
pany, Kansai Paint, based
in Osaka, Japan.
The executives’ stopover climaxed
on Feb. 05 with the visit of Kalpana
Abe, the company’s vice president and
Hiroshi Ishino, the president during
the launch of an anti-mosquito paint
in Kampala.
But The Independent has learnt that
behind the visit, the executives sought
to know the inner operations of Plas-
con Uganda Limited since it acquired
the assets of the former holder of the
Sadolin brand in East Africa, two years
ago.
On top of the executives’ minds was
the “poor performance” of the com-
pany which has registered a drop in
annual turnover, estimated at more
than 40% in an industry that has
recently become very competitive.
However, in trying to understand
the Uganda operations, The Inde-
pendent investigations show that the
executives unearthed a network of
unscrupulous deals linked to the top

22 March. 22 - 28 2019

managers of Kansai Plascon Uganda
Limited.
This, sources said, triggered the
Kansai Plascon executives to fire some
of the top employees in its subsidiary
for conflict of interest and supplying
goods to their employer.
The sources, for example, said Plas-
con Uganda Managing Director, Chris
Nugent, was found to be the owner
of a paintings company – Specialized
Coatings – that also buys paints from
the paint maker.
Santosh Gumte, who had been the
company’s commercial director since
2007, was found to be the owner of
one of the local plastics manufacturing
firm that supplies plastic tins for paint
packaging to his employer.
It is Santosh’s association with the
company that Sadolin Paint switched
the plastic tins supplier to Friendship
Plastics, which also supplies to Crown
paints, the producer of Regal Paints.
Interestingly, Santosh had not been
fired; instead he was promoted
to become a co-managing direc-
tor with Nugent for a year as the
latter exited the paint company,
according to an internal memo
that The Independent has seen.
“I am sure all members of staff
will give Santosh their full sup-
port in his role,” Nugent said in
an internal memo circulated to the
staff on Feb.08.
Sources said Kansai Paints now
plans to fly in an executive to be
in charge of finance following the
promotion of former commercial
director.
Nilesh Jani, who has been the Nilesh
company’s sales and marketing
manager, has been suspended pending
investigations for misconduct.
When contacted for a comment over
the development on March 01, Nugent
said indeed there is a plan for him to
retire although it is still work in prog-
ress.
In terms of decline in company per-
formance, Nugent, who was appointed
to the company’s helm in 1994 but has
served for nearly 30 years in various
capacities, said the company’s growth
has been fantastic. He said the compa-
ny recorded a 5% growth in turnover.
However, he declined to comment
on the suspension of Nilesh, who has
worked for the company for about
12 years. Nilesh, on the other hand,
denied to have been suspended, refer-
ring this publication to the outgoing
managing director.
Tyron Immelmann, the company’s
Marketing Manager East Africa on
March 14 could neither confirm nor
deny that Specialised Coating was
owned by Nugent as he is yet to be
equipped well with the company back-
ground.
“Specialised Coatings was origi-
nally set up so that (the) two entities
existed, one a paint manufacturer and
the other an application business,” he
said.
“With the change to Kansai Plascon,
the company was Specialised Coatings
was absorbed into Kansai Plascon and
no longer exists, any ongoing or long
term projects is place is being com-
pleted by Kansai Plascon.”
He also denied claim that the Kan-
sai Plascon has lost its market share.
Instead, Immelmann said the company
has enjoyed a successful brand migra-
tion and is proud of its achievements
in managing its dealer network, work
force and 60% market share.
“The suggestion of underperfor-
mance or loss of 40% (turnover) in
business is fabricated and untrue,”
Immelmann said.
Jani Santosh Gumte
Regarding Nilesh suspension,
Immelmann said it is an internal affair
and requires the necessary due process
to take place.
Since the entry of Plascon in Ugan-
da’s paint market through the acquisi-
tion of assets that held Sadolin brand,
competition has heightened that at
one point the paint firms got caught
up in mudslinging and carrying out
misleading advertisements.
According to the terms of the
Sadolin franchise, Sadolin Paints East
Africa was supposed to keep Sadolin
Paints products on the market for a
year, in case it wanted terminate the
deal. Surprisingly, this clause was
breached as Plascon immediately went
on a rebranding campaign of all Sado-
lin products.
Plascon moved a step further by
going to the courts seeking an injunc-
tion on Sadolin not to be in the mar-
ket. This move infuriated the Sadolin
executives who still wanted to save its
business
share of the Ugandan market. It took
Sadolin over a month to shake off the
injunction, a period Plascon exploited
in its favour.
 Plascon not only claimed that “Sado-
lin is now Plascon”, influencing public
perception, but also changed the entire
Sadolin distribution and value chain.
 Sadolin Paints was caught off guard
in that although it owned the Sadolin
paint formula and quality assurance,
it never owned the distribution and
value chain, which was Sadolin Paints
East Africa’s.
This made Sadolin to partner with
the closest rival, Nairobi-based Crown
Paints, to set up a US$ 10 million plant
the Kampala Business and Industrial
Park, Namanve, to manufacture and
distribute Sadolin paints.
Since then, competition has
remained tense with Sadolin coming
up with new strategies including set-
ting up its new distribution network
altogether, training painters as well
as extending support to upcoming
entrepreneurs.
Plascon performance in East
Africa
However, Plascon seems to have
made inroads in the market and has
recorded high sales on the year-on-
year basis for the East African busi-
ness for the third quarter of the year
ending March.
The company’s net sales grew
23.7% to 29,733 million yen
(Shs981.5billion) on year on year cit-
ing increase in sales volume.
Still, despite a rise in sales com-
pared with the same period last
year, profitability faced significant
pressure from the rise of raw material
prices due to currency depreciation
and the intensified price competition.
This development comes as latest
statistics show that the Middle East
and Africa Powder Coating Market
is expected to register a healthy com-
pound annual growth rate in the fore-
cast period 2018 to 2025.
AkzoNobel is expected to dominate
the powder coating market followed
by Kansai Paint, Asian Paints, Jotun
and Evonik Industries AG among oth-
ers.
The new market report that contains
data for historic year 2016 and 2017
as the base year of calculation, says
increasing technological advance-
ments, growth of stringent environ-
ment regulations and rising applica-
tions across end-user industries are
driving the market.
March. 22 - 28 2019 23
business
Stanbic’s conference
awakens entrepreneurs
What local businesses need to reap from the lucrative sector
By Julius Businge
T
here is need for partnerships, con-
nections, networking, trust, perse-
verance, access to credit, and prom-
ising what you can deliver.
These were the messages that most
speakers that took part in Stanbic Bank’s
second edition of the annual enterprise con-
ference held at Hotel Africana on March 12
told heads of businesses in the gas and oil
industry.
Held under the theme ‘unlocking the oil
and gas opportunities for local enterprises,’
the conference attracted slightly over 500
high minded entrepreneurs to share expe-
riences on how to sustainably grow their
businesses
It comes at the time Uganda is in the
process of developing its oil and gas sector,
a head of oil and gas production in the next
three to four years.
Stephen Segujja, the Stanbic Bank head
for enterprise banking said as Uganda
becomes an oil and gas producing nation,
it is important to ensure businesses prepare
early enough to maximise the sector oppor-
tunities.
“Small and medium enterprises are eager
to be in this space and we are here to sup-
port them,” Segujja said.
Available data from the ministry of ener-
gy indicates that Uganda’s oil and gas sector
is expected to attract investments of about
$20billion, with about $6billion expected to
be retained into Uganda’s economy in the
development stage of the sector.
“It is therefore important to prepare
SMEs to help them tap into these oppor-
tunities, win contracts and be part of the
value chain that is going to deliver first oil,”
Segujja added.
According to Uganda Bureau of Statis-
tics, Ugandan small businesses contribute
40-50% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
making them engines of growth that
account for up to 99% of Ugandan busi-
nesses.
There are 250,000 registered SMEs in the
country but most of these are informal and
lack the tools to keep them sustainable.
The 2014 Industrial Baseline Survey (IBS),
titled, “a survey to foster opportunities for
Ugandans in the oil and gas sector”, shows
that Uganda’s petroleum sector will gener-
ate 100,000 to 150,000 direct and indirect
jobs. However, the survey identified, lim-
ited information, lack of skills, poor infra-
24 March. 22 - 28 2019
Tony Otoa, the head of Stanbic’s business incubator makes a presentation at the enterprise conference.
structure, and administrative bureaucracy
as some of the barriers that would hamper
Ugandans from working in the sector.
It also revealed that only 25 industries
out of the 420 surveyed in Uganda had high
potential to supply the sector with various
goods and services.
Tony Otoa, the head of the Stanbic Bank
Business Incubator said at the conference
that the lack of entrepreneurial manage-
ment and business skills, poor banking and
borrowing history, lack of business plans
and financial records, low corporate gov-
ernance and fierce local and international
competition were the leading deadlocks
facing Ugandan enterprises.
Possible solutions
As part of the solutions, Otoa said Stan-
bic’s incubator was set up to deal with these
challenges and make businesses get ready
to tap into oil and gas opportunities.
He said over 500 entrepreneurs from
over 150 businesses have benefited from the
initiative and that some have been directly
linked to sector partners and are already
making money.
He urged businesses that have not yet
taken part in the free of charge training to
do so if they are to benefit from the sector.
“This is proof that our local businesses
are capable of taking up opportunities in
the sector and should therefore not be left
out but rather should be empowered,” Otoa
said. He said the training lasts three months
and thereafter, beneficiaries are given men-
tors to ensure that all the knowledge and
skills attained are put into use.
“I understand we have been doing busi-
ness as usual…we have to change if we are
to benefit from the sector,” he said.
While sharing her sector experience, one
of the entrepreneurs, Juliana Keilungi from
Atacama, a consulting firm that has won
several contracts in the oil and gas sector
advised entrepreneurs to build capacity,
and skills in all corporate governance areas
instead of giving up when things appear to
fail to workout.
“The beginning is always tough. You
have to be ready with solutions to deal with
the challenges.”
Keilungi urged businesses to register in
the National Suppliers Database; recruit
competent team; invest in human and finan-
cial capital; invest in quality management
systems; generate consistently high quality
work; get good lines of credit and promise
only what they can deliver.
On his part, Kevin Wingfield, the head
of personal and business banking, urged
businesses to prepare enough ahead of oil
production.
“We have to be proactive when taking up
opportunities,” Wingfield said.
He added that opportunities are in big
projects like the refinery, development of oil
fields, the oil pipeline, the airport and other
supporting infrastructure.
He also urged participants to read up,
network, form partnerships as one way of
understanding the oil and gas sector value
chain if they are to win contracts.
“Partnerships are not a threat; they are an
opportunity,” he said. “Be organised. Have
a clear story before you approach banks for
funding.”
 Executive Style
Sadolin sees a bright future
in Uganda’s paint market
Following the sale of
assets belonging to the
former holder of Sadolin
Paint brand in the region
nearly two years ago and
your decision to invest in
your own plant to start
paint production locally
and protect your market
share, what progress have
W
you made so far?
e have made
significant
progress. We
have set up
a production plant, and
we now have products
on the Ugandan market.
Initially, we didn’t have
any product. We have also
been in position to launch
a product specifically
for the Ugandan market.
This followed a thorough
research and investment
that enabled us come up
with a kind of paint that
is suitable for this tropical
climatic conditions.
Some of these products
included Wallquard that is
specifically made to combat
mold as well as a whole
range of exterior products.
We also embarked on
training our painters to
make them experts in
matters painting. We
realized that we could not
tackle the issue of good
paintings without skilling
and imparting knowledge
to our painters on not only
how to use our paints but
also advise consumers.
Currently, we are running
two sessions per month in
various parts of the country;
imparting them with skills
in paint composition,
importance of following
painting systems as well
as how do deal with the
problems that our consumers
are trying to combat.
bright year.
Which products do you
plan to unveil this year and
your market share?
We are in a competitive
environment and I may
not be able to reveal the
products we plan to launch
this year. The same applies
to our market share.
What does the progress
made so far mean to you as
a commercial director for
Sadolin in East Africa?
I am very proud of
achievements we have
made so far. Our local team
has done a fantastic job.
We wanted to be on the
Ugandan market and I am
happy we have done that.
We have developed a good
platform for the company’s
future growth. Sadolin has
been one of our shining
In 2017, the holder of Sadolin franchise stars in Africa and we want
in East African sold its business to Kansai it to continue.
Plascon. But for fear of losing the market,
How has the company
Sadolin brand owner – AkzoNobel – handed managed to rebuild the
over the license to the rival firm, Crown supply chain?
Paints. Deon Nieuwoudttal, the commercial We are basically
setting up a very unique
director for E. Africa at AkzoNobel, talked to distribution channel. We
The Independent’s Isaac Khisa about their have been able to bring a
progress and the prospects that lie ahead. whole new generation of
dealers into the market.
We are also encouraging
entrepreneurship. We
What strategies are you to launch products that are are supporting upcoming
undertaking to grow your relevant to the Ugandan entrepreneurs who can build
business and the market market and not merely our brand moving forward.
share? launching paint products.
We are focusing on Where do we see Sadolin in
training our dealers and What is your assessment of the next five years?
painters and setting up a paint market in Uganda at We want to re-establish
distribution in a proper the moment? Sadolin as a major player
way. This is to showcase Since the last half of 2018, in the provision of quality
our products and ensure paint demand is still under paint. We want to be seen as
that when consumers visit pressure. But we have made a renewed company and use
us, they indeed get colour good progress and we are our global credentials and
experience. We are also comfortable where we are technologies to ensure that
expanding our product range based on our achievements. our Ugandan consumer can
in a sensible way. We want We are now looking to a really benefit from it.
March. 22 - 28 2019 25
Business
csr csr

dfcu trains women in business NBL sinks Shs300mn in 2019 scholarship programme

N
ile Breweries
Limited (NBL) an-
nounced it is sink-
ing Shs303 million
in its equality scholarship
programme for the benefit
of the secondary school and
university students enrolled
on it. NBL Country Director
for Uganda, Thomas Kam-
phuis and its Legal and

N
Corporate Affairs Director,
inety women have successfully Onapito Ekomoloit said the students; 20 university stu- farming communities that
completed a two year business money would go towards dents and 45 orphans who supply the company with
management training course and the 2019 school fees and lost their parents in the July inputs like sorghum and
awarded with certificates at Maker- welfare expenses for the 11, 2010 bombing in Kam- barley under what officials
ere University Business School (MUBS). The 102 beneficiaries, who com- pala. School going benefi- described as a ‘performance
training is funded by dfcu bank and dates prise 42 secondary school ciaries are picked from the based criterion’
back to 2016 when the latter signed an MOU
with MUBS to start a business acceleration telecom
program for women entrepreneurs. The pro-
gramme seeks to empower women entrepre-
neurs in the business space. Speaking at the Africell introduces OTT inclusive bundles

graduation ceremony held at MUBS recently,
the University’s Vice Chancellor Prof. Waswa
Bulunywa said the launch of the innovation
and incubation center at MUBS will bolster
progress in empowering women as they will
be able to acquire necessary skills and ex-
pertise to start their own businesses with the
help of dfcu bank. Dfcu’s Women in Business
(WiB) program Manager, Victoria Byenkya,
said: “As dfcu Bank we are fully committed
to this cause and our doors will always be
open to women.”
A
fricell Uganda has introduced
SWIFT bundles where customers
will not have to worry about pay-
ing OTT tax for them to enjoy the
internet experience. The SWIFT bundles
were first launched by Africell Uganda and
they enabled the company achieve an edge
in the data market becoming the top selling
bundle. Africell Uganda CEO Mohammad
Ghaddar said, “We made a pledge to our
customers to always avail quality, afford-
able and timely communication solutions.
It is in respect to this pledge that we are
announcing a much better and more com-
petitive SWIFT bundle than we had the last
time.’ The SWIFT bundles will be sold only
through three key channels which are Afri-
cell shops countrywide, the Africell money
platform accessible and also through se-
lected vendors like Payway, whose network
reaches far and wide. SWIFT stands for
SnapChat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook
and Twitter.

aviation innovation

Boeing’s 737 Max grounded to a halt UAP Old Mutual hosts

I
t is just March but is turning out to be the aircraft maker Boeing has decided start up boot camp

a very difficult year for the aviation
industry. After an Ethiopian Airlines
Boeing 737 Max crashed just six min-
utes after take-off from Bole International
Airport in Addis Ababa, airlines across
the world reacted by grounding the 737
Max aircrafts as a safety precaution.
China was swift in its decision to ban
the plane and it was quickly followed by
Ethiopian airlines and a host of others in
Europe, Asia and the United States. Now
to ground its entire 737 Max fleet after
a global backlash for its most commer-
cially successful plane. Just a month ago,
Airbus announced that it was stopping
production of the iconic Airbus 380. The
giant aircraft was being shunned in fa-
vour of smaller planes for shorter routes.
Besides the 380 was proving too costly
to maintain for some airlines. The final
blow was when Airbus’ biggest customer
Emirates cut its fleet order significantly.
D
isruptive start-ups seeking solutions
for positive change in Africa have a
chance to receive support from UAP
Old Mutual. The insurance firm
alongside SBC AfriTech and SBC Ambassador,
Outbox, will co-host the Kampala FastTrack on
March 20 where top-tier tech start-ups can meet
with investors, mentors and corporate sponsors.
Startupbootcamp AfriTech’ is one of the most
sought-after programmes for Africa-focused
tech start-ups. The Startupbootcamp pro-
gramme was founded in 2010 with a simple goal
in mind: to support the world’s best innovators
through all stages of growth. This led to the
first-ever Africa-focused accelerator of its kind,
namely Startupbootcamp AfriTech (SBC AfriT-
ech), to launch in Cape Town in 2017. In SBC
AfriTech’s first two years, twenty companies in
the portfolio signed 52 pilots and commercial
agreements with large corporations. In 2018, the
programme was named the Top Accelerator on
the continent by the Global Startup Awards.

26 March. 22 - 28 2019
 Business

AfDB pledges US$25bn

to climate finance
By The Independent African Financial Alliance for

P
an-African develop-
ment lender, African
Development Bank,
will double its climate
finance commitments on the
continent for the period 2020-
2025, according to its President,
Akinwumi Adesina.
Adesina, who was speaking
during the One Planet Summit
in Nairobi, Kenya, on March
14, in the presence of President
Uhuru Kenyatta and French
President Emmanuel Macron,
said the Bank would commit
Alice Nassanga (C ) an Airtel Money agent from Gayaza receives a brand
at least US$25 billion towards
new motorcycle as the lucky weekly winner in the 13th draw of the Beera
climate finance.
Millionaire with Airtel Money Promotion on March 15, 2019.   Courtesy Photo.
He said the financial institu-
tion is on course to achieve its
target of allocating 40% of its
funding to climate finance by
2020.
The Bank’s commitment on
the target, the highest among
all multilateral development
banks, has progressed steadily
from 9% in 2016 to 28% in 2017
and 32% in 2018.
“The required level of
financing is only feasible with
the direct involvement of the
entire financial sector,” he said.
This comes four months
State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Okello Oryem (2nd R) and MTN since the Bank launched the
executives handover the refurbished Cwero Health Centre III, located
along Gulu – Kitgum road on March 15 to address the health challenges
around the community.   Courtesy Photo.
Climate Change (AFAC) to
link all stock exchanges, pen-
sion and sovereign wealth
funds, central Banks and other
financial institutions in Africa
to mobilize and incentivise the
shift of their portfolios towards
low carbon and climate resil-
ient investments.
Adesina revealed that the
lender will also unveil the
‘green baseload’ facility under
the Sustainable Energy Fund
for Africa to provide conces-
sional finance and technical
assistance to support the pen-
etration and scale-up of renew-
able energy on the continent.
Several donors, including
Canada, Denmark, Germany,
Norway, Italy, the UK and
USAID have indicated their
interest in this transformative
instrument, which will also
help to replace coal, the lender
said.
So far, AfDB has invested
US$10bn in the ‘Desert to
Power” program, an initia-
tive to build a 10 GW solar
zone across the Sahel region
and also co-financed the 510
MW Ouarzazate Solar Com-
plex in Morocco.

Weekly share price movement (March. 05)

Security March 05 Feb.15 Movement
BATU 30,000 30000 00
BOBU 134 134 00
CENT 1,190 1,242 4.2
QCL 292 200 46
DFCU 670 690 00
EABL 7,181 8,154 11.9
EBL 1,515 1,568 3.3
JHL 15,585 16,090 3.1
KA 224 328 31.7
KCB 1,541 1,607 4.1
NIC 14 14 00
NMG 2,221 2,526 12.0
NVL 336 336 00
MultiChoice’s Head of Marketing Albert Nga (L) and Retention Manager, SBU 29 28 3.5
Sauya Nakiyaga, unveil the DStv Step Up Campaign. The campaign will UCHM 22 27 18.5
see all active DStv customers given opportunities to upgrade to new UCL 17 18 5.5
packages.  Courtesy Photo. UMEME 292 300 2.6
ALSI -- -- --

March. 22 - 28 2019 27
High blood pressure;
is it always bad?
New findings question that assumption
it should always be cause for concern
H
By Maria Cohut keep monitoring their own blood pressure
ypertension, or high blood
pressure, is a risk factor for
several health conditions,
including cardiovascular
problems, diabetes, and
other metabolic issues.
However, is high blood pressure always a
cause for concern? New findings question
that assumption.
What is high blood pressure? Well, it is
hard to accurately answer that question, as
specialists are still debating what counts as
normal blood pressure.
Different organisations currently offer
different guidelines on high blood pressure.
For instance, the National Heart, Lung,
and Blood Institute explain that, among
adults, hypertension is a “consistent systolic
reading of 140 mm Hg [millimiters of mer-
cury] or higher.”
However, the American Heart Asso-
ciation (AHA) suggests that hypertension
occurs when a person has a systolic blood
pressure of 130 mm Hg or above. Mean-
while, the CDC consider people with sys-
tolic blood pressure of 120–139 mm Hg as
being only “at risk” of hypertension.
Generally speaking, doctors advise their
patients — especially older adults — to
28 March. 22 - 28 2019
and keep it in check.
This is to make sure that it does not reach
the threshold for hypertension, which
many healthcare professionals consider to
be a risk factor for heart disease and stroke,
among other things.
Now, however, a study that researchers
at Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin in
Germany carried out suggests that some
older people may not face other health
problems if they have high blood pressure.
In fact, the researchers note, some people
in their 80s may even see some benefits.
Moving ‘away from a blanket
approach’
The new study — the findings of which
appear in the European Heart Journal —
looked at a cohort of 1,628 women and men
with a mean age of 81 years. All were 70 or
older when they joined in 2009, and they
were all following antihypertensive treat-
ments.
Researchers collected data about the par-
ticipants’ health status through the Berlin
Initiative Study, a Charité research project.
They questioned participants every 2 years
and assessed their blood pressure, among
other health measurements.
At the 6-year mark, the investigators per-
formed a statistical analysis to find out how
blood pressure could affect a person’s mor-
tality risk. They also adjusted for potential
confounding factors, such as sex, lifestyle
choices, body mass index (BMI), and how
many drugs for high blood pressure each
person took.
They saw that people aged 80 and over
who had a lower blood pressure — of
140/90 mm Hg or under — actually had a
40 percent higher mortality risk than peers
with blood pressure exceeding those thresh-
olds.
Even people who’d already had a stroke
or a heart attack presented a similar link
between blood pressure levels and mortal-
ity risk.
The team also emphasizes that people
with blood pressure lower than 140/90 mm
Hg had a 61 percent higher risk of death
than those whose blood pressure remained
high in spite of their antihypertensive drug
regimen.
“Our results show clearly that, within
these groups of patients, antihypertensive
treatment should be adjusted based on the
needs of the individual,” notes first study
author Dr. Antonios Douros.
“We should move away from the blanket
approach of applying the recommendations
of professional associations to all groups of
patients,” said Antonios Douros
In the future, the scientists aim to have
a more in-depth look at blood pressure-
lowering medication to establish when it is
actually most likely to help.
“As a next step, we want to study which
groups of patients actually benefit from
antihypertensive treatment,” concludes
study co-author Prof. Elke Schäffner.
Source: Medical News Today

How often should
you bath, shower?
The biggest problem with too frequent showering
is that it strips your skin of natural oils
By Agencies
A
hot shower is the usual start of
your morning; along with brush-
ing your teeth and combing your
hair, but you may want to take a
new look at your showering routine. It’s
possible your daily shower is actually too
much for your skin.
So how often should you bath, shower?
The honest, albeit utterly vague, answer
to the question is it depends. There really
isn’t a magic number that is right for every
person. But, there is a general consensus
among dermatologists that as a society
we shower too often. Dermatologists vary
in their recommendations, so advice runs
the gamut from showering once or twice a
week to once every two to three days.
Why the disparity? Everybody’s skin and
lifestyle is unique. So, you have to take into
account your personal situation.
A shower every other day or so is a good
guideline. Most people can shower every
second or third day and still be clean and
unlikely to offend your family and co-work-
ers. Babies and young children shouldn’t be
bathed every day. And as you get older you
will probably want to cut back on the num-
ber of showers you take a week as well.
Showering more often doesn’t make you
healthier, and there is no need to shower
more often to cleanse away bacteria. The
human body is teeming with bacteria, the
vast majority being helpful (or at least not
harmful.) A daily shower, in many cases, is
just not necessary.
Some people do need a daily shower.
There are exceptions to this, of course. If
you work out daily, live in an especially hot
or humid area, work a job where you get
dirty/sweaty, or are prone to body odor,
you will want to shower every day to rinse
away sweat and dirt.
Hands should be washed several times
daily. Even if you’re not showering daily
you should still wash your hands with soap
and water several times per day. Hands
are the germ-magnets. It’s the bacteria and
viruses that you pick up on your hands
and transfer to your eyes, mouth, and nose
that make you sick. This will help keep you
healthier, especially during cold and flu
season. Your face should be cleansed daily
as well. Just like with your hands, your face
should be given special treatment. Even on
days you’re skipping the shower, wash your
face with a gentle cleanser at least at night
before you go to bed. Removing makeup,
grime, and excess oil is important to keep
breakouts from forming and keep your skin
healthy.
Showering Too Often
If you’re used to a daily shower, the
thought of skipping a day (or two or more)
may seem gross. But truly, we’ve been
socially conditioned to feel the need to
shower every day. Showering too often can,
in some cases, cause more troubles than it
prevents.
The biggest problem with too frequent
showering is that it strips your skin of natu-
ral oils. Human skin is covered with a fine
layer of oil called sebum. This oil is meant
to protect the skin and keep the skin mois-
turised. Frequent cleansing removes this oil
and can make your skin dry and itchy. It
health
can also irritate sensitive skin and eczema.
For what it’s worth, you don’t want
to wash your hair too often either. Over-
washing can make your hair dry and frizzy,
especially if your hair is naturally dry, curly,
or coarse. It can make your scalp feel dry
and itchy too.
And if you think showering often helps
protect you from bad bacteria, the exact
opposite may be true. Showering can break
down the skin’s natural barrier, called the
acid mantle. The acid mantle is slightly
acidic. Showering too often, especially with
alkaline soap or washes, can change the pH
of your skin and leave your skin more sus-
ceptible to bacterial and viral invasion.
Not Showering Enough
Most people shower more than neces-
sary, and you don’t want to completely
ditch this hygiene ritual. There are times,
though, that maybe you go days on end
without a shower. Say, you’re camping in
a remote area, or you’re feeling under-the-
weather and peeling yourself from the bed
is the last thing on your mind. Are there any
risks of going too long between bathing?
Beyond the obvious (you start to develop
some wicked B.O.) you could be setting
yourself up for blackhead and acne devel-
opment. You have a ton of oil glands on
your face, so your face will get extra oily fast
if you’re skipping a daily wash. But going
too long between showers can also trigger
body breakouts, especially if you are prone
to them.
Skipping showers when you’re sweaty is
a bigger issue than an accumulation of dirt,
oil, and bacteria, though. Sweat can irritate
the skin, and leaving your skin moist for
long periods of time (like sitting around in
your sweat-soaked post-workout clothes)
can raise your risk of developing a bacterial
or fungal infection like jock itch.
If you go for long periods without bath-
ing, you can develop a skin condition called
dermatitis neglecta, where brown patches
develop on your skin. These plaques are a
mix of dead cells, dirt, sweat, and grime that
have accumulated on your skin. Thankfully,
this only happens if you’re going weeks or
months without stepping in the shower.
Source: Verywelhealth
March. 22 - 28 2019 29
comment
By Jacqueline Musiitwa
Banking on Refugees
Contrary to popular belief, refugees are on par with
non-refugees when it comes to loan repayment
E
very minute, on average, 31 people
are displaced around the world –
forced to leave their jobs, homes, and
even their families. These refugees
often arrive, after arduous journeys, in new
countries with no money or identification,
and few possessions. Yet, far from securing
a safer, more prosperous future, they often
find themselves marginalised, excluded,
and even demonised, denied opportunities
to integrate into their host societies or con-
tribute to the local economy. One straight-
forward way to empower refugees is to give
them access to financial services.
Financial service providers (FSPs)
have long neglected this population,
owing to accessibility and identification
challenges, together with perceptions
of refugees as a high-risk group. But
technological advances in the last decade
have made providing financial services
to refugees easier, safer, and more cost-
effective than ever.
Thanks to digital and mobile technolo-
gies, banking no longer happens pri-
marily in brick-and-mortar branches, but
rather on people’s phones, wherever they
are. This has facilitated the rise of digital
wallets that enable users to receive,
store, and spend money using only their
phones. In recent years, mobile money
has become wildly popular in Sub-
Saharan Africa in particular, and it can
be a game changer for the world’s mas-
sive unbanked population – 1.7 billion
people – two-thirds of whom already
own a mobile phone that could act as a
gateway to financial services.
There is little reason to distinguish
refugees from the rest of the world’s
unbanked. Contrary to popular belief,
refugees are not a higher-risk demo-
graphic: the Kiva Refugee Impact Report
found that, when it comes to loan repay-
ment, refugees are on par with non-
refugees. Moreover, thanks to facial-rec-
ognition and artificial-intelligence tech-
nologies, banks can now instantly verify
users’ identities, using, for example, a
quick iris scan run through an open-
source identity-verification application
programming interface (API).
As a result, refugees’ lack of an iden-
tity card, loan collateral, and/or a fixed
address is becoming irrelevant. This will
be all the more true with the introduction
of ID2020, a collaboration among Micro-
30 March. 22 - 28 2019
soft, Accenture, and the United Nations
that will use biometric data and the
blockchain (distributed ledgers) to create
an encrypted, permanent, and shareable
means of identification for all refugees.
It is in the interest of FSPs themselves
to make use of the blockchain. True,
the technology – which facilitates direct
transactions among parties, creating a
permanent and immutable record – has
the potential to displace FSPs in the long
term, by ending their monopoly on inter-
mediating trust. But, in the short term,
its adoption by banks could slash costs
and reduce the risk of fraud, thereby
enabling the rapid expansion of services
to refugees, among others. In this sense,
the blockchain could revolutionise credit
access for refugees.
Already, the blockchain is being used
to help refugees. For example, in Jordan,
the Zaatari refugee camp distributes
humanitarian aid using the blockchain
and cryptocurrency. Each refugee is
issued a digital wallet, into which money
for food and supplies is deposited, with
facial recognition being used to verify
transactions. The results have been com-
pelling: fair and accurate aid distribu-
tion, a 98% reduction in transaction fees,
and fewer cases of misappropriation of
funds.
In Finland, MONI, a blockchain startup,
and the Finnish Immigration Service
have issued refugees a digital ID stored
on the blockchain. With a MONI account,
refugees can access government benefits,
even if they have lost their passports.
Such uses of the blockchain reduce reli-
ance on government-issued identifica-
tion, as they encourage the acceptance of
other forms, such as a UN-issued refugee
ID.
There is another, long-term rationale
for FSPs to expand services to refugees.
Doing so would allow them to collect
data and learn valuable lessons that can
help shape their approach to increas-
ingly mobile global customers, who are
shifting from full-time jobs to remote and
freelance work in the “gig economy.”
The creditworthiness of freelancers –
expected to represent 43% of the work-
force by 2020 – can be difficult to deter-
mine, owing to their irregular and unpre-
dictable incomes. And so-called digital
nomads often lack a permanent address,
making it difficult to conduct credit
checks. These workers of the future thus
raise many of the same challenges for tra-
ditional financial services that refugees
do. Alternative credit-scoring methods
that are created for refugees today could
be applied much more widely in the
future.
Given all of this, banks should act now
to expand their services to refugees. They
could follow the example of the financial-
technology (fintech) company MyBucks,
which has already opened a banking
branch in Malawi’s Dzaleka refugee
camp to provide loans, mobile banking,
and training services.
Of course, resolving the refugee crisis
and tapping the economic potential
of the more than 25 million refugees
worldwide will also require changes in
other areas, beginning with destination-
country political narratives. In many
countries, politicians and the media have
been portraying refugees as a threat to
security, cultural cohesion, and public
resources.
Former US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton blamed her loss to Donald
Trump in the 2016 presidential election,
and the Brexit vote that preceded it, on
the public backlash against immigra-
tion, and recently suggested that Europe
should admit fewer refugees, in order to
stem the rise of populism. Gunter Nooke,
Germany’s Africa Commissioner, had an
even more unpalatable proposal: African
countries should cede land to be admin-
istered by the European Union as special
economic zones, in what would amount
to “voluntary colonialism.”
Such solutions are not only unethical;
they would not end the crisis. Humani-
tarian aid alone will not work, either,
except as a stopgap measure. To pre-
serve long-term stability and dyna-
mism, host countries must unlock eco-
nomic opportunities for refugees. FSPs
and fintech companies, known for their
capacity for disruption, can play a key
role in that process.
Jacqueline Musiitwa, a 2014 Aspen New
Voices Fellow, is a regulatory attorney and
an inclusive finance specialist in Uganda.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019.

By Agnes Igoye
Fighting human trafficking
Empower and train survivors cooperate with law
enforcement to help dismantle trafficking networks
H
uman trafficking is on the rise,
and a new report from the United
Nations Office of Drugs and
Crime reveals that perpetrators
face “hardly any risk” of punishment. As
long as impunity is the rule, the problem
will continue to grow, and more people will
continue to suffer at traffickers’ hands.
To be sure, most countries now have
anti-trafficking laws, some with very
stringent penalties. In my home country
of Uganda, for example, the 2009 Preven-
tion of Trafficking in Persons Act man-
dates a death sentence for aggravated
trafficking in children. Globally, there are
117 signatories and 173 parties to the UN
Palermo Protocol on trafficking.
Worldwide, however, 21 million people
remain trapped in slavery, and millions
of them are victims of human trafficking
for labour and sexual exploitation.
And, as the UN report emphasises, the
number of convictions for human traf-
ficking remains very low.
Change could come partly from a
largely untapped source: survivors.
Through my work with human-traf-
ficking victims – including at the rehabil-
itation center that I founded – I have seen
firsthand the great potential survivors
have to help in the fight against human
trafficking. That is why survivors should
not just be supported with services; they
should also be empowered to be part of
the solution.
There are already attempts to do just
that. In India, a “school for justice” – a
partnership between Free A Girl Move-
ment and a top Indian law school – was
founded in 2017 to train human-traf-
ficking survivors to become lawyers.
More lawyers specialised in sexual-
exploitation cases, it is hoped, will help
increase conviction rates.
In the United States, the State Depart-
ment’s Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons has established an
advisory council on human trafficking,
which serves as a formal platform for
survivors’ participation in policy discus-
sions. While its impact has yet to become
fully apparent, giving a voice to survi-
vors in shaping policy already amounts
to an important step forward.
But there are other, overlooked areas
where survivors can contribute. Notably,
they could cooperate with law enforce-
ment to help dismantle trafficking
networks. After all, survivors know first-
hand how people are recruited, coerced,
manipulated, and exploited. They under-
stand not only the physical and psycho-
logical tactics that traffickers use, but also
how victims respond to these tactics.
A Ugandan survivor of nearly two
years of sexual exploitation in the Middle
East once described how traffickers
would deliberately interact with the
police in front of their captives, creating
the impression that the police could not
be trusted to protect victims, thereby dis-
couraging reporting. Such insights could
be integral to effective counter-trafficking
operations and interventions.
To leverage the knowledge and capa-
bilities of survivors in the fight against
human trafficking, law-enforcement
officers would need to train survivors in
areas ranging from the law to investiga-
tive techniques. Such efforts would not
only enable survivors to help dismantle
human-trafficking networks, but would
also give them transferable job skills.
At the same time, law-enforcement
officers would have to learn from survi-
vors, working with them to gain valu-
able insights into the functioning of
trafficking networks. In fact, survivors
should be supported in conducting – as
While its
impact has
yet to become
fully apparent,
giving a voice
to survivors in
shaping policy
already amounts
to an important
step forward
comment
paid facilitators or trainers – training
programs for law enforcement.
Programs that deepen the relationship
between survivors and law enforcement
would go a long way toward dispelling
the narrative of fear perpetuated by traf-
fickers, who are understandably eager to
keep the two groups apart. The mutual
trust this engendered could strengthen
survivors’ cooperation in investigations
and prosecution of traffickers, further
contributing to an increase in conviction
rates.
To reinforce this connection further,
law enforcement officials should become
involved in survivor rehabilitation pro-
grams. This would also foster improved
relations between law enforcement and
NGOs and could even lead to shared
responsibility for rehabilitation, which
currently is often left to the NGO sector.
Of course, the specific programs in
which a government invests should fit
that particular country’s needs, identi-
fied on the basis of improved data. Even
more important, survivors must be pro-
tected during this process, to avoid re-
traumatisation. This means making sure
that they give their consent, and have
been rehabilitated, before being put on
the frontline of the fight against human
trafficking.
Willing and rehabilitated survivors,
however, should be empowered to
pursue meaningful engagement with
law enforcement. They have insights and
intelligence that could prove to be game
changers in counter-trafficking opera-
tions. And nobody is more passionate
about dismantling human-trafficking
networks than those who have been vic-
timised by them.
Agnes Igoye is the founder of Dream
Revival Center for survivors and heads
the Uganda Immigration Training
Academy. She is a 2018 Aspen New
Voices Fellow.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019.
March. 22 - 28 2019 31
interview
By James K. Galbraith
Modern monetary realism
MMT is essentially a description of how money is
created and destroyed by governments and by banks
I
s Modern Monetary Theory (MMT)
a potential boon to economic poli-
cymakers, or, as Harvard’s Kenneth
Rogoff recently argued, a threat to “the
entire global financial system” and the front
line of the “next battle for central-bank
independence”? For Rogoff, the threat
seems to stem partly from the fear that
MMT adherents may come to power in the
United States in the 2020 elections. But he
also makes several substantive arguments,
common to many critics of the MMT move-
ment.
First, there is the claim that, as Rogoff puts
it, MMT is all about “using the (US Federal
Reserve’s) balance sheet as a cash cow to
fund expansive new social programs.”
Second, Rogoff and other MMT opponents
strongly reject the idea that, quoting Fed
Chair Jerome Powell, “deficits don’t matter
for countries that can borrow in their own
currency.”
Yet, as Rogoff admits, “the Fed itself is
responsible for … confusion surrounding
the use of its balance sheet.” Indeed, while
Rogoff decries the Fed’s “quantitative
easing” – involving the purchase of tril-
lions of dollars in public (and private) debt
after the financial crisis – his argument is
that QE didn’t really work, not that it was
destabilizing or inflationary. He sees no
threat to the global financial system in that
experiment.
Similarly, despite his full-throated backing
of Powell on deficits, Rogoff reverts to cau-
tious realism about the U.S. national debt.
As he points out, today’s long-term real
interest rates are “about half their 2010 level,
far below what markets were predicting
back then.” And he acknowledges that
inflation has remained lower than “virtu-
ally any economic model would have pre-
dicted,” while “the US dollar has become
increasingly dominant in global trade and
finance.” Perhaps the U.S. budget deficit
is not an immediate cause for panic after all?
MMT is not, as its opponents seem to
think, primarily a set of policy ideas. Rather,
it is essentially a description of how a
modern credit economy actually works –
how money is created and destroyed, by
governments and by banks, and how finan-
cial markets function. Nor is MMT new:
it is based on the work of John Maynard
Keynes, whose A Treatise on Money pointed
out back in 1930 that “modern States” have
functioned this way for thousands of years.
32 March. 22 - 28 2019
From this description, certain straightfor-
ward facts flow. Governments create money
by spending and extinguish it via taxation.
It follows, therefore, that a large country,
borrowing in its own currency, cannot be
forced into default. That is why the U.S. is
not Greece, and cannot become Venezuela
or Zimbabwe.
Does this mean that “deficits don’t
matter”? I know of no MMT adherent who
has made such a claim. MMT acknowledges
that policy can be too expansionary and
push past resource constraints, causing
inflation and exchange-rate depreciation –
which may or may not be desirable. (Hyper-
inflation, on the other hand, is a bogeyman,
which some MMT critics deploy as a scare
tactic.)
But the issue with budget deficits isn’t
interest rates, which remain under gov-
ernment control. Nor is it the possible
crowding out of private investment, which
assumes that the pool of finance is fixed.
The issue is real resources. Here, MMT’s
proposed job guarantee would keep real
resource use exactly at the level required
for full employment – not less, but also not
more.
What about the fraught topic of central-
bank independence? Rogoff sees the
political threat to the Fed as a very serious
issue. But to describe the Fed as having a
MMT’s proposed
job guarantee
would keep
real resource
use exactly
at the level
required for full
employment
– not less, but
also not more
“parent company, the U.S. Treasury Depart-
ment” creates a misleading impression of
the actual relationship between the Fed and
the government as a whole.
The 1913 Federal Reserve Act gave the
new central bank’s leaders long terms in
office, and therefore independence from
the executive branch (of which the Trea-
sury Department is a part). They do not
serve – as Treasury secretaries do – at the
pleasure of the president. The Fed is also
self-financing, which gives it independence
as well from the Office of Management and
Budget in the White House.
But the Fed is not and never has been
independent of the U.S. Congress. It is cre-
ated by statute and subject to regular con-
gressional oversight, codified by the 1978
Humphrey-Hawkins Act, which specified
the Fed’s famous “dual mandate” of price
stability and full employment. (As a young
staff member of the House Banking Com-
mittee at the time, I drafted the monetary-
policy provisions of that law and super-
vised the hearings.)
True, Congress exercises this oversight
power loosely and with considerable defer-
ence. At least formally, though, the Fed is
– and always has been – subject to congres-
sional instruction.
And MMT is not about Congress ordering
the Fed to use its “balance sheet as a cash
cow.” Rather, it is about understanding
how monetary operations actually work,
how interest rates are set, and what eco-
nomic powers the US government has. This,
in turn, requires recognising that the dual
mandate is not a collection of empty words,
but something that can – and should – be
pursued on a regular and sustained basis.
There are practical, straightforward, and
realistic ways for policymakers to meet
this mandate. Implementing them would
strengthen the country, not bankrupt it.
And, contrary to opponents’ fears, global
investors would not flee in terror from US
government bonds and the US dollar.
James K. Galbraith is a professor at the
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public
Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. His
most recent books are ‘Inequality: What
Everyone Needs to Know’ and `Welcome to
the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction of
Greece and the Future of Europe’.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019.

By Patrick M. Omony
Danger to the accounting profession
Close to 80% of local accounting practices are in survival
mode and 20% of tax agents service 75% of taxpayers
A
ccountants in practice recently held
their annual half- day practitioner’s
forum organised by the Institute
of Certified Public Accountants of
Uganda (ICPAU).This is where they share
experiences and challenges in their practice,
address identified bottlenecks, and forge
a way to grow the industry by serving the
market/ clients better.
The forum this year came at a time of con-
tinuous decline in growth of the Ugandan
accounting industry. Close to 80% of local
accounting practices are in survival mode
and Uganda Revenue Authority figures
show that only 20% of tax agents service
75% of the 1.4 million taxpayers. This leaves
a high number of Certified Public Accoun-
tants (CPAs) unemployed. President
Yoweri Museveni has also recently ques-
tioned the value of accounts and a council
member reechoed his statement during the
meeting. Practitioners at the forum, there-
fore, should have had quite a mouthful to
discuss. Unfortunately, that was not the
case.
Instead, the forum showed that the event,
which is in its 7th year running, has a lot to
improve in terms of methodology, quality,
and relevance of topics discussed.
It appears ICPAU lacks the ability to
address the many problems faced by
accountants in practice and employment.
These are far beyond the limited ICPAU
mandate which is basically to regulate
the profession by offering guidelines and
ensuring adherence to standards of practice
and code of ethics.
Experts have placed the accounting
profession among the top five professions
being rapidly transformed by technology.
Accountants all over the world are dog-
gedly pre- occupied with searching for
better ways to adapt and remain relevant
in practice and in employment. The race
is on to upgrade individual skills to move
away from routine tasks. Accounting firms
are formulating strategies, testing business
modules, bettering services, and bridging
gaps. These are issues that should have
dominated the forum.
Instead practitioners appear to believe that
their profitability is being undermined by
quacks in the market. And solution is more
regulation. However, the best way would
have been to first understand who these
quacks are and why the market deliber-
ately prefers their services over the legally
recognised accountants. This knowledge
would have guided the exchange of ideas
on how to counter them. Offering superior
value in services might be better than opting
for coercive means, greater regulation, and
enforcement. These measures ignore the
real problem and are counterproductive.
The harsh business environment that
accountants in practice face has seen many
practitioners; especially in the Small and
Medium Practice (SMP) tier, threaten to
exit the trade. This will negatively affect the
economy yet the problems are not unique
to Uganda.
World over, the profession is under
serious threat from technological advance-
ment which is enabling quick implementa-
tion of cost cutting management innova-
tions. This has led to the growing trend of
entities thinning accounting departments
and employing fewer accountants.
These are the issues that should have
taken center stage at the ICPAU Forum,
with mitigation measures being solicited to
minimise their negative impact to the pro-
fession, practice and others.
Going by the discussions, it was evident
that practitioners did not have a good grasp
of the business aspect of their practice and
were thus heading in the wrong direction
on how to improve the economic perfor-
mance of accounting firms. This lack of
clarity curtailed their ability to visualise the
business dynamics of the trade.
Practitioners need to appreciate that a
practice is a business whose services will
have to compete against substitute services.
This is evident in more and more enter-
prises and organisations spending less on
services of accounting firms, reallocating the
resources to engage monitoring and evalu-
ation experts and business analysts for their
annual management reviews, and limiting
audit services to simple checks to comply
with regulations.
Untapped Opportunity for SMPs in the
private sector
There is huge untapped business poten-
tial for Small and Medium Practices (SMP)
in the private sector. But to monetise this
market, accountants need to a turn away
from making those fussy claims of service
benefits. They need to invest in creating
more real value and repackage and tailor
services that suit this market. They will
also need to acquire real skills on effective
customer acquisition and retention. A good
interview
practice is based on persuasion, on value,
and ramping up service innovations.
Practitioners need to talk to and listen
more to the market/consumers than to
themselves. This should be through well
structured dialogue sessions. They should
strive to change the negative consumer
mindset by crafting new and fresh mas-
sages through infomercial-like advertising.
Infomercial advertising is where the con-
sumer is educated more on how to identify
and use a service/product to solve his/her
problem. Developing a market is an uphill
task. Practitioners will require active leaders
who know what to do and not those who
hold positions to build CVs or engage in
sterile adoration PR. They need leaders who
will be rated by real value addition to the
industry defined as happy clients who want
more service, more money in the hands of
practitioners, and more jobs for accountants;
leaders who will not be rated on perception.
Practitioners will also have to create well
thought out relationships with other associ-
ations for strategic synergies e.g. the Private
Sector Foundation, KACITA, Uganda Man-
ufacturers Association, Uganda Investment
Authority etc. This leverage will build the
consumptive end of the trade; by advancing
skills such as the auditee audit enhancing
skills, management and cost accounting for
non-accountants, and integrated reporting
skills on sustainability issues.
Organisers of future ICPAU forums
should endeavour to furnish members with
enough quantitative data, indicating the
potential value and size of the market and
broken down into possible annual revenues
that the different tiers of practice could ide-
ally generate.
The future of accountants in both employ-
ment and practice is grim. The light at
the end of the tunnel is coming from a
full-speed train loaded with tech and biz
innovation heading towards them. To avoid
being crashed, accountants need to tone
down on pride and academic posturing
filled with over-rated claims of value in
their services. They must begin to acquire
new skills, stop fearing each, and cooperate
and interact more. They must exchange
information and ideas to better understand
the consumer and grow their industry.
The writer is the C.E.O, Founder and Principal
consultant with Omony Consulting Co. Ltd
jwauditors@gmail.com
Tweeter @ p_omony
March. 22 - 28 2019 33
interview
By Barbara Kasekende
Education sector needs attention
The system needs to be supplemented to support students
who drop out through the different education levels
U
ganda’s Ministry of Education, in
line with the National Develop-
ment Plan 2020, expects at least 20
million children and young adults
between the age of 3 and 24 to pass through
the education system. This is informed by
the fact that 80 percent of the country’s
population is under the age of 30.
The reality on the ground, however,
is that school enrollment numbers con-
tinue to decline as students advance
through the different education levels.
For example, according to the 2017 Edu-
cation Monograph report released by
UBOS in partnership with UNFPA and
UKAID, about 11 million children went
through Primary school. This represents
54.7% of the number of children expected
to go through the education system.
About 26% (5.2 million) of this same
number went through secondary school
while 19.2% were enrolled into tertiary
institutions. These statistics indicate a
decline in enrollment (from the number
of students who start their education
cycle at primary level to those that
advance to Secondary and finally reach
tertiary level). This begs the question,
what is happening to the students who
drop out at the various levels?
Some of the challenges identified
include late school starting age, early
marriages, lack of sanitary pads, as well
as other unforeseeable challenges such as
lack of tuition and death. Aside from the
students, there aren’t enough teachers;
with one teacher in charge of a class of
43 students against the ideal ratio of one
to 25 students per class. In addition, 40%
of the said teachers are unqualified, have
high salary expectations, and therefore
have no job satisfaction.
Further, of the students who make it
through tertiary institutions, many find it
difficult to get jobs. In fact, statistics from
the International Labour Organisation
(ILO) show the youth unemployment
rate in Uganda rose from 2.7% in 2013 to
2.9% in 2017.
This means, the number of unemployed
youth continues to grow, yet we all have
to co-exist in an economy that simply has
34 March. 22 - 28 2019
Illustration
3-5yrs
Male :1,885,663
Female: 1,771,263
Totals: 3,656,926
6-12yrs
Male: 3,727,967
Female:3,631,907
Totals:7,359,874
13-18yrs
Male :2,586,964
Female:2,661,741
Totals:5,248,705
19-24
Male:1,749,786
Female:2,108,967
Totals: 3,858,753
Final totals: 20,124,258
Source: UBOS 2017 Education
Monograph Report
the majority as dependents on the small
number of jobs available. Additionally,
it also means we have a massive chal-
lenge for a country that seeks to attain its
vision 2040 of achieving a ‘transformed
Ugandan Society from a peasant to a
modern and prosperous country within
20 years.’
For us to achieve this, we need to sup-
plement our education system. We need
all hands on deck to make the learning
experience inspirational to the youth.
The key focus areas that need to be
addressed to solve these challenges at
the different levels of education include
actual literacy (curriculum), financial
literacy, entrepreneurship, and life skills.
Certainly, there has been a concerted
effort by players both in the public and
private sectors to train the youth in a
bid to turn them from job seekers to job
creators. Case in point is the partnership
between government and Enterprise
Uganda that seeks to instill entrepreneur-
ship and business development skills
among the youth. So far, this program
has trained 62,443 youth and households
and 4,150 women entrepreneurs.
While private sector players may not
be in a position to influence curriculum
or teacher qualifications, or their salaries,
they can get involved in the entrepre-
neurship and life skills space.
Stanbic Bank, for example, through its
annual National Schools Championships
(NSC) has been working with different
schools around the country to equip
young adults with the much needed life
and financial skills that will enable them
to start their own businesses and become
the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. Through
this program, the students together with
their teachers have been able to come up
with business ideas and execute them
into full-fledged small enterprises. Since
inception of the NSC, over 180 secondary
schools have been involved.
Students have been empowered with
confidence to think beyond the class-
room and be able to think critically in the
various stages of the competition. As a
result, social skills have been improved
and networks built which are vital for
students to find their way in the work
environment.
Projects such as these equip students
with the ability to be self-reliant, have
a financial literacy background and be
the job creators of tomorrow. We need
more of these kinds of initiatives to solve
some of the problems facing the Educa-
tion sector and see more youth become
empowered in the future. To achieve
this, we need strong partnerships and
more attention from the private sector
to play a role in giving the youth guid-
ance and support where the current cur-
riculum falls short.
We can’t afford to have a future of over-
zealous unemployed youth if we are to
achieve national development.
Barbara Kasekende is the Stanbic Bank Head
of Corporate Social Investments (CSI)
 ART | BOOKS | SOCIETY | TRAVEL | CULTURE
A brainy affair
Artist attempts to talk politics without propaganda
T
By Dominic Muwanguzi
he painted brains come in
many colours; they are white,
blue, red., and occasionally
green. They are the colours of
the flags of countries like the
USA, France, UK, Syria and
Libya and, for artist John Baptist Sseku-
bulwa they are metaphors of conflict in the
brain and in the world.
The title of his exhibition is `Brain Dam-
age’. It is his maiden solo exhibition and it
has sparked critical conversations on global
social-politics with the brain- a critical
human organ- as a recurring motif.
Ssekubulwa uses brains as `tools’ that
represent communities that are either vic-
tims or villains of human evils like war, cor-
ruption, racism, and forced migration and
displacement. He wants viewers of his art to
experience the vulnerability of the human
beings in communities where conflict pre-
vails. So he presents the brain as a solitary
tool to suggest its vulnerability.
When the brain stands alone, it becomes
vulnerable. It is a metaphor of helpless
people, lacking control on the incidents that
happen to them. The conflicts they suffer
are presented as results of systems, like
capitalism, that are difficult, if not impos-
sible, to resolve at an individual level. But
at other times, he shows the brain linked to
other body parts; alluding to co-ordination
and ability to act on the conflict.
Adoption of such `tools’ in his work is
typical Ssekubulwa who likes the tools best
when their attributes occur naturally in
the community. He deploys the figure of a
crow, for example, to suggest exploitation
as the bird is renowned for its intelligence
and adaptability, yet it is a scavenger bird
that lives off dead carcasses.
Among his Baganda people, the crow is
linked to bad luck. Seen in his art, the crow
suggests evil looming large. In a surrealistic
metaphor, the crow is depicted carrying
away the brain; a metaphor of a community
succumbing to evil! But he also paints white
flowers; symbol of hope and a new begin-
ning.
In one painting, `Amour Fashionsitas,
2018’, world leaders and senior executives
of multinational companies meet at interna-
tional conferences to endorse policies, trea-
ties that have perilous implications for vul-
nerable nations; especially in sub-Saharan
Africa. They make a show in international
and regional peace agencies like United
Nations and African Union. But they are
silent as fire-arms are peddled from Russia,
USA, and China to sow instability, discord,
and pain in African states.
In another painting; ` Who Controls the
Media, 2018?’ the international media is
deaf and dumb. It is complex irony as these
global mouth-pieces, owned by rich nations,
perpetuate the notion of “exotic corruption”
that is played out by the West.
Nothing is new. The injustices we see
today are a replication of yesterday’s trag-
edies like racism, slavery and colonialism.
International news shows images of dead
African bodies washed up on European
shores as thousands of refugees from Syria,
Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan and many Sub-
Saharan African countries endure untold
suffering on the seas; just like in the slave
trade days. Those who make it to the other
side are faced with racism, humiliation, and
deportation.
The works on show are bold, researched,
authentic and relevant to our times. It is a
brainy approach by an artist communicat-
ing vital messages.
Brain Damage is showing now at Afriart
Gallery.
March. 22 - 28 2019 35
College course on tobacco allows students to smoke in class
A series of photos showing students Yunan Agricultural University, the contro- taste it leaves in the mouth, and the post-
casually lighting up cigarettes in what versial photos were taking during a class combustion ash. Although Zhao empha-
looks like a college classroom have been on tobacco. The teacher brought various sized that the students were not required
doing the rounds on Weibo, China’s ver- brands of cigarettes into the classroom and to smoke, most of them did it anyway.
sion of Twitter, leaving everyone puzzled invited the students to try them as a way to Teen smoking is frowned upon in China,
as to what is going on. As it turns out, better understand tobacco, its flavors, the as it is pretty much everywhere else.
according to Zhao Zhengxiong, the dean of irritation it causes to the throat, the after-

Bibles, wooden Woman fakes own kidnapping to break up with “poor” boyfriend
crosses miraculously andNosubsequent
one ever said that ending a romantic relationship was easy, but planning your own kidnapping
survive church fire nese woman
visiting his home during the Chinese New Year and decided to leave him. But fearing that he would get
Firefighters in West Virginia
were stunned to find that not
one of the over a dozen paper
bibles and several wooden cross-
es at the Freedom Ministries
Church were destroyed by the
devastating fire that engulfed
the holy place recently.
In a Facebook post that
quickly went viral, the Coal
City Fire Department shared
photos of nearly two dozen
bibles and three wooden crosses
that survived flames so massive
that the church will have to be
rebuilt, and firefighters them-
selves admit that judging by the
intensity of the flames every-
thing inside should have been
turned to ashes, and yet none
of the bibles and crosses were
destroyed.
Scientific experimental to pay someone to do nothing for life
If the idea of getting paid
a decent monthly wage to
do nothing, or whatever you
want, for the rest of your life
sounds appealing, you may
be interested in this Swedish
experimental art project that
plans to hire a very lucky
person for a responsibility-free
murder just to avoid telling someone “it’s over” sounds ridiculous. And yet, one Chi-
did just that. The 37-year-old Yu from Wuhan, in central China learned he was poor after
clingy and refuse rejection if she simply told him she wanted to end the relationship, Yu devised a plan
to make herself disappear. She sent him text messages pretending to be her kidnapper, warning him that
she would be killed if he dared call the police, and finally that she had been killed and her body had been
thrown in a lake. But police investigating the case tracked down Yu to a small motel and were shocked to
find the alleged victim casually lying on the bed, watching TV.
Religious movement
stores positive
spiritual energy in
special batteries!
Members of the Aetherius
Society, a fringe religious
movement founded in the
1950s, believe that spiritual
Mother abandons 12-year-old power is a tangible type of
energy, like electricity, so they
child in the street for `failing’ exam store it in special “spiritual
power batteries” for release
A strict mother in China reportedly abandoned her 12-year-old son in case of global catastrophes.
in the middle of a busy street in Luoyang City after he only managed Spiritual energy released by
to score 81% on an exam, which apparently wasn’t good enough. praying members during
She stopped her car, pulling the boy out, scolded and hit him before `Operation Prayer Power’ is
leaving him there by himself. CCTV footage shows the child was directed at a trained leader
disoriented when police found. His mother wanted him to score 95% which mentally directs it into a
or higher. “I don’t want him anymore,” she told police who returned spiritual power battery, where
the child, “You can do whatever you want with him. You can even it can be stored indefinitely.
charge me.” The boy was taken by an uncle. China’s school exams This concentrated energy is then
are very serious business, with the dreaded Gaokao national exam directed by the Cosmic Masters
responsible for shaping the future of millions of young students. at a specific target where it
is needed the most, such as a
crucial peace negotiation, or a
denuclearisation summit. The
job with just one very simple As long as they return to Aetherius Society claims to have
requirement; show up at a the station to clock out and prevented several international
train station every day and turn off the lights when their crises by releasing the
punch a time clock. This will shift is over, they will earn a concentrated spiritual energy
turn on a set of fluorescent monthly salary of about $2,320 stored in these special batteries.
lights over the boarding (Approx. Shs8.6), plus annual The Aetherius Society was
platform to let everyone know raises, benefits, vacation time founded in 1954 by a former
that the useless employee and a guaranteed pension. taxi driver called David King.
showed up at work that day.

36 March. 22 - 28 2019
 Kiira Ev Smack sparks
interest in hybrids
Balance lower fuel consumption
against high cost when buying
By Motoring Guru
S
ince the Ugandan made car, Kiira Ev
Smack, got a major road test across
the country recently; there has been
increased discussion around hybrid
vehicles. Many people appear determined
to grab a hybrid even if it is not the Kiira Ev
Smack.
The Kiira Ev Smack is Uganda’s first
hybrid. But these engines have been on the
market for more than 20 years. The Toyota
Prius is often mentioned although many car
makers have hybrids. Think Honda Insight,
Lexus Es 300h, the BMW 7 series, and the
Mercedes Benz C 359e. The main ques-
tion is whether hybrid vehicles are a good
choice.
Choice in the hybrid segment remains
limited. When you visit a car bond, you
will often one or two and they will be quite
pricey.
Hybrids use a traction motor powered by
a rechargeable battery bank and an internal
combustion engine-based generator. This
means it uses both a fuel engine and an
electric engine. It is different from a Plug-in
Hybrid (PHEV) which involves electrical
charging from an external source. It also
means that the battery bank recharges
whenever the brakes. This is the power sys-
tem of the Kiira Ev Smack.
According to the designers the two
power sources ensure an unlimited range
and increase the efficiency of the powertrain
(the system which transfers power from the
engine to the wheels), hence enhancing fuel
economy. Some hybrid cars save as much
as 35% on fuel consumption. In reality, the
external electric charge in the PHEVs might
be cheaper than the onboard charging.
Hybrid vehicles generally have lower fuel
consumption than other vehicles. The com-
bination of petrol and electric power mean
plenty of fuel is saved daily. This makes
them favourites of eco-conscious drivers.
They emit less carbon dioxide and, when
they run for less time on gas, they cause less
wear and tear of engine parts and brakes.
Generally, however, hybrid cars cost
more than conventional internal combus-
tion engine cars. Part of the reason is that
hybrids literally have two engines and the
high-voltage batteries they require are quite
costly.
The high voltage batteries are also quite
heavy; meaning that hybrid cars are gener-
ally quite heavy. This makes them quite
slow to accelerate. Their breaking system is
also impacted. They are also not as stable as
conventional cars because the added weight
gives them a higher center of gravity. The
impact is felt most when driving at high
constant speeds on highways. The hybrid
offers lower highway mileage. Generally
speaking also, the gas engine works more
efficiently than the hybrid.
But of course hybrids are quieter
machines on the road. The electric motor
is noiseless and when starting the car or
driving slowly, the car moves silently.
Also, the electric motor gives additional
torque to the gas engine.
March. 22 - 28 2019 37
Munyagwa Mubarak Sserunga: On how
he missed becoming an army general
“I will keep surprising Ugandans by delivering and not just exciting them”
By Agnes E Nantaba
M
unyagwa Mubarak Sserunga is
the current chairperson of the
committee on Commissions,
Statutory Authorities and State
Enterprises (COSASE). He is also the Mem-
ber of Parliament representing Kawempe
South. Munyagwa is largely known for his
comical character in activism that dates to
as far as 2011 during the ‘Walk to Work’
protests against spiralling food and fuel
prices in the country. He was among the
politicians who were hauled up and jailed
for allegedly holding unlawful protests
and destabilising peace of Ugandans. At
the time of the protests, Munyagwa had
just joined elective politics as the Mayor of
Kawempe division.
And after serving the five years as
mayor, Munyagwa was elected to parlia-
ment. He says it was the long expected
victory for someone who has longed to
witness change of guard in Uganda’s politi-
cal arena.
“I wanted to be part of the change move-
ment,” says Munyagwa.
38 March. 22 - 28 2019
For this political journey, Munyagwa has
associated himself with the comical, lead-
ing many to refer to him as a joker. He is
often contrasted with Bugweri MP Abdul
Katuntu whom he replaced. Munyagwa
accepts the label but says it might be mis-
leading. “Many Ugandans take me to be
terribly stupid because of how I branded
myself,” he says, “(But) my party dis-
proved many to point them to the fact that
Munyagwa can conduct more serious busi-
ness”. For the greater part of his life, Mun-
yagwa says, he has been daringly working
towards his dream of becoming a military
general. But as age catches up with him (he
is in his 40s), the legislator has given up on
the career path.
He says he was nine years old, while
trekking through the bushes close to
Kilembe mines in Kasese, western Uganda,
he and his mother came close to an army
parade commanded by Maj. Gen Fred
Rwigyema. He was swept away by the
saluting and respect that one man had from
hundreds of soldiers. In admiration, he told
his mother he would work hard to become
a military general like Rwigyema.
Even after returning home near
the shores of Lake George where
his parents worked in fish facto-
ries, Munyagwa kept thinking
of his dream.
During his high school days
at St Leo’s College Kyegobe, a fel-
low classmate of Rwandan origin
announced his ambitions of start-
ing a rebel group and capture
parts of Congo after senior six
exams. Munyagwa was one of
those who welcomed the idea
considering that in no time, he
would attain the rank of military
general. The move, however,
fell through as him and others
participated in a strike that saw
them locked up in cells. This
meant doing the final exams
on police bond. Fear of being
imprisoned after exams, Mun-
yagwa escaped from the exami-
nation room before end of time.
“The results weren’t pleasant
and when my father learnt of it, he
jammed to pay my tuition on
private sponsorship at
Makerere Univer-
sity,” he says.
His father’s dreams of having a pharma-
cist in Munyagwa were shattered. Being
born in Kampala and raised in western
Uganda, Munyagwa thought of returning
to Kampala to start a new life. He started
part-time teaching as he enrolled for a sec-
ond sitting at Nakasero Secondary School.
In 2001, he enrolled at Makerere Univer-
sity for a Bachelor of Science degree but
couldn’t do much for lack of tuition. He
switched the programme to an online study
arrangement. He returned to Makerere
enrolling for a degree in commerce but still
dropped out in third year due to financial
constraints. About the same time, Hajji
Nasser Ssebaggala returned to Uganda and
for lack of a job, Munyagwa joined the team
to welcome him from the airport. This reig-
nited his dream of becoming a military gen-
eral and when Ssebaggala announced his
candidature for the president, Munyagwa
vowed to be part of the struggle.
Munyagwa says, “At that time, school
was not on my agenda because I never
thought that academic documents would
be of any help”.
The dream was cut short when Ssebag-
gala was revealed to be on talking terms
with President Museveni. To cut his losses,
Munyagwa relocated to Kawempe to start
a new life. He announced his political bid
and emerged victorious in 2011 as Mayor
representing Kawempe Division at Kam-
pala Capital City Authority. And in 2016,
he elevated his political position by being
elected MP.
Munyagwa highlights challenges in his
political career.
“The biggest challenge was having to
fight against the amendment of Article 102
(b) in the constitution,” says Munyagwa,
“Parliament attempted to oust an aged
president something that took us through a
lot more than we can reveal.”
And today as the chairperson of
COSASE, Munyagwa vows to keep surpris-
ing Ugandans by delivering and not just
exciting them.
Munyagwa completed primary level
at Mahyoro Primary School, Kitagwenda
High School for ordinary lever and Nakase-
ro Secondary School for advanced level. He
holds a diploma of Laws from LDC and is
currently in third year pursuing a bachelor
of laws from Makerere University.

Munyagwa Mubarak Sserunga’s Liteside
Any three things that we
I
don’t know about you?
am dependable;
you can count on
me when I take a
decision. I don’t
easily get scared and
I am not taken up by
materialistic things. I am
satisfied with the little I
have.
What is your idea of
perfect happiness?
A moment in a health
club relieves my mind
of stress and renews my
strength.
What is your greatest
fear?
Life has pushed me to
become fearless.
What is the trait
you most deplore in
yourself?
I don’t fear easily
which lands me in big
mistakes and trouble
sometimes.
What is the trait you
most deplore in others?
Hypocrisy is a no go
zone for me.
Which living person do
you most admire?
Rtd Col Dr Kiiza
Besigye; I have never
been under a leader
who is as fearless,
determined and loving
as him. I admire a lot
from him especially the
intelligence that guides
him to have a solution
for every political
puzzle. He is also very
reliable and dependable
so you don’t have to
keep checking on him.
I admire him for many
reasons.
What is your greatest
extravagance?
For the love of good
life, I travel a lot.
What do you consider me countless times and
the most overrated always gave me a second
virtue? chance. If it wasn’t
Too much value for her persistence, I
attached to leisure; we wouldn’t have gone so
have a wasted generation far in school.
who attend so much
value to leisure. The When and where were
latest is the ‘Miss Curvy’ you happiest?
contest which has When I was elected
attracted the attention mayor of Kawempe
of many but mostly the division in 2011; it meant
young and energetic. opening up a new career
Leisure is good but if too thread in my life and
much value is put to it was a way of cutting
then it ceases to be good. my losses of becoming
a military general. I
What does being was also happy about
powerful mean to you? my senior four results
The ability to manage in 1996 having scored
state of affairs in a good first grade.
whatever field. Power Passing Makerere law
must be felt by other pre-entry exams was
people and it should be another happy moment;
for majority good and it was indeed survival
beneficial on my side because
failure would make news
On what occasion do headlines. I disproved
you lie? many Ugandans who
I can tell a lie anytime consider me to be
as a human being but terribly stupid.
mostly as a politician.
Politicians tell lies to Which talent would you
escape circumstances. most like to have?
I plan to do something
What do you most in military film making.
dislike about your
appearance? If you could change one
I am overweight thing about yourself,
despite several measures what would it be?
to reduce. Anything to do with
my weight. Heavy
Which living person do weight undermines good
you most despise? health.
I shouldn’t reveal the
person. Where would you most
like to live?
What is the quality you I prefer to live in
most like in a woman? Canada where there is
Having a big heart. guarantee for life; life in
Uganda has been made
What is the quality you very cheap.
most like in a man?
Standing by what he What is your most
says. treasured possession?
A big heart that shares
What or who is the with others.
greatest love of your
life? What do you regard
My mother stood with as the lowest depth of
March. 22 - 28 2019
Q&A
misery?
Every human being
should be able to at least
afford a daily meal.
What is your favorite
occupation?
I would love to join
civil society advocacy
and offer free legal
assistance to the poor
and vulnerable.
What do you most value
in your friends?
Being straightforward.
Who are your favorite
writers?
I am not a good reader.
Which historical figure
do you most identify
with?
None that I know
of; historical figures
have always been
exaggerated. What we
are doing today is what
they did in their times.
Their weaknesses and
context are sometimes
not captured or revealed.
What is your greatest
regret?
I messed up myself
the day I decided to
join other students in a
strike as we approached
doing senior six exams.
If not for that strike
that disorganised me, I
would have made it to
pharmacy at Makerere
University because I had
the capacity.
How would you like to
die?
Death is death no
matter the path.
What is your motto?
If there is anything
that a human being has
done, then you can also
do it.
39
Global comment
By Tedros Ghebreyesus and Senait Fisseha
Gender parity in global health
New report shows that over 70% of health organisations
are currently headed by men who earn 13.5% less
S
ince the start of the year, we have
traveled from Afghanistan and
Pakistan, where health workers
administering the polio vaccine are
battling snowstorms to reach children who
need it, to North Kivu, where officials are
trying to stop one of the deadliest Ebola
outbreaks in history.
Women comprise 70% of these and
other health workers around the world.
And yet a new report from Global Health
50/50, released on the eve of this year’s
International Women’s Day, shows that
men hold a disproportionate share of
power in the health sector and earn a
disproportionate share of pay.
Having spent part of our careers
assembling a force of female health
workers who reduced deaths from AIDS,
malaria, and tuberculosis in Ethiopia by
half, we know the contributions women
make to public health. That is why,
under Ghebreyesus’s tenure as director-
general, the World Health Organisation
has a gender-balanced cabinet for the
first time in its history. And with gender
parity achieved in the institution’s senior
positions at headquarters, we will be
working to ensure that regional and
country offices follow suit.
Gender parity is a practical as well
as a moral issue. Having more women
in leadership positions effects positive
change throughout an organization;
it improves performance, innovation,
creativity, resilience, and morale. It
provides role models and informal
support systems that have historically
been lacking for women in the
workplace. And it reduces tolerance for
toxic workplace behavior such as sexual
harassment.
But gender is also a key social
determinant of health, which makes
gender parity in the health sector a
necessary ingredient for reaching the
WHO’s “triple billion” targets. The
organisation’s goal is to ensure that by
2023, one billion more people than today
have full access to health care, greater
protection from health emergencies, and
better overall health and wellbeing.
Among other things, we know that
gender – that is, the socially constructed
40 March. 22 - 28 2019
norms, roles, and expectations placed
on men and women – has a profound
impact on whether one is exposed
to unhealthy products and places, or
whether one engages in health-seeking
and health-protecting behaviors. We also
know that gender-based discrimination
can have a significant impact on the
delivery of health services.
And yet, while focusing on gender
as a social determinant of health and
establishing gender parity at the WHO’s
leadership level were no-brainers, the
Global Health 50/50 report shows that
we are the exception to the rule. Having
reviewed the policies and practices
of nearly 200 health organisations,
comprising a workforce of more than
four million people across 28 countries,
the report finds vast power and pay
asymmetries between men and women.
For example, Global Health 50/50 finds
that over 70% of health organisations
are currently headed by men, and that
in 40% of the organisations reviewed,
women occupy fewer than one-third of
senior management positions. And few
will be shocked to learn that the women
working in these organisations earn
13.5% less, on average, than their male
counterparts.
Sadly, these findings are in keeping
with what one finds in boardrooms
across the corporate and non-profit
sectors. But such disparities are all the
more worrying when they show up in
the global health sector, given its role in
protecting the wellbeing and rights of all
people everywhere.
From the WHO’s experience, we know
that gender parity does not emerge
organically. Achieving it requires
deliberate and directed organisational
change. Hence, the WHO’s new
corporate strategy, which is geared
toward the Sustainable Development
Agenda’s mission of “leaving no one
behind,” features a strong emphasis on
measuring gender distributions, equity,
and rights across all of the institutions’
programs. That means each department
will be accountable for upholding gender
parity.
But while putting gender parity at
the center of the WHO’s operations is
an important first step, the larger goal
is to support our member states in
serving the people whose lives, health,
and wellbeing depend on collective
public-health efforts. To that end, three
priorities should guide our approach to
global health at all levels, from the local
clinic delivering essential care to national
health ministries and multilateral
institutions.
First, we need to ensure that gender
analysis informs all health strategies
and program missions. Without fully
understanding the gendered factors
that drive human health, we cannot
possibly achieve universal and equitable
outcomes.
Second, we urgently need to close the
power and pay gap between men and
women in the health sector, by pursuing
deliberate strategies to level the playing
field for women.
And, third, we must recommit to
transparency and accountability in health
organisations, including on gender
equality. Only then can we root out toxic
management cultures, improve quality of
care, and foster openness and inclusion
at all levels.
When people of different genders and
backgrounds come together, they bring
their own experiences and wisdom, and
the result amounts to more than the
sum of its parts. Diverse organisations
arrive at better decisions, because they
can consider problems from a wide
range of perspectives and draw potential
solutions from multiple contexts. When
it comes to global health organisations,
government ministries, and national
health institutions, gender equality
should be embraced not just for its own
sake, but also because it works.
Tedros Ghebreyesus is Director-General
of the World Health Organization. Senait
Fisseha is Professor of Obstetrics and
Gynecology at the University of Michigan,
Chief Adviser to the Director-General of the
World Health Organization, and a member of
the Global Health 50/50 advisory council.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019.
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