#Tajamuka or #NoBondNotes Protest hits Harare Zimbabwe; while the ZRP brutaly shuts it down!

Tajamuka 17.08.2016

Today a new demonstration where held in Harare, Zimbabwe as a result of the planned economic framework and giving the citizens bond-notes that will give the Government under President Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF more national debt. As the sanctions and the economic prosperity are soon into oblivion as the foreign exchange and the fiscal policy is played by the ruling regime. To feed the ZANU-PF elite under the Executive, but not deliver any progress or development for the random Zimbabwean citizens. Take a look!

“This is how the #NoToBondnotes protest by @Tajamuka ended. #Tajamuka #ThisFlag” (OpenParly ZW, 2016)

First Footage: 

Second Footage:

This is just enough for now. The ZANU-PF regime use all tools to oppress their citizens and their voices against the Government. As they have been used as Pawns for a long time and deserve somebody who really represent them. That doesn’t the current leaders and their Party who cares about their wealth, but not about the state of affairs for the average citizen in Zimbabwe. Peace. 

Government of Uganda, UNHCR and WFP forced to revise Food Rations for Refugees Amid Funding Crisis (17.08.2016)

Adjumani Refugee Camp

Around 200,000 refugees who arrived in Uganda prior to July 2015 will have their food rations or cash assistance reduced by 50 percent from this week. 

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, August 17, 2016 –  The Government of Uganda – Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) have appealed to donors to urgently speed contributions to the humanitarian response to refugees in Uganda to end a funding shortage that has forced a revision of survival rations.

Around 200,000 refugees who arrived in Uganda prior to July 2015 will have their food rations or cash assistance reduced by 50 percent from this week. Low levels of funding, together with a large number of new arrivals fleeing to Uganda from South Sudan since 7 July, has left the refugee response with no choice but to re-prioritize their focus on those refugees in greatest need. Refugees who arrived in Uganda after July 2015, as well as those who have been identified as particularly vulnerable, such as the elderly, orphans, the chronically ill and those in need of treatment for malnutrition, will continue to receive a full ration.

Refugees receiving full rations are provided with 2,122 calories of food per person per day, in line with the minimum recommended daily allowance, during their first year, decreasing as they become increasingly self-reliant during their time in Uganda. Other refugees receive cash assistance in place of food rations, which also provides them with the opportunity to exercise greater personal choice.

“We are grateful to donors for their unwavering support so far but we appeal to the international community to do more,” said OPM Commissioner for Refugees David Apollo Kazungu.  “People are fleeing because they are afraid for their lives. Our communities are welcoming them and giving them what we can: land and hope for a better future. But our message to the international community is this: we need your help to meet their basic needs until they are able to stand on their own two feet.”

WFP requires approximately US$7 million every month to provide life-saving food assistance to refugees in Uganda. Despite the generous support of donors, the humanitarian response requires an additional US$20million to restore full food rations to refugees for the rest of the year.

“We have done everything we can to avoid this, but we have been left with no option but to reduce food assistance for many of the refugees in Uganda, in order to stretch available resources and prioritize the most vulnerable new arrivals,” said Mike Sackett, WFP’s acting Country Director for Uganda. “We hope that this is temporary, and we are working as hard as we can to raise the resources needed to restore the full level of food assistance for as many refugees as possible.”

The humanitarian response to South Sudanese refugees in Uganda was already severely underfunded before the outbreak of violence in Juba on 8 July, which has since prompted more than 70,000 people to cross the border in to Uganda. New arrivals have spoken of armed groups operating across various parts of South Sudan, attacking villages, burning down houses, murdering civilians, sexually assaulting women and girls and forcibly recruiting young men and boys in to their ranks.

“Never has the international community been more generous in its donations towards refugees,” said acting UNHCR Representative to Uganda Bornwell Kantande. “At the same time, never has the gap between what is being provided and what is needed been larger. We thank the donors for their continued generosity and support, while urging them to further fund humanitarian organizations in order that we may continue providing refugees in Uganda with the life-saving assistance they critically need.”

OPM and UNHCR lead and co-coordinate the response to the roughly 600,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Uganda, and collaborate together with the World Food Programme to provide new arrivals with life-saving food assistance. By the end of 2015, Uganda was the third-largest refugee hosting country in Africa and the eighth-largest refugee hosting country in the world.

Citizens Update by Evan Mawarire. “In the last few day I may have upset some of you…” ‪#‎ThisFlag‬ (Youtube-Clip)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAgd1x1AqtQ

Opinion: Museveni and his axing of civil servants; it is not a quick fix to get the government institutions going!

M7 Tororo UNRA

We all know why all of a sudden all employees of Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) we’re fired, after scandal upon scandal where the prices per meter of road went into the imaginary and also the due diligence on the contracts of the roadworks wasn’t really done by the government institution. Still, resolving the matter with clearing the shop totally is more of a public stunt, than actually making it decent. The first culture of thieving, counterfeiting and all the matters lay in most of the government institutions already. That is being made from the top where the monies are spent on farm equipment for the president instead of pay-rise for the civil servants.

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has lost it. It is evident with the sacking of the medical personnel of the Nakawuku Health Centre III. This is proof of the wilderness of the Executive these days. As the hide and seek of professional manner from the top, down to the lowest civil servant. If the system we’re correct and the salaries made sense than the works would be done proper and the so-called laziness would not needing sanctions. The other reason for the laziness is the loose structure of the health-care and the systematic under-funded health care in Uganda. That is why there is not functioning Cobalt 60 Teletheraphy Machine for the needed Cancer treatment at Uganda Cancer Institute at Mulago Hospital Complex in Kampala. This is just the major proof of a degraded and worrying condition of health-care in general.

The elephant in the room is obvious, it is clearly not the laziness or the Health Care per say. It’s the structures, the funding and in the end the walking budget. The President, the Executive, the one man with a vision, the force of NRM. That man the elephant in the room is President Museveni. He has run the country for 30 years, by this time his vision and his play for making the country sustainable and steady progress should have made these problems obsolete. Instead he has gotten more land and bigger private planes, but not built proper institutions or procedures to check the government institutions. The laws and regulations of the government is loose. Because if it was transparent he could not get away buying giant and expensive helicopters while the hospitals are understaffed and the vaccine programs are only there because of donor-aid directly to the causes.

Magufuli Museveni Tan Oil Pipeline 2016

The reason for the fall of grace and the sackings is that he wants the respect of President John Pombe Magufuli. He has gone directly fired his minister for drinking while in parliament and also corrupt civil servants at the port of Dar Es Salaam not long after he was sworn-in. That perception is that President Museveni tries to get. What he forget his legacy is long sealed in the behaviour and knowledge of what the NRM really is. The Image of Museveni and NRM Regime is intertwining with corruption and embezzlement.

So the claims of fighting this and going against it are more a play of words than real actions. The times he does it is to save face and make sure the donors we’re happy in the end. That is why he has continued with what he doing and how he operate. The monies always end in ways where he manipulate and make sure the riches are around himself and his loyal cronies. So the service delivery is long gone as the NAADs and SACCO’s money all of a sudden disappear together with the steady pace of the all the other government funds that just vanish in thin air.

If you wait on and continue to wait for payment; if your boss waits for his salaries and the budgeted funds for procurement of needed technical equipment does arrive. And even if it comes, it is never on time and never allocated extra funds for the lost times and lost months as the back-pay are troubling enough. The system of this is in tatters as the government are more important for the close knitted staff around the ministers and the State House. While, the rest have to wait and live in oblivion for their service rendered.

With this in mind, the sackings are unfair as the Executive and his cronies have had 30 years to fix the system and build the government institutions. The Government institutions aren’t only the inherited ones from the colonial times and being a protectorate under the British. It has now been made in the image of Museveni. Therefore the vision and image of this laziness and the lack of supervision; is all in all his fault. It is his demeanour and his wish for weak institutions so he could beg for donor funds that is the reason for the lack of control of the health care facilities. It is the build off of poverty, so he can beg and ask for help from the international community. If the country we’re strong and had transparent institutions that worked on already government funds, than the NRM regime wouldn’t need the donor-funds and NGOs supporting the Ugandan Government. Something, President Museveni clearly knows well as he been skimming and eating of the plate for decades and hope for life at this point.

The sackings is the deepest approach of trying to action and act upon the words he sometimes utter to the public. No matter how right or wrong. He knows deep in his heart and in his soul that he is the one behind the massive need for restructuring and rebuilding the Ministry of Health and the Health Care in general. As the counterfeit pills from India and Pakistan isn’t what they say they are and not as effective as the grade A pills. That is something he knows as he takes what he can get and accept it because this make him wealthy and powerful. The legality and novelty of firing own men and woman for laziness proves the little common sense for the destruction of the institutions that knows very well about. But it is better for a few health care personnel to jump on their swords than the Executive. That is the key to this arrangement. President Museveni knew so very well and lives like it doesn’t exist because he is never the issue. The issues are always and will be somebody else than him. He is the one with the vision, the guiding star for all gracious men to follow. Therefore we are supposed to cherish and celebrate his actions. Instead of saying that this actions are really just a spark and proof of his neglect or inactions for decades, that isn’t welcomed; still it is the ice-cold proof. Peace.

Press Statement: Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces expresses confidence in Somalia’s stabilisation efforts, urges the media to focus on success stories (14.08.2016)

Gen Katumba Wamala

Kampala, 14 August – Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces, General Katumba Wamala, has expressed confidence in Somalia’s stabilization efforts.

General Wamala described the African Union Mission in Somalia as one of the continent’s success stories, saying it actualises the African dream of having African solutions to African problems.

He was speaking in Kampala, Uganda, last week, where he officially closed a 4-day AU-UN Mandatory Media and Communication Trainer of Trainers (TOT) course. The course was attended by military and police public communication officers from the Troop and Police Contributing Countries to AMISOM, Somali National Army and Somali Police Force.

“We need to aggressively communicate where Somalia was before the war and where it is now. We need to aggressively communicate the positive developments taking place in Somalia” General Wamala challenged the media, during his address to participants at the TOT course.

The training was organized by United Nations Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) Training Unit in-conjunction with AMISOM Public Information Unit through the AU-UN Information Support Team (AU-UN IST).

The aim of the TOT is to increase the pool of trainers for the media and communication component of the AU/UN Mandatory pre-deployment training.

Troop Contributing Countries (TCC’s) comprise Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Burundi. Police Contributing Countries (PCC’s), on the other hand, consist of Kenya, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ghana.

Ethiopia: Government and partners launch the mid-year review of Humanitarian Requirements Document (HRD) for 2016 (12.08.2016)

UN Ethiopia 12.08.2016

#ThisFlag Movement Press Statement 11.08.2016

ThisFlag Press Statement 11.08.2016 P1ThisFlag Press Statement 11.08.2016 P2ThisFlag Press Statement 11.08.2016 P3

UPDF ready to be part of IGAD standby force for South Sudan (Youtube-Clip)

“The government says the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces is ready to deploy in South Sudan .The confirmation comes days after the East African regional bloc, IGAD announced that S.Sudan’s President Salva Kiir had agreed to having a regional force stationed in Juba to help quell the upsurge in fighting in the world’s youngest nation.
Meanwhile , the US government has proposed that the UN Security Council approves the deployment of 4000 strong force in the country” (NTV Uganda, 2016)

Kenyatta with a Statehouse Summit on Transport and infrastructure; not a good look for the Jubilee!

State House Summit 08082016

“I understand that everyone in the rural areas,the MPs, the MCAs,Governors and all aspirants are claiming responsibility for any upcoming infrastructural project.They are fighting about who lobbied for what and who talked with whoever and who met whoever……..it’s not a question of who lobbied for any development be it roads,electricity connection,building of schools and many more….it’s a question of giving service to the forty to forty two million Kenyans who pay taxes.Hii Maneno ingine yote haina maana” – Uhuru Kenyatta

President Kenyatta has today a State House summit on transport and infrastructure projects in Kenya under his leadership and the Jubilee Government. That has soon finished their first term in the presidency. They had pledges upon pledges when they went into government.

They wanted to build a giant and fantastic electric quick railway. The Standard Gauge Railway and also develop the Lamu Port through the LAPSSET project with fellow neighbors. The Pipeline of crude-oil from the Northern Kenya in Kerio Valley in the Lokichar Basin to the upgraded Lamu Port; where the Jubilee Government also wanted the Lake Albert crude oil from Uganda to go to. Something that fell through as the licensed companies in Uganda though it was too costly to build through Kenya compared to Tanzania. So the Kenyan Government has to do it on they’re own. As the LAPSSET it is waiting for private enterprise to engage and use their monies on the planned infrastructure.

KAA Changes

The other issues are stadiums not built in regions where it was promised the fields of glory never came. It was easy to promise the district towns a sports facility, but none of them came to fruition. The others developments we’re that from Kenya had 30 Air-strips before Jubilee and by now they have 50 of those. Still, the discussion on the failed development project and upgrade of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) have not been an issue as the embarrassing project it is for the ruling regime and their PR team.

“There is corruption at the port. Find out who among the people in this room are thieves” – Uhuru Kenyatta.

There are always some issues and even after years in power and set change with rule of law. The Jubilee government tends with the same fractured system, the corrupt Mombasa port where the monies that makes all import more expensive and still they haven’t instilled checks and balances to Ports and therefore the extra taxation of the imports happen on a daily basis. As the corrupt mind and bodies continues to thrive with the speaking up against it, but not dealing with it in Parliament or by sanctions of law.

The Jubilee government has dozens of plans and pledges, as much as they have foreign loans to build the projects from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the Chinese. The extent of debt collected by the recent new loans has come to 49% of GDP. In April 2016 the Jubilee Government had collected $1.35 billion in debt, while fixing a massive deficit in the Kenyan budget. Still, this is worrying as the debt and interest has to be repaid to the International lenders and development banks which the tab is taken from.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta (L ) and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping (R) stand together during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China 19 August 2013.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta (L ) and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping (R) stand together during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China 19 August 2013.

This was not discussed at the Summit and where is the money for the development projects coming from as they shouldn’t just surface out of thin air. Just like the roads and rails need wages, plans, dialogue and trade to get built. As the landowners need to be compensated together with the companies building the roads need paid for service rendered. Therefore the business of infrastructure is expensive as the giant projects cost a fortune because they are supposed to stay for long and be kept for decades on.

The same with all the roads not taken care of as the feeder roads of the Northern Kenya, which is left in mud and dust; the focus on three Nairobi by-passes to fix the congestion of the capital. Not thinking of other towns who could need extra bypasses like Eldoret or other where the Jubilee doesn’t deliver the needed infrastructure, except if it is fitting with the border-passes and agreement with nation on the other side who needs roads of exporting through Kenya there. Therefore the Summit is more a PR Show, than proving real progress as the corrupt, the debt and all the other problems are destroying the champion sound and roar from the Jubilee Government under President Kenyatta. Peace.

South Sudan: Zero Draft Communique of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the IGAD Plus on the Situation in South Sudan (05.08.2016)

IGAD Plus 06.08.2016 P1IGAD Plus 06.08.2016 P2IGAD Plus 06.08.2016 P3IGAD Plus 06.08.2016 P4