South Sudan refugees in Uganda pass 1 million mark, UNHCR renews call for help (18.08.2017)

Over the past 12 months, an average of 1,800 South Sudanese have been arriving in Uganda every day.

GENEVA, Switzerland, August 18, 2017 – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is today reiterating its call to the international community for urgent additional support for the South Sudan refugee situation and Uganda in particular, where the number of refugees from South Sudan has now reached 1 million.

Over the past 12 months, an average of 1,800 South Sudanese have been arriving in Uganda every day. In addition to the million there, a million or even more South Sudanese refugees are being hosted by Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Central African Republic.

In Uganda, more than 85 per cent of the refugees who have arrived there are women and children (below 18 years in age). Recent arrivals continue to speak of barbaric violence, with armed groups reportedly burning down houses with civilians inside, people being killed in front of family members, sexual assaults of women and girls, and kidnapping of boys for forced conscription.

With refugees still arriving in their thousands, the amount of aid we are able to deliver is increasingly falling short. For Uganda, US$674 million is needed for South Sudanese refugees this year, but so far only a fifth of this amount (21 per cent) has been received. Elsewhere in the region, the picture is only marginally better – in all US$883.5 million is needed for the South Sudan situation, but only US$250 million has been received.

The funding shortfall in Uganda is now significantly impacting the abilities to deliver life-saving aid and key basic services. In June, the World Food Programme was forced to cut food rations for refugees. Across settlements in northern Uganda, health clinics are being forced to provide vital medical care with too few doctors, healthcare workers and medicines. Schooling, meanwhile is also being impacted. Class sizes often exceed 200 pupils, with some lessons held in the open air. Many refugee children are dropping out of education as the nearest schools are too far away for them to easily access.

Since December 2013, when South Sudan’s crisis erupted in Juba, more than two million South Sudanese have fled to neighbouring countries, while another two million people are estimated to be internally displaced.

Burundi: Communique de Presse No. 18/Olucome/08/2017 – Portant Sur la Priere Interconfessionelle Organisee par le Parti au Pouvoir CNDD-FDD (17.08.2017)

After more CEO’s resigning from the Manufacturing Council, Trump now disbands the Council as a result!

After hree more CEO’s resigned from the American Manufacturing Council or the Trump Administration Manufacturing Council who was assembled in January 2017. Since the Charlottesville alt-right rallies and defense of it, there has been dozens of CEO’s resigning. Today there was two more, one was Denise Morrison of Campbell Soups, Jeff Immelt of General Electric and Inge Thulin of 3M. Therefore, the resistance and pressure has succeeded.

Yesterday Donald Trump wrote: “For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. JOBS!” (Trump, 15.08.2017). Did he yesterday think he could easily replace 9 CEO’s who resigned within 48 hours yesterday. Also, the earlier resignation of Elon Musk of Tesla. So now there are even two more on the Council resigning themselves from it. As a reaction to the President’s Defense of White Nationalists, White Supremacy and the Alt-Right in Charlottesville. Even when his statements yesterday wasn’t true and has been debunked by witnesses in Charlottesville, as the clergy on CNN has proven.

So today, the almighty fixer and guy with fantastic deal-making skills had to do this: “Rather than putting pressure on the businesspeople of the Manufacturing Council & Strategy & Policy Forum, I am ending both. Thank you all!” (Trump, 16.08.2017). Just like so many of his businesses, they got discontinued. The Resistance and other activists with promises of boycott and calling out the corporations their values and moral judgment for participating and complicit supporting Trump. They don’t have too, as the CEO’s who has left are making sure their missions are gone.

Clearly, the President must have gotten a whiff of the pressure put on the CEO’s and their businesses, as the people are telling they would boycott and stop buying their products if they stay on the course and take part of the advisory councils of the President. So, this Trump initiatives has now been suspended and enacted to end because of public will and pressure. This is beautiful and proves the power of Social Media and campaigning.

The Manufacturing Council and their CEO’s could not be changed or get new appointments, since Trump couldn’t stomach or have the will to force his own agenda on the businesses. It was a nice propaganda machine, but now it couldn’t carry its own. The Council has lost value and therefore abandoned by him.

People are really reacting to his openness to supporting the “Alt-Right”, the White Nationalist, White Supremacists and the Neo-Nazi’s who was illegally beating and causing harm in Charlottesville. Therefore, the CEO’s couldn’t stand the pressure and be affiliated with the President. Now he has lost his leverage with these businessmen. Therefore, has to find other avenues to prove his listening skills with the business-community. Since they cannot handle is open trust into racists groups and their vile act of violence. The public are outrage and displeased with their leader, who are blaming anyone else and making up his alternative-reality, his alt-reality. Peace.

Opinion: Bank of Uganda must have bought magical pens!

Hey, Bank of Uganda, the glorious BoU, if you ever need any sort office equipment. I can sell it to you and at lesser cost. It will be fraction of the 357,000 Uganda Shillings per Pens or 125m shillings for 350 pens. At the dollar-rate, you paid $105 United States Dollar for each pen, they must be magnificent and the best pens ever made for the mankind.

Bank of Uganda, I understand the scrutiny you are under and as people are mocking this transaction, how you suddenly needed these expensive pens. I am sure they write the perfect lines and makes the others look like broke-back understudies without proper ink. The pens you bought must be most genuine Parker Pens, which brings the words so flawlessly on paper. When these pens touch the paper, they make such romance, so the ink flowers the paper and even smells better.

I have a feeling that the providers of these pen engraved them too each of the employees, so they have unique pen with their initials or even their nicknames. Therefore, they are all feeling unique and look well after.

“According to BOU, #BOUPens were “Cross” branded and meant to be sold as was the case with commemorative coins and notes in previous years” (NTV Uganda, 15.08.2017). So they were special and unique, they were designed in a way to make them feel special. Still someone who procured them really made a decent profit of the trade. Since pens usually doesn’t cost that much, even when your initially making them special too.

I am sure they bring back the good old times, sprint the words of Milton Obote and Idi Amin, even bring back Yusuf Lule, if lucky the grandest project of the all, the marvelous escape of the NRA. Certainly, the pens of the BoU must possess some sort of special powers. Since, they cost so much. All the things the pens has of value, so they can be used as collateral and even be pawned like jewels. Since they have such value and estimated cost.

So please Bank of Uganda, I got pens that can write in thin-air, spill the ink on the paper and give you the smell of roses. They will cost half of what you used to buy the Cross Pens, and they will look amazing. They will bring joy and happiness, maybe even be more within reason of cost. Since all paperwork and paper-trial of your clients, will smell like a bed of roses? It must be a dream and a dream worth living for, that you want to achieve in your lifetime.

Certainly, Bank of Uganda should consider some reasonable pens for their enterprise, as a state institution, but they are the ones keeping the inflation and the monetary policies at bay. Therefore, they need to be rewarded, not all can get Presidential Handshakes. Some just have to get pens, which are more valued than other people’s rents. That is their dumb luck, not the cashier at BoU. Peace.

China-Uganda relationship benefits the Chinese, BoU Paper states!

This should not surprise you, that the Chinese government and their subsidiary businesses are making sure they are gets the best deal with the Ugandan counterparts. The Bank of Uganda policy paper are spelling out the advantages for the Chinese in the bilateral and the state-to-state offerings given to the Ugandans. They are clearly getting infrastructure loans and plyaing minor rolse in GVCs, therefore, the Ugandans are people loaning for infrastructure and then repaying, while the Chinese contractors and Chinese labor are working on the indebted projects. Just take a look, it is not a positive read!

It should be emphasised, however, that for Uganda to leverage the shifting growth dynamics in China (such as a shrinking labour force, rising wages and an appreciated Renminbi), it must create a conducive investment climate. Low wages and a competitive exchange rate alone will not make much difference without reliable power and transport links, or in the face of suffocating bureaucracy and corruption” (Bank of Uganda, P: 6, 2017).

With the migration of labour-intensive manufacturing shifting from China and an improvement in investment climate, Uganda also stands to expand its involvement in global trade, including Global Value Chains (GVCs). Historically, countries like Uganda have played a relatively minor role in GVCs. Figure 5 below, which illustrates a useful measure of Uganda’s integration in GVCs, relative to other sub-Saharan countries, indicates that Uganda is below the average value-chain position for developing countries” (Bank of Uganda, P: 6, 2017).

It must be pointed out that while China has emerged as a significant financer of infrastructure projects in Africa, it still lags behind both private investment and the more traditional sources of funding. Recent research actually reveals that, over the past few years, China has contributed about only one-sixth of the US$30 billion Africa receives annually as external finance for infrastructure” (…) “Moreover, most of this financing to the transport and energy sector takes the form of state-to-state, non-concessional deals and comes from the Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim Bank). Examples of the major state-to-state deals signed with China Exim Bank in Uganda include: US$1.4 billion and US$483 million for Karuma and Isimba hydropower dams as well as US$350 million for the construction of the Kampala-Entebbe express highway” (Bank of Uganda, P: 7-8, 2017).

For Uganda, which has so far committed up to US$ 2.3 billion in contracts with China Exim bank and is soon to take on more debt for projects like the Standard Gauge Railway, debt sustainability is a growing issue of concern; underscored by the fact that the country faces a low tax-to-GDP ratio relative to its regional peers and significant public investment challenges. Uganda’s debt as a percentage of revenues has risen by 54% since 2012 and is expected to exceed 250% by 2018, raising calls for caution and improved public investment management from various policy circles including the IMF, World Bank and Moody’s, which downgraded Uganda’s long-term bond rating in 2016 citing deteriorating debt affordability” (Bank of Uganda, P: 10, 2017).

This here report shows both the possible troubles with the debt, that already are problem with current budget, but will become bigger. Secondly, that the relationship and bilateral business agreements with China, will only benefit China and not Uganda. As they might get the infrastructure projects, but they have to repay the debt and also use funds on labor from the Chinese contractors and businesses. They are not hiring and educating locals to work these sorts, because Chinese are getting their own hired.

This here is not bringing positive results, but instead are being a nice debt collector for China and will be indebted to them. While the Ugandans gets scarps from the Chinese, as the infrastructure projects like the Dam they have bought on debt, has been said is “shoddy” work. That proves the Chinese gets easy money, get expat workers and later returns on every single Yen. Peace.

Reference:

Dollar, David; Mugyenyi, Akura & Ntungire, Nicole – ‘How can Uganda benefit from China’s economic rise?’ (August 2017) – International Growth Centre Uganda & Bank of Uganda

The Saga of the New Cancer Machine of Mulago was not a two-year scheme!

Let’s be honest and clear, the story of the Cobalt 60 Teletherapy Machine from the mid-90s, who was not sufficient and had not been changed within time. Was not a two-year long waiting period of nostalgia, it was mismanagement with the cost of lives and devastation. Any government caring about lives, would have planned and made sure of funding for a new one, long ahead, especially considering the last one was bought in the mid-1990s. This is the true acts of maladministration and misuse of state reserves. That is evident, and also that the Ministry of Health, who only had one these, couldn’t make sure the procurement went softly and made sure the facilities could be fixed in time to put in a new machine. Even if it matters of lives and people’s serious treatment.

Only two year?

“After almost two agonising years of waiting, cancer patients will breathe a sigh of relief after the new radiotherapy machine arrived into the country this week. It was shipped from Czech Republic through Mombasa port with guidance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a United Nations body that regulates use of nuclear and atomic energy. Purchased at 642,000 euros (more than Shs2.7b) by both government and IAEA, the machine replaces the old cobalt 60 radiotherapy machine, which broke down beyond repair on March 27, 2016, leaving about 2,000 patients without proper treatment and some people died in the process” (Ainebyoona, 2017).

What about 2013:

Because I have a letter dated back to IAEA from Dr. Byahagaba from 28th May 2013, where the funding of 325,297 Euros was deposited to the UniCredit Bank, Austria, Vienna on the 22nd May 2013. This was funding for the purchase of Cobalt 60 Teletheraphy Machine. Therefore, the Daily Monitor or the Mulago Health Care Complex has given som wrong information.

If not the final instalment for the purchase of the machine has come in the aftermath, which is a significant sum of monies, since it is 315,000 Euros that has appeared and made sure the buying of the machine finally appeared.

This sort of acts should not let it go easily, that a state with millions of lives, that are in-charge of making sure their citizens are healthy. Only has one Cancer Machine and that one has been out of function for two years, and it took about at-least 4 years, since 2013 to be able to purchase the equipment and use it for the public benefit. Clearly, the National Resistance Movement (NRM). Isn’t worried about losing their citizens or making sure the health is in check. Surely, the do not worry, since the President sends his own kin abroad to give birth. He knows the meagre state of the facilities of where he has resided and run. He eats the reserves and leaves scraps behind. The evidence in the 4 years in the making of the Cancer Machine. It is good it is there, but the time and effort is mediocre at best. Nearly depleted and destructive, as the concern of the cancer wasn’t even there. Peace.

Reference:

Ainebyoona, Mmanuel – ‘New Cancer Machine finally arrives into the Country’ (12.08.2017) link: http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Sigh-of-relief-as-Shs2-7b-cancer-machine-arrives/688334-4054904-vf8309/index.html

Jubilee Deregistered Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) because it scrutinized the Elections!

President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto are some touchy fellas these days, you would think the incumbents after a marvelous victory, where the IEBC Portal continues to counts votes in their favor. Would be feeling secure and steady for another 5 year term. Instead they are weak and terrified human beings, who cannot handle critique. Therefore, on the 14th August 2017, they deregistered the Kenyan Human Rights Commission (KHRC).

This was done by the Fazul Mahamad of the NGOs Co-Ordination Board, which is under the leadership of CS Fred Matiang’i, has decided to punish the NGO for their crass criticism during the polls and also during the counting of the votes. Just the day before the inauguration, the new Jubilee Administration proves their dictatorial and controlling efforts. As they cannot even manage the critic of a KHRC!

Because of their words and their questioning of the Jubilee shootings and killings after the announcement of another term for Kenyatta, the state are now pushing the KHRC a bill of Ksh. 100 million. Also freezing all the funds of the accounts connected to the Organization, this done by the Central Bank of Kenya. So it claims it has gotten ill-gained banknotes, that now is sufficient with the fine put on the Human Rights Organization.

This all seem like a precision attack on an organization who is questioning the ill-adviced and the bad tempered government response to the rigged election. That they are hurting the innocent and will now also damage an independent organization.

CS Matiang’i really needs to show his mercy soon, because his legacy is already bloody, even in a short tenure as it has been. He has blamed NASA for everything, while he has had police officers bloody hands on his conscience. This should be well-known, and even if they can hurt one organization and dismantle the ones speaking-up. They cannot silence them all. They will just corner themselves and make sure the Jubilee, are revealing their looted gains and the borrowed funds that keeps their SUVs driving to Karen, Nairobi. Peace.

The Notification to KHRC:

Brexit: House of Lords – European Union Commitee letter to David Davis “Asking for access of Information on the on-going process” (10.08.2017)