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OPINION: Overwhelming Poverty Limiting Passport Access To Absolute Majority

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Agencies
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By Oweyegha-Afunaduula

On 23 December 2021 I read in The Washington Post an article titled “US  passports about to get more expensive” written by Amanda Finnegan. I leant that the price for a full-time or replacement adult passport was to be $ 165, a renewal was to be  $ 130.

The expedited fee, which enables one to get a passport weeks earlier remained at $60. The State Department explained that the fee increase was necessary to ensure that they continued to produce one of the most secure travel and identity documents in the World”.

I understood this to mean that the passport could not be pirated by thugs, or that it could not be owned by non-citizens or non-nationals.

What I did not know was that the Uganda Government of President Tibuhaburwa Museveni was almost simultaneously revising the fees for passports. I have yet to understand why the fees were hiked.

Uganda Passport is one of the most insecure travel and identity documents in the World. Many foreigners, including refugees, have accessed it and travelled to and fro foreign countries as if they are Ugandan Nationals and/or Citizens, either given to them officially by the Immigration Department, or pirated. It is unlikely the the reasoning for raising the passport fee in Uganda was the same as that the US Government gave for the fee for the American passport.

Why the hike in passport fees then, if not to make it secure Ike the Americans reasoned they wanted  theirs to be? I don’t know. Most likely the target was either to make the passport out of reach of the majority of the increasingly poorer Ugandans who do not have a lot of money to spend  on travel documents or who hardly travel out of the country, or to make money from the well-to-do who travel abroad, or the unemployed Ugandans seeking employment abroad, mainly in the Arab World.

The Uganda passport now costs UShs250,000 for normal application or UShs400,000 for express application, UShs400 for official application and UShs500,000 for diplomatic passports.

Clearly, the poor can never hope to acquire passports. Similarly the majority of Ugandans have not acquired the National Identity Card, although why one should have a passport and a National Identity Card to the same end is intriguing and unreasonable.

Despite President Tibuhaburwa Museveni’s declared wish to turn Uganda into a modern middle-income country, Uganda is boasting of far more poverty than wealth. In fact, poverty is going up, not down and the wealth is increasingly concentrated in a small portion of our population of ethnically and genealogically related families.

Opportunity international says in Uganda 41% of the people are victims of poverty, living below the poverty line on less than $ 1.90 a day.  76% of the population of 44.3 millions  live in rural areas, 73% of the population etch a living from agriculture, where they are even being displaced from their arable land by land grabbers from mainly Western Uganda; and only 33% of the country’s population have bank accounts.

So the majority of people do not have money to own passports. They can only manifest like prisoners in a gigantic prison called Uganda or, at worst, as a floating population of internally generated refugees only good enough to provide cheap labor to so-called foreign investors, or to the local landgrabbers who have displaced them from their cultural land, and now manifest as the new settlers just transmuted from nomadic pastoral human energy system, with no cultural attachment to the land they are grabbing uncontrollably.

I do not need to over-emphasize that we now have people belonging to a very small portion of our population, including those who have unfairly accessed our citizenship and nationality, being the ones with the opportunity and the money to afford possessing Ugandan passports.

The absolute majority are excluded from possessing  passports. This is akin to crude apartheid that existed in South Africa during the domination of blacks by a small ethnic group of white supremacists. Blacks were confined to ecologically unproductive land and could not access passports.

It is not acceptable in the 21st Century. Ugandans must resist it, or else they lose their citizenship, nationality and country to foreigners, some masquerading as citizens and Nationals.

Let’s ask: Why should a passport be inaccessible to the absolute ordinary Ugandans, and for those who acquire it, why should it not be a full-time, instead of a ten-year possession? why impose a financial barrier to possession of a passport by hiking the fee?

For God and My Country

The Writer Is a Ugandan Scientist And Environmentalist
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are solely for and belong to the author/writer. They don’t depict, portray, reflect or represent Accord Communications Limited, it’s affiliates, owners or employees. If you have a story in your community, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

Celebrated News Anchor Frank Walusimbi Bows Out Of NTV

By
Linda Njoroge
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Frank Walusimbi

Journalist Frank Walusimbi one of the few celebrated and inspiring Journalists bowed out of NTV where he has served for 15 years since 2016 as a news anchor, reporter, producer and show host.

His calmness, composure and fluency of the Luganda language made him a darling and a big brand at the Serena based station and he’s been arguably the best Luganda News Anchor in the land. He bowed out yesterday as colleagues said bye bye to him live on set as he was presenting his very last bulletin.

Many people have praised and celebrated Frank Walusimbi for his professional and ethical conduct through out his time both on air and off air as a calm guy. Notably of these is firebrand politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu who has praised Walusimbi for being professional.

Frank indicated he’s bowed out of NTV for other assignments but not at NTV, we are set to know his next destination though rumors claims he’s set to Join Mengo based and Buganda owned BBS Television but we can’t independently verify that. We join the rest of his fans to wish Frank all the best in his next endeavors.

If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

OPINION: How Despondency Is Proliferating In Uganda

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Agencies
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Professor Oweyegha-Afunaduula

By Oweyegha-Afunaduula

According to the World Happiest Report ” The 20 Happiest Countries in 2022″ released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the top 10 happiest are Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand in that order.

The report comes two years after Covid 19 ravaged the World and in the wake of Russia’s insensible military invasion of Ukraine. The two countries together, have some of the largest grain fields and many of the World’s natural resources, perhaps next to Africa.

The said World Happiest Report puts Afghanistan, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Botswana in that order in the bottom 5 saddest countries if the World. It is of great relief that Uganda, known for many negatives, is not among the saddest 5 countries of the world, but its neighbor, Rwanda, with which it has resolved diplomatic problems recently, is second from the bottom among the saddest countries.

If, however, there is tightening global despondency trap there is even more tightening Uganda despondency trap, just like there is a poverty trap, debt trap and enslavement trap.

The more despondency one suffers, the more sadness one suffers and the more unhappy one is. When one is despondent one is very unhappy because one has been experiencing difficulties one thinks, believes and is convinced one will not be able to overcome. “One” can be a country as well.

For example, depending on its policies, choices and strategies of development, Uganda may not be able to overcome poverty, illiteracy, inequalities, injustice, human rights abuses, undemocratic practices, corruption, ill-health, insecurity, et cetera even if you gave its leaders 100 years.

Before, I delve into despondency, with accompanying fear and loss of hope and courage in the face of numerous, interconnected problems, and issues, let me define three interconnected words within the context of this intellectual discourse: despond, despondent and despondency.

There is no doubt that there is proliferating despondency among all communities all over Uganda to which, unfortunately, Government is responding militarily and exploiting as a political weapon, or innovating a myriad of economic programmes, such as Myooga and Parish Development Model that promise no grain of success, and will most likely end up dividing people further and generating even more despondency.

To despond is ” to be dejected and to lose confidence. To put it another way, to despond is ” to be in low spirits from loss of Hope, courage or confidence”. It is dangerous when people collectively despond in a country. They are angry and hungry for change.

When one is despondent one relapses into low spirits from loss of hope, courage and confidence, and when one is despondent one is unlikely to be interested in call to be patriotic or nationalistic. One sees no value added.

Despondency, therefore, is relapsing into low spirits, from loss of hope, courage and confidence.

There are many synonyms of the word Despondency, including: heartache, disheartenment, discouragement, dispirited, despair, wretchedness, melancholy, gloom, gloominess, downheartedness, hopelessness, glumness, desolation, disappointment, depression, melancholia, misery, dolefulness, dejection, sorrow, sadness, defeatism, greed, the blues, unhappiness, distress, doldrums.

There can be individual despondency and collective despondency.

Individual despondency has compelled so many of our young people into external slavery, where they are paid peanuts (though better than being out of employment at home), exploited, or are forcibly losing their organs to the rich, while others are willingly selling their organs (principally kidney), ostensibly to escape poverty for ever.

Collective despondency is the reason a country is in the bottom 50 in the World Happiest Report. It explains rebellions and coup de tats in some countries, or threats of rebellions or coup de tats, however armed a regime in power is.

Africa shows how despondency may lead to either collective action, or action of armies, to remove regimes that fail to deliver in terms of happiness. Nowhere have coup de tats been so common as in Africa.

By 2012 there had been 200 coup de tats and attempted coup de tats in Africa, from the time most African countries got their political independence from their former colonial masters. Most of the coup de tats have been in West Africa. Even as late as 24th February 2022, there was a successful coup in Burkina Faso.

As the title of this article implies, and as I have mentioned elsewhere in the article, despondency is proliferating in Uganda. Those opposed to the regime in power believe the despondency is manufactured by the regime to create a psychosocial environment that encourages the spread of fear, whereby fear is then used by power as a political weapon to keep the population and Opposition in check.

One thing is true. So many factors are interacting to generate despondency in the whole country among all communities: academic, intellectual, cultural, politic, judicial, legislative, executive, military, police, student, business, fishing, farming, et cetera.

They include Lake Victoria grabbing, land grabbing by mostly people who were nomadic pastoralist and are seeking to be modern day settlers where are get have no cultural attachment, environmental collapse, human rights abuse, torture, injustice, lack of welfare services, unequal opportunities, climate change, insecurity, unfair prices for crops and commodities, lack of minimum wage, withholding pensions and erosion of professionalism.

Others include food insecurity and hunger, elections that never produce the choices of the people, deep State, preference of foreigners to indigenous people, over taxation and multiple taxes, using extrajudicial killings, stealing of public funds, corruption, ethnic cleansing, the rising and spreading belief that foreigners have accessed our citizenship, nationality and resources unfairly, and uncertain future.

The greatest threat to sociopolitical and socioeconomic stability in Uganda well into the future is not rebels, such as Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) , but proliferating despondency. This will turn the people that have been peaceful and hospitable into enemy number one of the regime in power. Public-State relations will continue to deteriorate and the centre will fail to hold.

For God and My Country

The Writer Is a Uganda Scientist And Environmentalist

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are solely for and belong to the author/ writer. The don’t portray, depict, reflect or represent Accord Communications Limited, it’s affiliates, owners or employees. If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

BREAKING: Fire Guts Office Of The Chief Justice At Supreme Court

By
Linda Njoroge
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Police's Fire Brigade Fighting Off The Fire That Gutted The chambers of the Chief Justice

A fire has been reported at the supreme court in Kololo and is said to have destroyed property on the second floor of the Supreme court building where the office of the Chief Justice Alphonse Owiny Dollo is located.

Police’s fire brigade could be seen fighting off the fire in the photos making rounds on social media though more details about the cause of the fire and how much property has been destroyed are still scanty but we shall bring you details as they unveil.

This is a developing story.

If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

OPINION: When The Environment Revolts, Money Is Useless

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Agencies
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Loggers cutting down a tree for timber. Uncontrolled and illegal felling of trees causing deforestation in Uganda. Photo by Charles Akena

By Oweyegha-Afunaduula

The Tragedy of Durban, South Africa: Floods combine the rich and the poor and the educated and uneducated, the rulers and non-rulers in reigning havoc and death. Uganda , where the rulers and the rich-educated, seem to have declared a war against the environment, needs to take note.

God will also reduce you to inconsequential proportions if you continue to disregard our natural physical environment (forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, swamps) in favor of pursuing money and short-term riches as if you are immortal. He will wash away your wealth you have squires on the basis of environmental destruction and corruption.

Environment is the real perennial richness we have. It has transcended generations, and should transcend generations until Jesus comes back. However, our environmentally-ignorant, environmentally-illiterate, environmentally-poor, environmentally-arrogant, environmentally-corrupt, environmentally-bankrupt decision-makers think and believe they are greater than the environment and, by extension, God, and have concentrated more on destroying what they found in place to enrich themselves, in collusion with foreigners.

They are consciously preparing Uganda for disaster on a continuous and persistent basis. They are not even bothered that their grandchildren and grandchildren’s children deserve to make a living in a wholesome environment. They are condemning their and our genealogies to a life of environmental torture on a Sahara Desert-like landscape, while subjecting us to torture of diverse types.

There is need to rethink: Think environment. Stop thinking money. When the environment revolts money is rendered useless, like has happened in Durban , South Africa. Money will not save you or the others or me.

Education and Power do not impart wisdom. Wisdom comes from God. God gave our ancestors a different type of education and wisdom – genuine environmental education and environmental wisdom – and they conserved and managed the environment with God himself.

However, our corrupt decision-makers, together with the corrupt rich have forsaken God, dismissed our environmentally-wise ancestors as stupid and declared war against the environment.

God is not happy, and at his own chosen time, will express his anger with the powerful and the rich in physical terms. Unfortunately, when He acts, using His forces of Nature he will not distinguish between rich and poor, powerful and powerless.

For God and My Country

The Writer Is a Ugandan Scientist And Environmentalist

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are solely for and belong to the author. They don’t portray, depict, reflect or represent Accord Communications Limited, it’s affiliates, owners or employees. If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

OPINION: How To Conquer Heart, Kidney And Pressure Problems Without Medicines

By
Linda Njoroge
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Mulago National Referral Hospital- Courtesy Photo

By Oweyegha-Afunaduula

I must have told you this story before. There is no harm telling the story again. I spent years frequenting the Uganda Heart Institute in Mulago. As the years went by I moved from one hospital to another as my pressure rose to worrying levels: Kampala Hospital, Mengo, International Hospital Kampala, etc.

At one time, when my pressure reached 227/117, I thought my time on Earth was nearing the end, but never lost hope that my situation would you improve. When you lose hope that is the beginning of the match into the other component of the life-death cycle.

Mulago National Referral Hospital- Courtesy Photo

So, when my doctor at Kampala Hospital, Dr. Lukoma, told me he had failed to establish what was was causing my constantly and persistently high pressure, I began to pray to real healer, God, to intervene. And yes, He had another plan.

One morning when I visited Dr Lukoma, he told me he was sending me first to a certain professor (I always remember names but this one has completely vanished from my memory) at Mengo Hospital. For the first time in my life I was put in the back of an ambulance, all alone, and driven at supersonic speed, to the professor.

He was to establish if there was a clot in my neck blood supply; a very costly exercise on my part since it cost me almost half a million shillings. After a long search for clots, the professor concluded there were no clots and wrote down some notes for Dr Lukoma.

When I arrived at Kampala Hospital, Dr. Lukoma told me, “Now I have only one solution left. I am sending you to a cardiologist, Dr. Lwabi, at Sassi Clinic, on Kampala-Jinja Road. He has a unique way of treatment, which does not, or may not even include medicines. I have already told him I am sending you to him.

After thanking Dr. Lukoma for all he had done to restore my health, I left Kampala Hospital for Sassi Clinic. Dr. Lwabi was waiting for me. When he saw me arriving the first question he asked me was:
” Do you really want to continue having that huge abdomen?”

I told him that if he could remove it I would be very happy.

Then he measured my weight and said, “You are 85 kgms. That is too much for your height. It makes you obese. We shall work to make it 66kgms. Beyond this one is obese”.

I told him, “Any steps you take to restore my health I willingly approve”.

He said, “Come to my office”. When I went in, he said, “Your problem is a good problem. You do not eat carefully. But let me hear what you eat?”

I told him everything I eat as he wrote down: two eggs in at breakfast, two eggs at break, two eggs in the evening almost daily; cow meat, goat meat, posho, rice, sweet potatoes Irish potatoes, matooke, chapati, some fruits, some vegetables and some fish sometimes, bread, chicken, meat almost everyday goat meat every other time.

Then he said, This is the list of things I want you to eat. You can see it does not work ncluded most of the things you love to eat. You have to reduce to a bare minimum the high calorie foods – rice, posho, sweet potatoes.

Eat red meat only once in a long while. Goat meat is the worst meat one can eat. Remove it from your diet. Eat plenty of fruits, fish and vegetables. Irish potatoes, local chicken (without skin), one local egg a weak, drink a lot of water even when you do not feel thirsty. Eat some pork it is white meat.

Avoid cakes because they contain a lot of sugar. Use honey instead of cane sugar. And when you go home , make sure you walk half a kilometre everyday, slowly. I will not give you any medicine. Come back to me after one month.”.

Indeed, after one month, the pressure had fallen from 227/117 to 130/70 with no medicine. I really thank Dr. Lwabi for introducing discipline and care in my feeding habits. I said good bye to the Heart Institute and concentrated on proper feeding. And my health became better with passage of time.

When I want to eat posho, rice and sweet potatoes I do so sparingly. The amount I take of each, and separately on separate days, sometimes weeks, is equivalent to the size of my fist. And when I eat them I take a lot of water.

I believe many people in Busoga, including children, are developing, or have developed pressure, mainly because of consuming large of quantities of posho, sweet potatoes and rice, together or separately, and many regard drinking water as a waste of time. Of course the pressures of survival in a very difficult environment are compounding the problem.

I hope this article will help you to rethink your food habits. It is your first line of defense against heart, kidney and pressure problems.

For God and My Country

The Writer is a Ugandan Scientist and Environmentalist

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are solely for and belong to the author/ writer. They don’t portray, depict, reflect or represent Accord Communications Limited, it’s affiliates, owners or employees. If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

Breaking News: Police Summons Bobi Wine, Oulanyah’s Father Over Poison Claims

By
Linda Njoroge
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0
Oulanyah's Father Mzee Nathan Lo'kori

Uganda police while addressing their weekly media briefing that takes place every monday at Nagulu headquarters have summoned late Speaker Jacob Oulanyah’s Father Mzee Nathan L’okori alongside fire brand politician and National Unity Boss Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu and Kilak South MP Gilbert Oulanyah and former Minister Godfrey Kiwanda Suubi over claims that the late Speaker Jacob Oulanyah was poisoned.

After receiving news that his son had died in the US where he had been airlifted, Mzee Nathan downplayed any claims that his son died a natural death but said his son informed him that he had been poisoned though government through Minister Chris Baryomunsi denied the allegations.

However even before the body was repatriated, President Museveni ordered police to arrest whoever claimed Jacob Oulanyah was poisoned and this was meant to reduce the speed at which the poison claims were spreading like wild fire. In the postmortem report read to parliament by Health Minister Jane Ruth Acheng indicated that the late Speaker succumbed to cancer and by the time he was airlifted, all his organs had stopped functioning.

Even during the burial of his son on Friday last week, Mzee Nathan L’okori who had been stripped off the program of those going to speak was brought by DP president Norbert Mao to say something, however he shockingly insisted his son died of Poison (See Story Here)  something that even NRM’s CEC vice chairperson Godfrey Kiwanda has confirmed saying the late Speaker told him of having been poisoned immediately after becoming speaker.

Now police which is acting on orders of president Museveni has summoned NUP president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, Kilak South MP Gilbert Oulanyah and Mzee Nathan L’okori to come with evidence to confirm their claims that the late speaker died of poison contrary to government’s postmortem report that he succumbed to cancer.

According to police spokesperson Fred Enanga, Bobi Wine, Godfrey Kiwanda Suubi, Gilbert Oulanyah and Jacob Oulanyah’s father should come with evidence to prove their claims or else they face jail as President Museveni ordered.

If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

OWEYEGHA-AFUNADUULA: Uncovering The Hidden Genocide In The Uganda Pension System

By
The Ultimate Editor
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NSSF Jinja Offices- Courtesy Photo

By Oweyegha-Afunaduula

“The purpose of public pensions is not to provide Government with tax revenues (or opportunities for investment) but to ensure social security for retirees” (Munyambonyera, 2019).

In Uganda Life expectancy today is said to be 63, but the population is getting younger and younger, and is perhaps the youngest in the world with the Old Aged (60-72), the Aged (73-80), and those belonging to the group Bye Bye Age (81-91) are diminishing in population composition, with less and less of them being part of their groups and distorting the population structure of the country.

Uganda is famed for having 110 pension schemes currently registered, mostly private ones. The public ones are few and include: the Army Peñsion scheme, the National Social Security Fund, the Public Pension Scheme and the Makerere University Retirement Benefits Scheme (MURBS).

However, most of these schemes are known for their inefficiency, and people tend to avoid them because of growing mistrust of Government by the people. They fear Government will misuse their money in investments that have nothing to do with their social and economic security; as sources of taxes; and as sources of loans to investors and other countries instead of investing in their social and economic security. This could explain the diminishing pension coverage in Uganda, which now stands at only about 5% of the country.

As Government shifts focus of pension money on its own interests, thereby distorting the purpose of pension schemes and eroding public confidence in them, the vulnerability of the old aged, the aged and the bye bye age is rising supersonically uncontrollably. They have been denied access to their money and find themselves marginalized in their own country.

Many are quietly and unnoticeably dying in their rural areas where they withdrew to. Those who decide to stay on in towns or cities may be compelled to become street dwellers or lapse into insanity, with no one to help them. These are our senior citizens that once made the economy and country move upwards.

They are increasingly vulnerable for another couple of reasons. Neglect by their former employer, they are increasingly deprived, poor and losing land through land grabbing, either by greedy and selfish individuals in Government, Army, Police, Legislature or in Private Business.

As they get displaced with no alternatives for them, they are manifesting as pollutants of their communities, adding no value to them. They have even become threatened by members of their families who are either grabbing their little land spared by bigger grabbers, or harming them, even by killing because they think they are overstaying alive. Or else in the community, they are despised or ridiculed.

They were once able to provide for themselves but now are the mercy of nature while their money is held up in pension schemes or abused by Government, orused to maintain administrators and managers of the pension schemes.

Government knows we have diminishing numbers of the the Bye Bye Age group, but that is the one it is pretending to be catering for with 25,000/- or so every other time. Some of those citizens have received nothing even after registering themselves on time.

Wayward inflation has made the cash gift useless, where a bar of soap now costs 10,000/- up from 3500/- a few months back. They cannot even use it to travel to Kampala to claim their pensions.

The majority of sufferers of no pension for long periods of time are the old aged and aged. They could significantly contribute to the economy of the country if they got their pensions in adequate quantity and, with advice from experts, invested it wisely in their own and family social and economic advancement.

As things are now, it is as if the choice of Government is to keep them in poverty and vulnerability long enough so that they continue to die off earlier than they would otherwise do. This is bad for the country.

The young still need the ingenuity and guidance of the old aged, aged and the bye bye aged. In countries like Japan, these are the ones contributing to the productivity of the national economies.

Pensioners dying prematurely, and in mass numbers, while their money is held up in pension schemes or illegally invested in firms or in loans to firms and countries, or dispatched to them in small unnegotiated percentages, over unnegotiated periods of time, arbitrarily determined, is aggregately a violation of the right of our senior citizens to their pensions in a timely manner. The senior citizens are suffering psychological torture are now losing their self-esteem. The combined effect of this status quo is of course early death.

The approach of small unnegotiated percentages over unnegotiated periods is what Government has chosen to use in paying the In House pension of retired academic and administrative staff of Makerere University through the Makerere University Retirement Benefits Scheme (MURBS).

The approach harms the long-term retirees most of whom are now in the group of the Aged. They are nearing the end of their time on Earth but have to suffer the consequences of postponed enjoyment of their pensions, including early death. The purpose of the scheme is defeated: that of social and economic security for the retirees. Instead it has become an avenue for hidden or concealed genocide.

The aged and old aged have no money to buy food or ensure quality health for themselves. They cannot invest in the education of their late children or grandchildren. So with rising socio-psycho torture, the deplorable alternative is imposed death through denial of their social and economic security, which their pension would assure them of if willingly given to them. But alas!

There are those who will say hidden or concealed genocide is an overstatement. Their interpretation of genocide arises from the traditional definition of the vice as “The deliberate killing.

They still think genocide is only achieved through the use of guns and other weapons, like did happen in Luwero Triangle and Northern Uganda during the wars of NRM/A under the command of Tibuhaburwa Museveni, or now in Ukraine, carried out by Russian military under the command of Vladimir Putin.

And so they use many synonyms of genocide to underlie what they mean by genocide: ethnic cleansing, decimation, butchery, eradication, elimination, extermination, liquidation annihilation, mass homicide, mass destruction, mass slaughter, indiscriminate killing, wholesale killing and massacre.

For the purposes of this article, I will adopt the synonym elimination to refer to the kind of genocide taking place in the Uganda Pension Scheme among the group s of the old aged , aged and bye bye age groups of pensioners through denial of access to their pensions in a timely manner.

So if the late NRM/A ideologue, Kajabagu Karusoke, referred to some Ugandans as biological substances the way our senior citizens are being denied their pensions in a timely manner, there y stressing them to death almost simultaneously, is reducing them to biological substances, a level which is even subhuman.

On the whole genocide expresses lack of love for humanity by those who reduce our people to biological substances by withholding pension to them, or giving it to them irregularly and unilaterally without negotiating with the beneficiaries how they would like to be paid their pension and, instead diverting the pension to using it to generate taxes, investing it in projects, which more often than not have a high rate of failure, and loaning it to firms and countries with total absence of concern for the social and economic security of the retirees and the members of their families they support, or are supposed to support, through home-based income generating initiative s using their pensions.

Munyambonyera (2019) was right when he wrote that the purpose of public pension is not to provide Government with tax revenues or even to earn interest on investment and loans for it) but to ensure social (and economic) security for the retirees).

If Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA) is to be relevant to retirees rather than to Government, it’s supervisory role should be geared more to wards ensuring that pension schemes deliver social goods to retirees in terms of larges number of them getting their pensions rather than trekking to Kampala City for pensions, which they never get for years as Government cheats the retirees of their savings to satisfy it’s interest of maximizing profits from money of its victims: the retirees.

That is dishonesty and corruption of the pension system on the part of Government. Senior citizens will be right to lose trust and confidence in Government incrementally. This will create, and is already creating, a negative attitude in potential pensioners who are not Government employees, and decelerate the rate of growth of the the pension sector or pension coverage in the country.

For God and My Country

The Writer is a Ugandan Scientist And Environmentalist

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this article are solely for and belong to the author/ writer. They don’t portray, depict, reflect or represent Accord Communications Limited, it’s affiliates, owners or employees. If you have a story in your community or opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

Community Dialogues Pace Up Access To Family Planning In Uganda

By
The Ultimate Editor
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Dr. Betty Isiko demostrates how vasectomy is done at Petta health Centre III

By Lydia Alyecho

Peer educators and Village Health Teams (VHTs) are breaking barriers to access family planning services in the Tororo, Busia, and Butaleja districts.

They move into the communities, inform the locals about child spacing and available family planning options, and also encourage girls and women of reproductive age to check for breast and cervical cancer at the nearest public health facility or the Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) clinic in Tororo district.

Hellen Nyaketcho, a resident of Mudakori village, has visited 113 homes with the mission of sensitizing people with large families of six to 20 members or more to use family planning methods.

Dr Simon Lugoloobi conducts a dialogue in Nampologoma parish Butaleja district

Moving from door to door in her sub-county of Mudakori in Tororo municipality, talked to men and women to adopt permanent family planning methods.

After acquiring community sensitization skills about the benefits of family planning, I have been empowered to tell people of all ages about giving birth to planned children who are manageable, Nyaketcho said.

Together with cultural, political, and religious leaders, the burden of bearing many unplanned children is shared among community members.

Ofwono Stanislas Toto, LCIII Chairperson for Osukuru Sub County, says the child burden is high in his area and calls for amicable solutions to rescue the situation.

“We have a heavy child burden in Osukuru and this is the time to take action. The locals have to learn and choose to produce manageable children, “Ofwono said.

In Uganda, men and women of various ages are embracing long-term family planning methods.

Florence Akello, a trained peer educator by RHU, believes that the young men and women who are embracing the use of various family planning services have their livelihoods improved by having more time to do productive work and also look after the children they have in the best way.

“They are using implants, condoms, and pills to control and space childbirths. Several elderly men and women have also chosen to have their tubes cut, “Akello said.

In the Busia district, Benedict Okamari, Chairperson of Busitema sub-county, calls on community members to become ambassadors of the messages about family planning they receive and embrace, to tell other people about its benefits.

“Despite many myths about family planning, people should tell the rest about the good things family planning brings along,” Okamari said.

But the local communities in Butaleja district have taken on the mantle of having family planning sessions within their communities. A typical setting brings together between 10 to fifteen homestead heads to discuss issues of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), breast and cervical cancer, planned parenthood, and how to space their children using family planning.

The community dialogues began in April 2021 under the Breaking Barriers to Access family planning project II (BBA II), implemented by Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU). The RHU-BBA II project is funded by the Erick E. and Edith H. Bergstrom Foundation.

Within a year, thousands of people in the three districts of Tororo, Busia, and Butaleja had adopted long-term and permanent family planning methods.

“4927 opted to use the Jadelle for five years, 9821 Implanon, and 885 had their intrauterine devices inserted. The permanent method of bi-tubal litigation attracted 291 women, and 15 men have embraced vasectomy, “Dr. Isiko said.” This is by and large a success in this region, where access to family planning is gradually gaining traction.”

Dr. Simon Lugoloobi, RHU Manager, Technical Services, says that permanent methods like vasectomy and bi-tubal litigation should be taken on like other family planning methods because they are medically safe and are carried out on people who think they no longer need children.

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Uganda Takes Leadership of the African Union’s Social Development Committee

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Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development of the African Union, Amb. Minata Samaté Cessouma(right) Minister Amongi Betty and Commissioner Mujuni at the meeting in Addis

Uganda has been elected as the new Bureau for the African Union (AU’s) Specialized Committee on Social Development, Labour and Employment, a position that accords the country a higher profile in running the sectoral affairs at the African Body.

The leadership tenure spans two years.

The Minister for Gender, Labour and Social Development, Hon. Amongi Betty Ongom, on behalf of Uganda, assumed the seat on Thursday during the 4th Ordinary Session of the committee held at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The committee, which reports directly to the AU’s Executive Council, is charged with promoting and developing cooperation amongst African countries in the field of social protection, labour, employment, productivity and poverty alleviation.

It also reviews and harmonises Member States’ policies and legislation, and coordinates Common African Positions to advance African interests, promote tripartism and freedom of association, collective bargaining and decent work.

The committee further reviews and assesses progress made by Member States and Regional Economic Communities in implementing the various instruments and policies that advance social protection.

In her inaugural speech, Hon. Amongi called for a critical review of sectors that have been most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and how African economies can realize post COVID-19 recovery through focusing on Social Development, Labour and Employment.

“Unless we push harder to establish safety nets in form of social protection, social security, and stimulus economic packages, among others, to build resilience through establishing cushioning mechanisms, our economies will be harshly bruised by the economic downsizing,” The Minister noted.

She added that unless reviewed and remedied, Africa’s large informal economies would suffer significant job losses in specific sectors like tourism, the creatives, and hospitality due to inherent fragility.

“Furthermore, both exports and imports will decline, affecting the potential of trade to support the growth process, thus affecting the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). As you are aware, currently, the continent is already struggling with under and unemployment.” She observed.

“It is clear that if we do not undertake the above interventions to address the identified challenges, there is a likelihood of increased crime rates, insecurity and instability on the continent.” She said.

She called for social dialogue at all levels as a key tool for developing and implementing sustainable solutions that are tailor-made to unique realities of the domains of Social Development, Labour and Employment.

Hon. Amongi underscored that importance of the tripartite structure – the government representatives, – the Employers and – the Workers – as a key driver for solid partnerships.

She commended the outgoing Bureau for the Committee and requested for support to the Ugandan Bureau.

She also congratulated the next Director-General of the International Labor Organization (ILO), Mr Gilbert Houngbo from Togo, who takes office in October 2022. He will become the first African to head the organization since its establishment 103 years ago.

The Minister was accompanied to Ethiopia by the Commissioner Equity and Rights at the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Mr. Mujuni Bernard and the Assistant Commissioner Employment Services, Mr. Milton Turyasiima.

The meeting was conducted under the theme: “Building Forward Better Wellbeing and Living Standards in Africa”.

If you have a story in your community or an opinion article, let’s publish it. Send us an email via editorial@accordconsults.com or WhatsApp +254797048150

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