The Observer

17/06/2024

Kenya's NGO, Slum Saana partners Inteco to transform old ATMs into sanitary pad dispensers for girls from poor families so they don't miss school during their .

Each girl can use their card to 'withdraw' 8-16 pads for each menstruation cycle

10/03/2024

When cornered over the Shs 500 million, the man mbu did that which does not happen in this land.

He allegedly confessed and accepted responsibility; and even agreed to step down from the juicy perch. Sounds like a perambulating tale with special effects from Wakaliwood. The people oohed and aahed that the man had done the noble thing or perhaps more noble things to come in a land where mafia, pigs, parasites, haters, and foreign homos*xuals usually take the fall.

However, the man came back with a perambulating retort. Indignant, the man did not respond to the Shs 500 million accusations but painted a picture of a man in the throes of a well-oiled witch-hunt.

In the struggle for public accountability, the people ever enterprising with a healthy dose of laughter turn to social media. On social media, the people neither slumber nor forget; they keep receipts. Why social media?

The people long ago read the room and understood that to keep one’s voice/ head down is to live long for who doesn’t want the soft life of long life? Out on the physical streets, the people are hemmed in, smothered with blanketing corruption, blithering impunity, unadulterated unemployment, etc.; the list goes on depressingly.

Mathias Mpuuga

12/02/2024

18-year-old school dropout, Ernest Andrew brings free to his village using a self-made air-powered generator, bypassing use of fuel, oil or batteries. He has so far connected 9 homes and plans to power up the community school

04/02/2024

Upgraded Entebbe Airport passenger terminal

16/01/2024

🔹Quality vs Quantity: LDC demands probe into high-grade students

🔹We don’t need visitors to patch potholes, light the expressway

🔹How City House fire left its old resident languishing on streets

🔹How billions vanish in govt. Shs 7bn paid to ghost teachers

21/12/2023

As Ugandans continue to mither over the grandiose handover of the Shs 2.5 billion luxurious vehicles to former speakers of parliament by speaker Anita Annet Among, they will even feel more pained when they learn about the ultimate benefits of the judges when they retire.

What retired judges get

Of the three branches of government, the officials of the judiciary get the most lucrative perks when they retire. According to the Administration of the Judiciary Act, 2020, a retired chief justice earns the same monthly salary as that given to a serving chief justice.

A retired chief justice is also given a one-off lump sum retirement benefit equivalent to 2.4 per cent of his annual salary which is multiplied by five and the years of service. For example, the current chief justice Alphonse Owinyi-Dollo earns Shs 20 million per month, therefore, when he retires in 2026 when he clocks the mandatory retirement age of 70 years, he will receive Shs 172.8 million when you calculate the seven years he is going to spend as chief justice.

But the figure will increase if one considers the 18 years he collectively has been a judge since his appointment in 2008. A retired chief justice also receives either a furnished house or a one-off payment of twenty thousand currency points which is equivalent to Shs 400 million, an annual medical allowance equivalent to the medical allowance payable to a sitting chief justice, a chauffeur-driven car or a one-off payment of ten thousand currency points which is equivalent Shs 200 million.

A retired chief justice also is given state security, two domestic servants, or a payment of Shs 300,000 per month. The retired chief justice also receives a fuel and vehicle repairs allowance of Shs 2 million per month, airtime, and internet for Shs 220,000. The same benefits also accrue to the deputy chief justice taking home the same perks as those that accrue to the sitting deputy chief justice.

judiciary

11/11/2023

Busoga kingdom's premier, Dr Joseph Muvawala has roundly dismissed claims that the Kyabazinga, William Gabula Nadiope IV is already married to another woman.

On Thursday, lawyers representing Anna Alison, a woman based in the United Kingdom, wrote to Dr Stephen Kazimba, the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda claiming that their client was legally married to the Kyabazinga and that the two sired children.

The lawyers, Mugerwa and Partners Advocates and Solicitors said that any other marriage to another woman would amount to committing bigamy. Nadiope is slated to wed Jovia Mutesi next week on November 18.

While addressing journalists at the Busoga Kingdom headquarters today Saturday, Muvawala said that the reports are intended to tarnish the King and his subjects. Muvawala further said that the petition by Allison's lawyers has no marriage certificate as required for proof of marriage as alleged.

"His Majesty William Gabula Nadiope IV has never been married to anyone under the known forms of marriage in Uganda or elsewhere. He has never sired any children and is not a British citizen. And the purported Alison Ann Gabula is unknown to him. There is no record of any marriage of his majesty in the United Kingdom or anywhere else in the world and the content of the said letter is subject to police investigations," said Muvawala.

Busoga

31/10/2023

Government boardrooms play host to gold mafia

The common trail in these cases is the unlimited access of the alleged fraudsters to high-profile government offices and board rooms, access to key government documents, not to mention police’s inability to intervene when matters are reported.

In both cases, it took President Museveni’s direct intervention to have the suspects apprehended.

According to sources at the State House Anti-Corruption Unit (Shacu), the investigating body, Byokunda is accused of being the mastermind of an unauthorized meeting on August 22, 2023 in the ministry’s boardroom at Amber house between a Serbian investors and fake persons who introduced themselves as ministry officials.

29/10/2023

I will never forget her words: “There is nothing else that I can’t get from my father’s house, except s*x! So, why would I leave my parents’ home for this one thing and then get to the marriage and start being begged for s*x?”

She shut the debate down with class. So, this thing about stonewalling, what exactly is your problem? Why have you turned the s*x in your marriage into a haggling issue, a bargaining chip, part of this country’s endangered species that are rarely seen?

More and more married people are bringing excuses to the bedroom, sharing the marital bed (mbu, for the sake of our children) but refusing to share the reason that special bedroom exists in the first place. When you are no longer intimate, what you have is not really a marriage, unless there are underlying health issues that make lo******ng next to impossible.

But if you have just decided – like I have heard one wife declare – that enough s*x has been had to last you the rest of that marriage in celibacy, then you, my friend, are playing with fire.

s*x talk

13/09/2023

All Ugandans irrespective of age or employment status will have to fork out Shs 15,000 per year should the cabinet approve the proposed National Health Insurance Scheme bill, Health minister, Dr Ruth Aceng has revealed.

There have been various failed attempts by the Health ministry to establish the National Health Insurance Scheme since 2004. The latest attempt was last year when parliament passed the bill only to be withdrawn shortly after. Now, Aceng says in the new proposals, they are making it mandatory for everyone to join the scheme after establishing that Ugandans don’t appreciate what they don’t pay for.

"We have done a good job consulting many people and drafting this bill. In this bill, the National Health Insurance Scheme it is mandatory for all of us to join. Mandatory! When I say it is mandatory it means you don't have a choice whether you're working or not working. Whether you're in the village or whether you're a boda boda [rider], it is mandatory!

Because people don't appreciate services that they don't pay for and I can give you very good examples. When you go and find patients in Nakasero hospital, they behave, they don't break the toilet door or pull off the doors. They use the toilets very well and they pay for their services. But go to Mulago, they want to pull off the door, they want to break the windows, the beds are mishandled. People don't appreciate what they don't pay for," said Aceng.

health

05/09/2023

President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni holds the unique distinction of being perhaps the world’s most heavily advised leader, boasting an entourage of 82 presidential advisors across a spectrum of subjects, some of which seem remarkably specific, such as advice on Rukungiri district or Kigezi dioceses, and even household affairs.

In addition to these advisors, Museveni’s staff roster includes 27 senior presidential assistants, 40 private secretaries, and a domestic staff of 996 at his residence alone—comprising 59 waitresses, 14 room attendants, 80 gardeners, 129 drivers, 50 cleaners, 35 cooks, and 12 chefs, among others. This extensive payroll incurs a staggering annual cost of approximately Shs 50 billion

05/09/2023

“The Somalis in Uganda are living like Ugandans themselves; we can do whatever business we want, open a bank account, free movement, take our children to public or private schools. The only thing we cannot do is buy land, which is not a huge problem, because we can still get a lease of up to 99 years on land. The things and peace we get here we cannot even get it in our own home country Somalia; so, we are happy to stay here,” Kalif said.

“What I like most about Uganda is that there is peace here. For over 20 years that I have lived here, Ugandans have been hospitable to us. They were discriminatory at the start, [but] they got to appreciate that we were good people. We have lived harmoniously since.”

Cultural integration

Although the Somali community have been in Uganda for about 30 years and more, only a handful of Ugandans have married into the communities. It is even rarer in Eritrean and Ethiopian communities.

“In Somalia, for a man to marry a woman, he has to give her family camels and gold but since such items are hard to get here, they have to forego such cultural norms. It is now more of an understanding between the two families; they can agree for a man to pay between $200 and $1,000 as bride price or even have a woman given to him for free,” Kalif said.

However, Kalif said although they encourage intermarriage between Ugandans and Somalis, our cultural differences are too many; for instance, the Somali culture does not subscribe to cohabiting first.

“How can you get married when you have already been together and even had children? What kind of marriage is that? In our culture, marriage is supposed to happen when the woman is still a virgin, unless she is a widow. If she is unable to produce children, there is an option of getting a second wife.”

Somalia