Uganda

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The Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga, has called for an emergency bridge on River Katonga along the Kampala-Masaka Highway until the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) constructs a new one.

According to Mpuuga, the provisional arrangement will in meantime support the transport of persons and light merchandise.

He made the statement during his on-spot assessment of roads on Monday, 15 May 2023 that were affected by the flooding of River Katonga.

Hon. Mpuuga started his visit at the main bridge along the highway, in Mpigi district which caved in on Thursday, 11 May 2023. Thereafter, he inspected the damaged bridge that connects Gomba to Kalungu district along the Villa-Maria, Kyamulibwa- Kabulasoke Road.

Here, the bridge was washed away a week prior and travelers now use canoes to connect from one side to another. The LOP, accompanied by several members of his cabinet, ended his visit in Ssembabule district.

Following the flooding of River Katonga and the eventual damage visited on the bridge by ravaging storm waters, travelers from Kampala, the capital city, were advised to use the Mpigi-Butambala-Ssembabule Road as an alternative, while those from Masaka were asked to use the Masaka-Ssembabule Road.

"It is very unfortunate, the damage has greatly affected the local and national economy because this being a highway, it is a gateway to almost five neighbouring nations. Trade has been interfered with and movement of people...school children, persons going to hospital across Kayabwe... generally the general way of life of the community has been interfered with," said Hon. Mpuuga.

He said that alternative routes were not prepared for this kind of traffic and noted that the old bridge could have been built with substandard technology.

“If you look at the bars of the broken bridge...clearly there was a lot of compromising done. But I hope it is a huge lesson to engineers in UNRA as well as the environmentalists. This particular problem was just about to happen...it is only that it took a bit longer," Mpuuga said.

He recounted a decision made in the 10th Parliament advising government to halt rice growing and limit excavation of sand in Lwera.

"The interference with the eco-system could have been stopped long time ago. We all know that people mining sand in Lwera have no restoration or decommissioning programme to restore the environment. The rice growers are expanding...interfering with the eco-system and nature is fighting back," he added.

Hajjat Aisha Nakirijja, the Vice Chairperson, Mpigi District Local Government, expressed concern about the damaged bridge saying that markets for traders within the community are no longer accessible and that health facilities, like Nkozi hospital and Masaka referral hospital cannot be accessed by several people.

Fenekansi Sserwadda, the Kilyamenvu Village Local Council 1 chairperson also said that the 48 kilometre Villa-Maria, Kyamulibwa- Kabulasoke Road is key in transportation of the sick and goods from Masaka and that the current route through Ssembabule is longer, hence making it expensive for the locals to move goods to markets.

UNRA has assured the public that emergency repair works on the damaged bridge along the highway will take about three weeks.

The shadow ministers that accompanied the LOP included Hon. Yusuf Nsibambi (Works and Transport), Hon. Hilary Kiyaga (Culture and Performing Arts), Hon. Betty Naluyima (Local Government), Hon. Joyce Bagala (Information and Anti-Corruption), Hon. Gorreth Namugga (Science, Innovation and Communication Technology), Hon. Fortunate Nantongo (Gender, Labour and Social Development), Hon. Helen Nakimuli (Animal Industry and Fisheries), Hon. Francis Katabaazi (East African Community Affairs) and Kyamuswa County MP, Hon. Moses Kabuusu.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda.

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“Uganda is Africa in miniature,” said Susan Ngongi Namondo, United Nations Resident Coordinator in Uganda, at the wrap up of the Flexible Voluntary Contribution (FVC) Resource Partners' Field Trip, held in Uganda from 1 to 5 May. “All the development challenges that are faced in the rest of the African continent are present here,” she continued, “including gender gaps, extreme weather events, land tenure issues, and a high number of youths entering the labour market every year.” Nevertheless, Uganda holds also immense potential. “The country is blessed in terms of weather and natural resources,” added Antonio Querido, Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Uganda. “Agriculture can help absorb the youth workforce, which brings many opportunities for economic growth and innovation.”

The FVC Resource Partners' Field Trip, co-organized by the FAO Representation in Uganda and the Secretariat of the FVC, allowed resource partners to have a first-hand experience of how FVC-funded interventions have been instrumental to harnessing opportunities and addressing the most pressing challenges in the country. Ten officials of the FVC resource partners participated in the field trip, representing the governments of Belgium, Flanders, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.

A systemic response to development challenges

“The FVC is a unique, pooled, voluntary funding instrument established in 2010, which allows resource partners to support FAO's response to development challenges in a timely and cost-effective manner, in support of the Sustainable Development Goals,” explained Festus Akinnifesi, Head of Multi-Partner Initiatives and Flexible Funds in the FAO Resource Mobilization and Private Sector Partnerships Division (PSR).

Since its establishment, the FVC has supported over 65 projects in more than 80 countries, transforming hundreds of thousands of lives. In Uganda, FAO is implementing 14 out of the total 53 FVC-funded projects in the 2018-21 funding cycle. The impact can be seen at all levels – from policymaking to rural households.

The FVC Field Trip included field visits to beneficiaries in rural areas and strategic meetings with key stakeholders, such as Government officials and local implementing partners.

“Uganda is being looked upon as a country that other countries can learn from,” said Siobhan Kelly, FAO Agribusiness Economist, during the meeting with the Chair of the National Food Systems Coordination Committee (NFSCC). The NFSCC, hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister, embodies Uganda's coordinated approach towards the realization of the commitments made during the National Food Systems Dialogues. Currently, FAO is working with the Government to translate the national post-summit agenda into action.

The meetings with representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industries and Fisheries (MAAIF), incubators, diaspora networks, and youth organizations provided valuable opportunities to discuss FAO's work to boost decent employment in the Ugandan agrifood system, from different angles.

For instance, through FVC funds, FAO supported the establishment of the Uganda Diaspora Agribusiness Network (UDAN), which facilitates the transfer of knowledge and investments from diaspora members to Ugandan youth-led agribusinesses, as explained by Giulia Castro, FAO Migration and Rural Employment Specialist. The initiative is also helping young agripreneurs access foreign markets. Ambassador Johnny Muhindo, Head of the Diaspora Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, commended these efforts.

Listening to rural communities

Uganda's small-scale fisheries sector, centred around the large lakes across the country, is an important source of employment for local communities. While fishing remains a male dominated activity, members of the Kiyindi Women Group in Buikwe explained how the fishing inputs, drying racks, kilns, and the training in post-harvest handling provided by FAO have empowered them, boosting their economic activities and enhancing their food and income security.

In Mubende,local farmers engaged in FAO's Farmer Field Schools (FFS) have benefited from training on group dynamics, agribusiness, innovative agricultural practices, village banking opportunities and gender equality and women's economic empowerment.

As a result, members of the Ssaka Women groupcurrentlygrow vegetables, rear poultry, and have been raising and saving money for three years with plans for business expansion. Members of the Balitulabilako FFS group in Lugala apply soil and water conservation practices,and prioritize coffee production. They are working to increase production, acquire value-addition technologies and market better. 

“Scaling up is key,” said Festus Akinnifesi. “In Uganda we have seen a great model of partnership with stakeholders at all levels, we have heard life changing testimonies from the beneficiaries, and we are learning about successful practices that can be replicated elsewhere.” According to Priya Gujadhur, Deputy FAO Representative in Uganda, “The FVC funding instrument is key to bringing innovation, leveraging capacity, and creating catalytic effects. We need to connect it to bilateral investments to scale up impact.” 

The feedback provided by FVC resource partners during the field trip is crucial to charting the way forward and identifying key priority areas, including further integration of interventions at UN level, in the context of the agrifood system transformations strategy.

FAO appreciates the generosity of all eleven resource partners that made flexible voluntary contributions in the 2018-21 funding cycle: Australia, Belgium, Flanders, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of FAO Regional Office for Africa.

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Members of the Committee on Health on a tour of select districts in Northern Uganda are perturbed by the impact of Nodding Disease on children.

In a meeting with the Gulu District Local Government leaders on Thursday, 11 May 2023, the committee led by its deputy chairperson, Hon. Joel Ssebikaali, was informed that there are 135 registered cases in the different sub counties across the district.

Nodding syndrome is a type of epilepsy characterised by repeated head-nodding seizures that appear in previously healthy children aged between three and 18 years.

The MPs were also shocked by the increasing level of hunger in in the region despite interventions like provision of oxen to plough people's land.

“We have moved to many districts like Gulu, Omoro and Pader where we have discovered a number of families being hit by hunger,” said Ssebikaali, advising the district leadership to initiate different avenues to sensitise their people about food security.

Santa Labong, a mother of two infected children, Patricia Auma, aged 18 and Ireen Odong, aged 24, said she relied on subsistence farming to provide for her family.

However, she is now constrained to tend her garden as she has to remain home to care for the sick children.

The Gulu District Health Officer (DHO), Dr Kenneth Canna, told the MPs the lack of a specialised clinic to treat Nodding Disease patients had left them with no option but to use the Out Patients Department.

According Dominic Okidi, who represented the DHO for Pader, some of the patients had died as result of drowning at the wells where they are sent to fetch water or fallen into fire places in the kitchens – all because of their condition that makes them unstable and vulnerable to falling.

Okidi requested that two treatment centres and a rehabilitation facility are constructed to treat and manage the patients.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda.

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The Committee on HIV/AIDS and Related Matters has prayed for government intervention to curb the spread of the virus in the border districts of Tororo and Busia.

During the committee's oversight visit to assess the impact of HIV/AIDS amongst the populations with emphasis to commercial sex workers, drug addicts and people involved in acts of homosexuality, the committee also visited Tororo Municipal Council, Bison Health Centre III, Malaba Health Centre and Busia Municipal Council.

The committee led by its chairperson, Hon. Sarah Kayagi, held meetings between 10 and 12 May 2023 with key district leaders who decried the continued increase in HIV/AIDS infections.

Available information at the Ministry of Health indicates that the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Tororo district was at six per cent in 2020 and that there were 893 new infections.

Persons living with HIV/AIDS in Tororo informed the committee that there is a need to extend support to their people instead of limiting resources to people in Kampala, the capital city.

The Tororo Deputy Resident District Commissioner, Albert Amula, urged the committee to ensure that the AIDS Trust Fund is operationalised and also that the committee uses its mandate to appropriate more money to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

“Since some of the donors who have been funding the sector are set to pull out because of the anti-homosexuality bill, the time is now for you to operationalise the fund,” he said.

Kayagi informed stakeholders that the anti-homosexuality bill that was passed by Parliament was not only intended to criminalise the acts of homosexuality but also incorporated rehabilitation and treatment of victims.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda.

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Legislators have recommended that accounting officers found to be in breach of the law be dismissed from service.

The hard-hitting recommendation follows debate on a report presented by the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (Local Government), Hon. Martin Ojara Mapenduzi on the Report of the Auditor General for the Financial Year 2021/2022.

The report that focused on 27 district local governments, three cities, four divisions and five municipal councils was presented during plenary chaired by Speaker Anita Among on Wednesday, 10 May 2023.

In its findings, the report pinned some district accounting officers on gross negligence and recommended that the Permanent Secretary / Secretary to the Treasury hold them personally liable and reprimand them for failing to perform their duties and causing the return of funds to the Consolidated Fund.

Hon. Joseph Ssewungu, the Kalungu West County MP said: “The idea that once an accounting officer is implicated, he is transferred to another work station is making these officers think that they are invincible.”

Adjumani District Woman Representative, Hon. Jesca Ababiku, proposed that apart from holding the accounting officers responsible, other line ministries should also be held liable. She gave an example of the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development Programme where the lands ministry delayed in planning and delivering plans for the projects.

According to the report, 35 local government votes considered were warranted a total sum of Shs1,278.2 billion equivalent to 21.3 per cent of the total warrants to the local governments' budget during the financial year under review.

The above is exclusive of local revenues and out of that, only Shs1,163.9 billion was expended, representing 91 per cent absorption of the budget released. This led to the return of Shs114 billion to the Consolidated Fund as a result of failure to absorb the resources.

Parliament has consistently decried low budget absorption as one of the hindrances to service delivery in local governments with some MPs faulting the finance ministry for delaying to disburse funds on time.

The Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Mathias Mpuuga, implored the House to carefully analyse the situation that local governments find themselves in, opining that one of the contributors to the problem is centralisation.

“We need to have a potted conversation as to whether de-centralisation is viable. We said we were taking services closer to the people but we instead took corruption,” he said.

“I want to invite this House to re-think the whole idea of devolution of powers. We need very serious reforms including through legislation,” he added.

He called upon MPs to become active on their district roads committees, emphasising that it is one of the best grounds to carry out oversight and prevent corruption by technical people.  

The Aruu North County MP, Hon. Santa Okot, reminded the House that issues of returning money to the Consolidated Fund was not a recent matter and queried why the Government was not finding any solutions to the problems yet the Auditor General's report always has the same recommendations.

Soroti City MP, Hon. Jonathan Ebwalu, informed the House that cities are still operating with municipality budgets and are borrowing equipment from the municipal as a result of underfunding.

The Minister of State for Finance, Planning and Economic Development (General Duties), Hon. Henry Musasizi, said that the money returned to the Consolidated Fund is spent on other priorities and cannot be ringfenced for the same previous appropriation.

Musasizi pledged to present a comprehensive report from the central and local governments on money returned.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Parliament of the Republic of Uganda.

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There was little progress in poverty reduction in Uganda during much of the decade leading up to 2019/20. Numerous shocks not only reduced economic growth, they also hampered the ability of households to increase their income, says a new World Bank poverty assessment report, Strengthening Resilience to Accelerate Poverty Reduction in Uganda.

According to the report, launched today in Kampala, about 30% of Ugandans were poor in 2019/20, a percentage only slightly lower than 31% in 2012/13. The poverty rate used in the World Bank study is based on revisions made to the poverty line by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics in 2021. Joseph Enyimu, Acting Commissioner in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, has described these revisions as expanding the scope of Uganda's poverty measurements to cater for the cost-of-living in the country “within the context of modernizing societal aspirations and rising standards of living.”

Shocks have disproportionately affected Uganda's poor and rural residents, according to the report, with 40% of rural and 30% of urban households experiencing at least one since 2013. About 90% of farmers report that climate conditions have grown worse for agriculture over the last decade.

Given the limited amount of social assistance available in Uganda and the low resilience of households, “the poor were more likely to use detrimental coping strategies, such as reducing food consumption, which could have negative consequences for their human capital in the long run,” said Mukami Kariuki, the World Bank's Country Manager in Uganda. “As a result, at least 50% of Ugandans remain vulnerable to the risk of falling back into poverty in next two years.”

“Productive economic opportunities outside agriculture build resilience but these were not easily accessible to the poor,” said Nistha Sinha, a World Bank Senior Economist and one the report's two lead authors. Strategies that are known to increase people's incomes—such as the transition from subsistence agriculture to non-farm activities and migration from rural to urban areas—proceeded at a faster pace among the wealthier and more educated but were not readily accessible to the poor. COVID-19 slowed down this structural change and pushed many people back into subsistence agriculture.

“Education, health, and access to basic services are crucial for building resilience and for equipping a fast-growing population with the opportunities and skills needed to earn higher incomes,” said Aziz Atamanov, World Bank Senior Economist and the other lead author. “But access to these services remains very unequal.” The report demonstrates that access among children to such basics as electricity, education, sanitation, water, and health remains far from universal. The COVID-19 pandemic stalled the progress Uganda had been making in improving human capital growth, particularly in education.

The study also examined telecommunication services, an increasingly important factor in people's lives and in income-earning prospects. Closing the digital infrastructure gap stimulates economic growth and is especially relevant given Uganda's large population of youth. Yet the sector is held back by limited competition, which gets in the way of making digital services more affordable for existing users and discourages take-up by new users, who are typically less well-off.

The report calls for a two-pronged approach to poverty reduction. The first part of the approach is to raise productivity and income-earning opportunities by investing in the development of human capital. Targeting lagging regions and the country's most vulnerable groups, reducing barriers and costs to non-farm opportunities, and increasing competition in the telecommunications sector are all seen as vital to this. The second part is to strengthen household resilience both by addressing deficiencies left in human capital and by expanding safety nets for both Ugandans and refugees to lessen their vulnerability at household level. Ideally, social protection programs should also be accompanied by policies to promote the sort of non-traditional insurance and savings schemes that could prove viable in the large informal sector in Uganda.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The World Bank Group.

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Distributed by APO Group on behalf of GITEX Africa.

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