By Staff Writer Pastor Edwin Musiime, the CEO of Crest Group decided to have a pre-wedding boat cruise with Christabel Nansubuga, the wife to be. The two will be wedded this Saturday by UK based Evangelists Bruce Oliver and Sharon Oliver.
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We wouldn't be wrong to say that veteran musician Jose Chameleone has something to smile about from his friendship with Jamaican Reggae band of four brothers, Morgan Heritage. A few days ago, Morgan Heritage dropped their much anticipated 16 track album dubbed 'Loyalty' and amongst the 16 songs off it is one dubbed 'Africa We […]
The post Chameleone On Cloud Nine After Featuring On Morgan Heritage’s New Album ‘Loyalty’ appeared first on Chano8.
NG' AKAKIIKO akabuuliriza ku mivuyo gy'ettaka kakyagenda mu maaso n'okukola okunoonyereza ku nsonga ezenjawulo, kagudde ku fayiro z'ettaka ly'e Buganda nga zikwekeddwa mu ofiisi y'ebyettaka mu Arua. ...
In May 2018, dancer-turned-singer Sharon Peyton got signed to songwriter Yese Oman Rafiki's Route Entertainment record label which nurtured her talent before she left in May this year under unclear circumstances After her end of journey at Route Entertainment, Sharon got signed to Karma Ivien Management in May but before that, she had already collaborated […]
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The speaker of parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has criticized the international community for failing to fulfil financial pledges made during the Kampala Solidarity Summit on Refugees, two years ago in support of refugees in Uganda.
The pledges recorded during the summit included $100,000 from Equatorial Guinea, $5 million pledged by the United Arab Emirates, $500,000 from China, $50 million from the United Kingdom, another $10 million from Japan.
During the same summit, Gabon pledged $250,000, neighbours Kenya pledged to contribute $200,000, Somalia pledged $100,000, Germany's pledge stood at $56 million. $5 million was expected from Australia, Italy pledged $5.6 million, Canada pledged $11.5 million, while Sweden committed to contributing $27.1 million.
The summit also recorded pledges from Norway at $4 million, Austria at $2.2 million, Netherlands at $6.2 million, the Republic of Korea with $6.8 million, Denmark at $62 million, Ireland at $2.6 million and Finland with $2.4 million.
Regional groupings such as the European Union pledged $96.3 million while the African Union pledged $100,000. The private sector pledges included MTN Group Uganda with an anticipated contribution of $1 million, among others.
But according to Kadaga, the Ugandan government has only realized $540,000, out of the total pledges of $358 million made during the summit, hosted by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The summit aimed at raising $2 billion.
"We had a solidarity summit in Uganda with all the world's big names and leaders from the biggest economies. But it was quite shocking when such leaders pledged very little sums of money and later even failed to fulfil the pledges," Kadaga said.
"During that summit we expected that many pledges would be met to support the refugee situation and I think they expected something like $15 million. But I think it is very very annoying that in the end it was only $540,000 that was eventually sent out of the $15 million. To me, it was fuzz that did not fulfil the expectations of the international community because everybody was there - the secretary-general of the United Nations was there, the head of FAO was there. Everybody who is anybody in the United Nations system was there but nothing came out of that summit other than a declaration." said Kadaga.
Kadaga made the remarks while addressing the 10th Conference of Speakers of African Parliaments and Senates at the Pan-African Parliament in Midrand, South Africa, on Tuesday. The two-day speaker's conference is being held under the theme, "Finding durable solutions to forced migration to accelerate integration and development in Africa: the role of national and regional parliaments.
Uganda is the second-biggest refugee-hosting country in the world and the first in Africa. Uganda, with a population of 39 million people, Uganda is home to more than 1.2 million refugees, the biggest percentage of whom are from South Sudan.
But like other host countries, Uganda continues to shoulder the responsibility of facilitating refugees' access to basic needs. According to the Office of the Prime Minister, Uganda needs at least $8 billion to continue its efforts in offering refuge to displaced populations.
Kadaga requested the UNHCR to build permanent structures such as health centres and schools in the refugee settlements as a stopgap to support host communities that have co-existed with refugees in the event that they leave.
"Settling of refugees comes with a cost to our people because there is a lot of pressure on the local population to share facilities. In one of our districts of Adjumani, 50 per cent of the population is made up of refugees and so there is pressure on water, schools, health facilities and the environment and this is very costly to the Uganda government," Kadaga said.
Kadaga proposed that for refugee host countries, there should be inter-ministerial coordination mechanisms to bring together the government, international, local and civil society organisations to address the refugee issue from a wider perspective.
"I want to confirm that refugees living in Uganda are not in camps but settlements, which gives them freedom of movement, access to social service and employment," Kadaga told the speakers.
Kadaga's protestations come at the time when Germany, UK and Japan have reportedly held direct funding towards Uganda's refugee programme over government's failure to respond to a corruption scandal where refugee numbers were inflated by over 300,000 refugees. The scandal was discovered in February last year and the donor community is angry that 18 months on, government is yet to effect the recommendations of the audit carried out by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services.
The audit revealed gross corruption and mismanagement of funds meant for the refugees through corruption, overpayments and double payments for contracts, fraud among others within the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. The audit carried out between January and May 2018 covered the period between July 1, 2016, and December 31, 2017.
The audit report made a number of recommendations; including the recovery of several misappropriated funds, review of UNHCR management, corruption and fraud mechanisms, review of UN's dealings with the government on projects implementation among others. UNHCR swiftly acted on the audit recommendations and had its funding reinstated.
From the time she joined the music industry, we are comfortable to say that Swangz Avenue's singer Vinka has had a straight path although there some challenges she has faced just like any other artiste would. Following the unveiling of the 2019 African Music Magazine Awards (AFRIMMA) nominees, the 'Chips Na Ketchup' singer was nominated […]
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Makerere University researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi has expressed disappointment with Buganda Road court Grade One magistrate, Gladys Kamasanyu for failing to find her guilty of annoying President Yoweri Museveni. Although Buganda Road Chief Magistrate's court today, Thursday found Nyanzi guilty of cyber harassment, she was acquitted of offensive communication on grounds that there was no overwhelming evidence against her.
Court said prosecution failed to adduce evidence to show how President Museveni was annoyed. Cyber harassment attracts a maximum sentence of three years or a fine of Shs 1.4 million. She will be sentenced tomorrow. Nyanzi said her intention had been to annoy the president because he has annoyed Ugandans for the last 30 years.
Nyanzi has been in Luzira since November 2018 after she refused to apply for bail. She becomes the first person to be convicted under the Computer Misuse Act which came into law a few years ago.
"I planned to offend to Yoweri Museveni Kaguta because has offended is for 30 plus years. Find me guilty of cyber harassment. Find me guilty of anything else, but please, find me guilty of offensive communication against Yoweri Museveni Kaguta! Find me guilty of that one. The prosecution wasn't good enough, Timothy you weren't good enough. Find me guilty of offending Yoweri Museveni Kaguta because that is what every serious mother in Uganda should be doing. We're tired of dictatorship." said Nyanzi to a cheering courtroom.
Adding;
"Send me to Luzira if my crime is I told a dirty delinquent dictator that he is a delinquent dictator, that he is a dictator and that Ugandans are tired. And I wish his mother's vagina had squeezed him out. I won't repent for anything. I celebrate that one woman was bold enough to deploy a dead woman's vagina. One dead woman's vagina was deployed. My name is Stella, it comes from Esteri. I'm Esteri, my great grand mother was Esteri. I deployed Esteri's vagina she is dead. It's a metaphor."
Nyanzi's conviction stems from a case in which Nyanzi is accused of posting a loutish birthday poem on her Facebook page on September 16, 2018, attacking the late Esteri Kokundeka the late mother to President Museveni. The poem was written in a vulgar language.
Although prosecution adduced evidence from three witnesses to pin Nyanzi, court mainly relied on the evidence of detective assistant superintendent of police Bill Ndyamuhaki from the cyber crimes department of police.
Kamasanyu said that Ndyamuhaki adduced overwhelming evidence to show how he was able to prove that Nyanzi owned the Facebook account where the indecent poem was posted. She noted that Ndyamuhaki tendered before court the evidence including exhibits such as activation codes used to create Nyanzi's Facebook account, the documents showing the number that activated the Facebook account, a photocopy of the passport Nyanzi reportedly used to apply for the phone number from MTN Uganda which she used to create the Facebook page.
Ndyamuhaki also tendered two bio-data forms obtained from Makerere University vice-chancellor and the human resource manager. The witness also adduced two court orders that were secured in December 2018 and April 2019 before Buganda Road chief magistrate Miriam Akello and later served to MTN Uganda and Makerere University before he obtained the information about Nyanzi.
Kamasanyu ruled that Nyanzi has no explanation whatsoever because she was asked to defend herself of the said charges but chose to remain silent. On the second charge of offensive communication, Kamasanyu said that the evidence from prosecution was insufficient since it couldn't prove that the poem had been posted repeatedly.
MOTHERLESS CHILDREN
Nyanzi said although the judge had counselled her against poisoning the minds of her three children and other young people in the country through her vulgar language, she said her children were actually celebrating her protest and imprisonment because they have been well prepared for a motherless future, and that she takes pride in being an immoral person.
"I would have raised the issue of my children, but I will not do that. Very many mothers would say, 'I have young children.' I will sacrifice motherhood to whatever alter I have to sacrifice motherhood to…mothers have to raise their voices against dictators such as Yoweri Kaguta Museveni…I was born for this moment…Let my children be motherless if it means I will speak truth to power." she said.
"My children celebrate my protest actions. My children are protestors who are free to express themselves. My children are taken care of by Ugandans who believe in the ideals I espouse. My children don't deserve a mother who is silent. I refuse to be silenced in the face of oppression, in the face of dictatorship." she added.
SILENCED MEDIA
Nyanzi took issues with the 'silenced public media', that she said are have been intimidated by the state.
"Internet must be protected. The public media has been silenced, the public media are silent. How many of us can afford OTT [over the top taxes]. So I use a weapon that I pay for. It is free of charge and I will not allow the dictatorship to tell me what words to say to the dictatorship. If it is a dirty vagina that gets the attention of the dictatorship, then a smelly vagina it will be." she said.
Nyanzi who spent most of her time drawing opposition political party, Forum for Democratic Party (FDC) and People Power hand sketches, told the magistrate to do something about the toilets in Luzira because every three weeks, sewerage is always overflowing into the women's bathroom exposing the female prisoners to infections. She said she did not blame the magistrate for finding her guilty because she had no choice.
"I really feel sorry for you. How do you dispense justice in an injustice system? I know this is important for your career."
Additional reporting by URN
