The Year of the Nile Basin: Putting Water at the Heart of Regional Transformation COMMENT | Dr Deo-Guide Rurema | World Water Day, on March 22 every year, is about focusing attention on the importance of water. This year’s celebration coincides with The Year of the Nile Basin, as declared by the …
Read More »Uganda’s strategic dilemma Part2
Why Uganda’s economy is dominated by multinational capital and what cannot be done about it THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | We begin from where we stopped last week. Uganda’s growing economy served three critical purposes: It increased government revenues, gave greater confidence to donors to give more …
Read More »Uganda’s strategic dilemma
Why Uganda’s economy is dominated by multinational capital and what cannot be done about it THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Uganda is facing a dilemma. The country is investing tens of billions of dollars in huge infrastructure projects – dams, airports, highways, bridges, railways, water systems etc. …
Read More »The Rwanda-Uganda conflict
How Kampala has mismanaged her relations with Kigali and why Rwanda closed her border THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Let me do what politicians always do – claim they run for office due to popular demand. Many people have been asking me to comment on the heightened …
Read More »East African real estate investors discover the working class
 COMMENT | SAMUEL KARIUKI | The last 20 years of real estate boom in East Africa has changed our building landscape and inventory, as it quite rightly should have done. Our starting point was a region that was short of every kind of building, from housing, to shops, through …
Read More »Museveni’s AU speech
THE LAST WORD: Why there is a big disconnect between Museveni the intellectual and Museveni the politician THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week, President Yoweri Museveni delivered an impressive speech to fellow African Union (AU) heads of state in Addis Ababa about the need for regional …
Read More »Impunity at Bank of Uganda
THE LAST WORD: How institutional independence allowed the central bank to indulge in gross mismanagement and incompetence THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week was the most shameful for Bank of Uganda. During hearings before the parliamentary committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) it …
Read More »Wrong thinking on health services
THE LAST WORD: Why expecting a Ugandan peasant to have the same quality of healthcare as an American is madness THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Last week, I attended the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE)’s monthly State of the Nation seminar on public spending and …
Read More »Economic costs of increasing debt
Understanding the high risk burden to the economy posed by the current debt level COMMENT | Ezra Munyabonera | Due to high borrowing costs—especially domestically—Uganda’s debt burden may reach unsustainable levels in the medium term, unless government slows down on accumulation of new debt. Since the start of implementing infrastructure …
Read More »Michela Wrong’s war on Kagame
THE LAST WORD: How racial prejudice led The Guardian to publish an article that is basically a hit job on Rwanda THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On January 14, The Guardian newspaper in England published a 5,800 word long article by Michela Wrong titled “Rwanda’s Kashogi.” It accused …
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