By A Correspondent Glued to their seats in a classroom that was the biggest in this rural primary school of Bubangizi, were parents fearful of what was going to befall their school since the lanky undergraduate of political science at Makerere University had decided to say what everybody had on …
Read More »Origin of HIV: myth and reality
By Dr Sam. A. Okunonzi The first 14 AIDS patients were from Manhattan and Greenwich Village in New York. On June 5th 1981, the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) reported a cluster of cases of pneumocysitis pneumonia, a very rare condition, in 5 gay men in Los Angeles. This was …
Read More »Can govt meet teachers’ pay demands?
By Stephen Kafeero Both primary and secondary school teachers threatened a countryside strike demanding 100% salary rise. The government responded defiantly saying there was no money in the budget to cater for the wage increment. The Uganda National Teachers Union (UNATU) said the teachers’ poor pay has been compounded by …
Read More »When rural Rutooma got electricity
By Agather Atuhaire One villager’s life changed but others still wait in vain Tuwangye Yorokam excitedly tells anyone willing to listen how electricity has made everything exciting in his village of Rutooma in Bwizibwera, Mbarara district in western Uganda. Tuwangye, 42, lives in a village about eight kilometers away from …
Read More »We don’t have torture as a service
By Mubatsi Asinja Habati After the US-based Human Rights Watch published a report on torture, deplorable health conditions and forced labour in Uganda’s prisons, The Independent’s Mubatsi Asinja Habati spoke about it with Uganda Prisons Service Commissioner General, Dr Johnson Byabashaija. A report by an international organization, Human Rights Watch …
Read More »Fire-fighting in energy ministry
By Eriasa Mukiibi Sserunjogi Should government borrow Shs 350bn to pay off unclear debts? Irene Nafuna Muloni, the new Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources was only 26 years old when President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986. Museveni has now handed Muloni a task he has failed to …
Read More »American group predicts instability over Museveni
By Agatha Atuhaire President is now 67 and cannot govern forever Election year 2016 will be a turning point for Uganda, according to a report by the powerful American policy solutions provider, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). As a sign of likely instability, the June 30 report …
Read More »Belief without reason and evidence is bull
By Musaazi Namiti When you look at how death strikes, you realise God doesn’t know when we will die, so he can’t reserve another life for us in heaven when we die. The recent assertion by the eminent British scientist Stephen Hawking that there is no life after death will certainly …
Read More »Ministries point at each other as teachers’ strike deadline draws near
By Stephen Kafeero Nyaburu Merab, a teacher at Bat Valley Primary School, is at crossroads with life. She is torn between staying on her job of miserable pay or leaving it and be jobless. She is now a Grade V teacher, having upgraded from Grade III. But she still earns …
Read More »Posta Uganda’s tricky Shs1.4bn restructuring
By Rukiya Makuma Post office body lays off 200 workers but some return amidst allegations of corruption James Muganzi was one of 196 workers who were laid off by the Uganda Post Ltd, commonly called Posta Uganda, in May. When the termination benefits were calculated, Muganzi was among the top …
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