Your mail: Museveni supports kingdoms

With shock, I listened to the message delivered by National Unity Platform (NUP) president Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine while in Luweero on September 8, 2023.

In his address, Kyagulanyi allegedly asserted that President Museveni harbours ill intentions towards Baganda. He claimed that the president has played a role in the demise of prominent Baganda figures in the business and religious sectors, as well as contributing to increased land grabbing in greater Luweero.

Furthermore, Kyagulanyi’s statement about Ssabasajja Kabaka’s powers being eroded by President Museveni is deemed an understatement on a person like President Museveni. Museveni has no intention of assuming a cultural leadership role nor do his family members aspire to such a position.

Individuals with sound reasoning ought to question Kyagulanyi’s assertions. Can someone who has significantly contributed to the restoration of cultural institutions subsequently seek to undermine or oppose them?

Under President Museveni, the government initiated the process of restoring traditional cultural institutions that had been abolished during the political upheavals of 1966–1967. President Museveni has been actively returning verified Buganda kingdom properties (Ebyaffe) and has expressed the government’s willingness to return any remaining properties.

Why hasn’t Kyagulanyi and his team addressed this aspect?

David Serumaga,
serumagadavid916@gmail.com

Someone needs to clean our football

The shameful refereeing caricature makes it difficult to point out which clubs in the Uganda Premier League (UPL) are giants and minnows. As a sports critic, I doubt the people officiating football matches in Uganda have undergone a course of training.

Oftentimes, there are cases of hooliganism reported, partly because of prejudiced officiation. But sadly, the soccer-governing body in the country, the Federation of Uganda Football Association (Fufa), over unknown reasons always abhorrently, jumps in bed with the errant officials, taking punitive measures against the aggrieved clubs and their supporters instead.

These perverting actions just leave one wondering whether the federation’s bossesare direct beneficiaries of the draconian officiation!?

Does Fufa and its referees really know how injurious it is to get cheated in a football competition? However, what one finds so intriguing is that the frivolous decisions are consistently aimed at countryside teams.

The footballist in me was apologetic when I watched the match between SC Vipers and SC Arua Hill played at Kitende, Kampala on Thursday, September 21, 2023. How did all the four match officials fail to notice the rugby-like foul inside the penalty area that left the visitor’s forward fall so hard that made even the fans in unison call for a penalty shoot?

In the UPL, it is understandable the team that finds the back of the net first always walks away with a point or pockets all the points, given the hardened league. Had SC Arua Hill been awarded that evident penalty in the first half, they would have picked a point or all the points from the match.

A Scandinavian friend of mine recently in a WhatsApp chat volunteered to share his views about UPL, asking if ours is really a football competition.

It is high time that Fufa woke up from the slumber and started acting against errant referees lest the beauty of the game be killed and hooliganism took centre stage.

Muzamil Alamiga,
Arua City.

Do we need this government?

A wife of my peasant friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at second stage at Mulago national referral hospital recently, with high chances of a successful treatment. The doctor on duty prescribed a monthly dose of tablets costing Shs 143,000 a day, culminating into a whopping Shs 4,290,000 monthly bill.

The husband sold the few possessions he had to pay for two weeks’ medication as his finances dried up. Impoverished relatives could not help. He is stuck with the patient, whose life is at stake due to cash deficit.

Citizens pay taxes to government, which, in exchange, should provide them services they cannot individually afford.

In Uganda, government hospitals and health centres have become death traps where health workers haul incessant excuses: “Medicine is out of stock, the laboratory equipment is not working, the reagents are out of stock..., try those services elsewhere!”

Sometimes, the simplest painkiller – panadol - is out of stock in national referral hospitals. According to Sustainable Development Goals, Uganda is obliged to work towards universal health coverage in which, interalia, she should make health services and goods accessible in a non-discriminatory manner, particularly to the most vulnerable.

Accessibility has four dimensions: non-discrimination, physical accessibility, financial accessibility [affordability] and information accessibility. Ugandan government has, years on end, averagely spent Shs 400 billion per annum on treatment of government officials abroad as hapless citizens struggle at home.

When minister Chris Baryomunsi collapsed in Kambunga, he was airlifted with a chopper to a private facility in Kampala for treatment. In other words, the locals can go on dying in village medical facilities. Why must citizens continue to die in health facilities which government officials avoid?

It is the duty and responsibility of government to provide universal quality education to her citizens. Government officials and politicians take their children to expensive private schools - some with international curricula - to equip them with global skills as our children get half-baked education in government schools.

This dualism creates crime, insecurity and violence where the deprived accuse the affluent kleptomaniacs of denying them of means of livelihood. We must make our policymakers learn to pass and implement only those policies and programmes where they will equally participate and find themselves at the receiving end as citizens of this country. Citizens must ask: do we still need this government that does not care about us?

Tumuhaise Herbert Bahati
tbahati@gmail.com

Regulate mushrooming recycling businesses

It’s becoming an eye-soaring sight to see small recycling businesses spring up everywhere. I personally have no problem with people trying to make a living out of recycling garbage, especially but not limited to plastic bottles, etc.

Anyone who has travelled on the road to Kiteezi in Wakiso district can testify how, besides its painfully depressing potholed road, the entire road is an eye-soaring sight of numerous small garbage collection points. This wasn’t the case more than 20 years ago.

Imagine if the same is allowed to continue developing on main roads like Entebbe road, etc, what would our international tourists think of us?

The solution should be for local authorities to ensure that all garbage collection points have enclosed structures where the public cannot visibly see all this yet-to-be recycled garbage. Someone needs to take action.

John Kavuma,
jkavuma8@gmail.com

letters@observer.ug