ARTICLES 2008-2015

By Andrew M. Mwenda The benefits of high food prices go to the rural poor (the majority) while the costs are incurred by urbanites, a minority. As I write this article, food prices in Uganda are falling rapidly. For instance, the farm-gate price of a kilogram of maize in Kiryandongo …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

It is difficult for a foreign country to dismantle the military, administrative and intelligence infrastructure of another country and establish a stable political order thereafter Last week the French parliament voted to continue their country’s involvement in NATO airstrikes in Libya to remove Muammar Gaddafi. I hold a strong scepticism …

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 …

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 …