Pastor julius Rwotlonyo of Watoto Central

The Leaders and Authority of Watoto Church on 20^th May 2018 vowed to continue wedding couples based on the church’s set guidelines currently being challenged before the Constitutional Court by a prospective groom as being “harsh and unconstitutional”.

Micheal Aboneka dragged the born again church to court in May 2018, saying he was stranded after the church imposed what he considered stringent conditions before he could be allowed to wed on October 27 2018.

However, during the 8am service at Watoto Downtown along Bombo Road in central Kampala on 20^th May 2018, the church’s Associate Team Leader, Pastor Julius Rwotlonyo, said anyone unwilling to obey the rules should look elsewhere to wed.

“Last week, media reports and particularly Daily Monitor newspaper, drew to our attention to a constitutional petition against Watoto Church, challenging our wedding procedures. We have engaged our lawyers to look into this matter but in the meantime, we want to reassure you that we will continue conducting marriages in line with our guidelines and our church constitution,” Pastor Rwotlonyo said, reading a statement from the institution’s leadership.
Aboneka is also seeking the Constitutional Court to annul all marriages consummated by Watoto Church under the restrictive conditions.

Pastor Rwotlonyo said: “We firmly believe that this is an expression of our freedom of worship as guaranteed by the Constitution of Uganda. It is not mandatory for anyone to exchange marriage vows in Watoto Church but if you choose to do so, we are committed to do whatever we can to prepare you for a proper marriage.”

Despite the church reacting to the pending suit by way of an oral statement to its members, their lawyers have to formally file their defence to the petition.
Pastor Rwotlonyo went on to justify the church’s set out marriage guidelines as being intended to have “strong and healthy” marriages among its members.

“We are also personally committed to helping you (church members) to building strong, healthy and happy families. Why? Because you matter. God Bless you!” he added.

In his petition last week, Aboneka narrates of how he last month booked for his wedding to be held at Watoto North but the conditions he was asked to meet were “harsh”, leaving him stranded.

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Job Title:   

Organization: UGAFODE Microfinance Limited (MDI)

Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

About Us:

UGAFODE Microfinance Limited (MDI) is a registered financial institution in Uganda and is adherent to the Central Bank’s regulations and guidelines and was founded in 1994 to provide quality microfinance services.

Job Summary: The Treasury Officer will be responsible for all matters pertaining to liquidity ensuring that at all times there are enough funds to run the institution and advising on alternative sources of funds available.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:   

Liquidity Management:

• In charge of monitoring regulatory reserve requirements, both internal and BOU limits daily ensuring that we do not fall below the required standards
• Liquidity gap analysis – Maturity reports, daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly cash flow projections- Monitoring liquid assets and liabilities – Maturity profiles of time deposits, borrowings and investments.
• Funding gap analysis and advising management on the cash needs
• Supporting the operations officers in branch liquidity management and timely issue of buffer cheques
• Monitoring floats for Money transfer services and making appropriate & timely money movements
• Monitoring, recording and reconciling Head office receipts through the bank – EFTs, RTGs and money transfers.
• Maintaining a constant dialogue with relationship managers of banks and lenders. Maintain a positive and mutually beneficial relationship

Funding – borrowings needs:

• Monitoring related risk limits e.g. Debt/Equity
• Evaluation of UGAFODE’s funding requirements  (operational plan & business plan)
• Writing funding proposals and provision of data
• Computation & Posting of monthly Financing costs – interest and amortised
• Maintaining schedules of balances in required formats.
• Collecting, processing, analyzing and appraising of all financial and related information to meet
• Monitoring loan covenants and ensuring the institution is complying

Grant Management:

• Monitoring of all grants balances both operational and capital grants,
• Preparing grants accountability schedules, recognition of all grant incomes.

Cash Centre management

• Management of cash operations of the cash center
• Replenishment, banking, request of cash from city branches ensuring that all central branches are liquid
• Ensuring compliance with minimum and maximum reserve limits are adhered to

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• The applicants for the UGAFODE Treasury Officer job placementshould hold a Bachelor’s University degree in a business-related course.
• Bias in Accounting will be added advantage
• A minimum of two to three years’ experience in banking operations, with exposure to Finance matters
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Maturity, honesty, integrity and a strong sense of ethics
• Demonstrated ability to remain calm in stressful situations
• Flexible team player
• Patience and understanding
• Highly persuasive, persistent and firm
• Age: 23 – 28 years

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send their applicationswhich should include a cover letter and an up-to-date detailed CV. Your applications should include names of three professional referees and a day-time telephone contact. Send them to:

Head of Human Resources,

UGAFODE Microfinance Limited (MDI),

Silva Arcade, Plot 62 Bombo Road,

P.O. Box 30815, Kampala. Uganda

Email to: recruitment@ugafode.co.ug (Please indicate the position you are applying for)

Deadline: 21^st February 2017

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Some of the suspects of the 2010 bomb blasts appearing in court recently

Five terror suspects, who were earlier acquitted by Kampala High Court, have been re-charged with terrorism and related conspiracies at the Chief Magistrate’s Court in Jinja.

According to a police statement, which forms basis of the charge, the suspects Omar Awadhi Omar,Muhammad Hamid Suleiman alas Abu Zainab, Abibaker Batemtyo, Dr. Ismail Kalule and Yaya Suleiman Mbuthia created  documents and materials connected with preparations to facilitate, assist or engage conspirators to undertake terrorist acts.

Police said the acts were commited while in Luzira prison

Police spokesperson Fred Enanga, said the five were charged in relation to a re-investigation that began immediately after handwritten documents and related materials were seized at the time of their detention in Luzira.

He said in the materials, the suspects asked members to conduct hostile reconnaissance around security facilities and other vital installations, in preparation for violence.

Enange said this acted as fresh evidence of a new plot that connected the suspects to the materials, recovered.

He said police and its sister security agencies continue to maintain vigilance on terrorism.

On 11 July 2010 twin bombs ripped through busy bars in Kampala, killing 76 people watching the football world cup final game.  In the days following the bombings, hundreds of people were rounded up and detained by Ugandan security forces.

Enanga has also encouraged the public to always be on the alert by reporting any suspicious activity to the police, other security personel or local council officials for immediate action.

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A group of three well-dressed men are standing in front of a wooden excuse for a shop near Kubiiri roundabout on Bombo Road.   It is a warm Saturday morning, but their laughing and chatting exceeds normal warmth.

They look so free and enjoying an ecstatic casual moment, at least reading from their faces and the hearty laughter they are enjoying together. They must be very happy people with nothing bothering them on this rarely satisfying planet, I say to myself.

As I near them, my arrival instantly sends them into a sudden silence. They look at each other like kids caught in the wrong. Suddenly, they all don sad faces and apparent confusion reigns in their midst. I look at them once again. None of them says a word as I approach! I’m confused.

I wonder whether I have entered a racket of wrong doers or interrupted people in a serious business conversation. Quickly I settle and ask to be excused. In unison, they seem relieved too and kindly ask whether I needed help. “Tukuyambe kii ssebo? (How can we help you sir)?” asks one of them, who I later learnt is Isah Musoke.

“Ssebo mu’firidwa? (Sir, have you lost some one)” quips in another before I could answer the first question. That is when I realized the cause of the sudden silence and ‘fake’ sadness on their faces when I arrived. They are running a shop for coffins.

I later tell them that I’m looking for information on “their kind of work”. Musoke leads me inside the shop as he explains to me how I had caught them unawares. When I ask him what he meant by “catching them unawares”, he pauses a bit, looks straight into my eyes and then says; ” we have a particular way we receive our clients” as he led me to a wooden stool to sit.

So, what is this particular way to welcome coffin buyers? I ask. “Our clients are most times very sad people. They come here to buy bags that will store away their loved ones forever,” says a philosophical Musoke with a faint voice. “You have to look mournful and politely take your client through different types of coffins and their prices. Even if the customer is smiling, you know deep inside he/she is hurting,” reasons Musoke.

It is then that I understand that what they did when they sighted me, is their customer care gimmick to create a feeling that they share your loss much as they depend on your loss to fend for their livelihoods. What a business!

Ivan Kyobe, the proprietor of Kubiiri  Coffin Makers workshop says making and selling selling coffins is no easy business since they deal with grieving clients since clearly you will seldom buy a coffin smiling.

Reporter Paul Kisembo and Ziwa Christopher interview Mr. Kyobe the Coffin maker

“At first I used to suffer emotional break down as some clients who came to buy coffins kept sobbing uncontrollably. I could wonder whether they see me as bad omen eating from their pain or some one offering a noble business like anybody else,” relives 42-year old Musoke, a resident of Makerere Kikoni as he stares in general direction.

Seven years of coffin business in lower Katanga near Wandegeya and opposite Mulago hospital has taken Musoke through different colors of trying emotional experiences.

“I remember one time a woman who looked so poor and emotionally drained asked me to sell her a coffin at half price. She did not even have enough transport money to carry the body of her child to Kayunga. I was contemplating to give it to her free of charge when my boss then said it was business and there was no way we could offer free coffins or slash prices,” remembers Musoke who now runs his own coffin shop. This incident affected Musoke so much that he considered quitting the job but was convinced to stay on by friends.

Musoke says he now sees his business as a noble one that should be appreciated by the public. But many coffin dealers wonder whether the public fully appreciates their work. While others like Musoke think so, others answer the question with cynicism and sneer.

“Batuyiita balogo, lwaki? (they call us witches, why)?” asks an angry looking Steven Muwemba of Tukola Kubawo Carpentry Workshop, as he hammers the last nail at the bottom of a 6.6ft coffin. Of all coffin dealers and makers we interviewed, it is Muwemba who had a big score to settle with unsatisfied members of the public.

“Did we start death? Look at me. I’m just 35 years. Death was there before I was born. Can someone convince me that this is not business,” counters Muwemba who operates near Nalukolongo, near Natete, a Kampala suburb. Like Muwemba, Mawanda Kimbugwe is incensed by what he calls ‘some people’s lack of understanding’. He says that in his eleven-year-old job, satisfying such people has caused him “headache”.

“People should appreciate us. Even car mechanics do not repair mechanically sound vehicles neither do doctors pray that people fall sick. It is not our wish that people die,” laments Kimbugwe who runs his business at Musigula zone, Rubaga in close company of his family of two children and wife.

Kimbugwe like many others operates a roadside coffin shop along Masaka road. He sells ready-made coffins. As we learnt, rarely do you find any dealers who make coffins on order.

Does this mean they operate almost on sure business, that customers will come? Musoke says it is because of the untimely nature of death. Kimbugwe says while no one plans or wants to buy a coffin, it is something all families must buy when they time comes -their loved one has died.

An intriguing part from this business is that it heavily relies on is High Death rates. The irony about the coffin business is the higher the number of deaths, the more income the business earns. “It’s clearly hard to live with but this is what it takes for ends to meet in this business.

How does one master such a business for which there is no specialized training? Eleven years in business Kimbugwe has mastered average measurement for all heights.

A probing question on the accuracy of his measurement prompts Kimbugwe to look at me with a keen observation. “Kati gwe ekipimo kyo futi mukaga ne kittundu,” (for instance your height is about 6.5ft), declares Kimbugwe as he keeps away the hands of his youngest son who was trying to push a piece of bread in his mouth.

He says that the prices of coffins are as different as their sizes, designs and the quality of timber the coffin is made of. From 2ft for one month olds to the 6.6ft for adults prices stretch from 50,000 to 200,000 shillings for ordinary designs while prices sky rocket to the tune of 3450,000 to 900,000 Uganda shillings for the affluent coffin designs commonly known as “madala“, some  with panel glass or more caskets preferred by the more affluent. Caskets for infants are also classed in that arrangement however a negotiation with Mr Kyobe can lead you to a reasonable price. Different Coffin Designs on PhotoPeach Because marketing is a sublime tool for the survival of any business, coffin traders do not have to operate in obscurity anymore.

The high unemployment rates the youth are grappling with today has seen many young people seeking a living through this trade. Today there is an increasing number of companies offering Funeral Services.

Like in other businesses, competition is high among coffin traders, which explains why most coffin dealers will do any thing possible to operate by roadside and in the vicinity of hospitals.

For Specioza Nakanwagi who operates along Bombo road at Kavule, competition has come about because people no longer look at the business with abomination but also as a solution to the rampant unemployment.

Whatever the size, design or quality of coffins one deals in, the demand for coffins is ever increasing according to George William Bukenya of Ndeba. “Death is as abundant as is life,” says Bukenya who can never regret let alone give up his business.

Additional reporting by Zziwa Christopher

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Construction of a state of the art Hotel Africana Moroto by the BMK group of Companies headed by Al-hajji Dr. Bulaimu Muwanga Kibirige has kicked off in Moroto District. The First Lady and Minister for Karamoja Affairs Janet Museveni officiated at the ground breaking and kick start of the first phase of Hotel Africana Moroto in Naitakwae Parish Nadunget Sub.

The First Lady, who braved a heavy rain down pour in Moroto which had not seen a drop of rain for the last 2 months, also unveiled the proposed plan for the hotel whose first phase will have 64 accommodation rooms, with 2 suits, 10 apartments, two restaurants and 4 conference rooms. It will also have a bakery, gym, swimming pool, staff quarters, a supermarket, and offices for rent.

Janet Museveni applauded the BMK family for coming to Karamoja to reinforce the work of Government in the region and to facilitate actual development and real social change. She said that by the BMK family taking the first step and coming to Karamoja to put up a hotel, it shows that they are true nationalists who understand the needs of a nation and take risks to fulfil and bridge the gaps so that real development can begin.

She gave an example of an Indian nationalist who built the first major hotel ‘the Taj Bombay’ after India’s Independence when people from the developed countries were saying they could not go to India because it lacked modern facilities. “This hotel is still the most outstanding one today in India, and this same man started Air India so that tourists would not have any excuse whatsoever of not visiting India. This is now their national carrier. It still flies to this day”, she added.

She challenged Al-hajji Bulaimu Kibirige to consider investing into airline business since Air Uganda does not exist. “We need Ugandans of Ugandan origin who are true nationalists willing to go into areas where others dare not go and fulfil those needs of our country”, she said.

Janet Museveni welcomed other Ugandans in social services to come to Karamoja and take advantage of the prevailing peace and various investment opportunities. She said, “those who have the ‘right glasses which show you what is happening in places like Karamoja’, as President Museveni says, they can show them now that the place to go to start real business is Karamoja”, she argued. She said banking and transport services are still desperately needed in Karamoja to address the challenge of people’s savings being unsafe in their homesteads and that of Karimojong still walking long distances due to lack of transport. She assured the investors of Government’s commitment to ensure security in the region and safety for them and their equipment while in Karamoja.

On behalf of the President and the Government, she thanked Al-hajji Bulaimu Kibirige for the hotel project in Karamoja. Al-hajji Bulaimu Muwanga Kibirige said the Hotel project’s first phase estimated to cost about 8 million US Dollars will be complete in 24 months. He requested Government to consider granting Hotel Africana Moroto a duty free waive on imported construction materials.

He said Hotel Africana Moroto will help address the current accommodation, offices to let, conferencing and banking gaps in Moroto. He said they will also start express transport services from Hotel Africana Kampala to Moroto and train local people in hotel operation skills.

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Here is the statement of Jim Muhwezi, the Minister of Information and National Guidance on the Kagezi’s unfortunate death

It is with deep sadness that we confirm that Senior Principal State Attorney Joan Kagezi has been killed this evening by assailants unknown and at large.

The assailants trailed her car using a boda-boda, following her usual route home, and when she stopped to do some shopping in Kiwatule, east of Kampala, they opened fire on her.

Her children were with her in the vehicle but were not harmed in the shooting.

The police has taken up investigations into the case and are following all leads available.

This crime will not go unpunished.

On behalf of the Government of Uganda, I call upon members of the general public to avoid sensationalising the criminal nature of this killing, and to respect the honour and dignity of Joan Kagezi, who worked diligently for law and order, and peace and security for all Ugandans.

May her soul Rest in Eternal Peace.

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If Uganda was a bomb, in a few seconds it would blast. today we have been at some of the Municipal offices in Kampala. They city leaders are conducting interviews for those who will conduct the up coming census; they have 500 positions but close to 10,000 people have applied!

The applicants include Masters Degrees holders. Some people claim that one of the top heads of the electoral commission was seen lobbying to fix in his daughter!
The bad thing is that even parish chiefs who already have jobs are also competing for these jobs! Looking at the young face around, you see faces that think possibly this will be their chance to get employment! There was one who was told that he can’t be on the short list.

Ends

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Traffic along the usually busy roads in Uganda was on Friday brought to a standstill following the landing of an ill-fated plane, N604AR at Kiwawu 22 kilometres after it reportedly ran out of fuel.

The plane was carrying 8 US marines who were travelling from Entebbe International Airport to Juba, South Sudan before it experienced the problem and made an emergency landing in the middle of the road. One of the police spokesmen in Uganda Phillip Mukasa confirmed the incident and said no casuality was reported. The plane’s engine stopped operating. But rmours have circulated in Kampala that the plane had a bomb on board.

Ends

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Uganda Police are investigating reports that a CoCIS student at Makerere University Kampala was to be paid Uganda shillings 15 million to plant bomb materials at the university the ongoing examination period.

The Shebab terrorists had reportedly hired this student to plant bombs at toilets, halls of residences at Makerere University, restaurants and some lecture rooms.

The university management today circulated a notice titled, “Security alert, be cautious.” The notice requested all students at Makerere University to be vigilant. One can report any suspicious materials he/she comes across to police on 0718792486 or 0701400668.

Ends

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