The Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) delegates currently in Uganda for an IPU conference have held a closed door meeting with the leaders of Uganda Young Democrats. The meeting left the government puzzled because president Museveni could not imagine IPU officials could hold a closed door meeting in Kampala. The venue for the meeting was Serena Hotel Kampala.

The IPU delegates met UYD leaders including Samuel Muyizzi, the Secretary General of UYD, Kenneth Paul Kakande (UYD chairman), John Mary Sebuwufu (UYD envoy) and Brenda Nabukenya (UYD Secretary for welfare).

The meeting according to sources discussed partnership between UYD and the mother parties of the delegates. It also discussed political situation in Uganda.

UYD has a close working relationship with the political parties of some of the parties of the delegates.

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The ministry of education and sports has informed the Chief Administrative Officers, district chairpersons, district education officers, municipal education officers, districts security officers, and heads of schools that there will be a national head count exercise for S1, S2, S3, S4, S5 and S6 students on Universal Secondary Education (USE) schools in Uganda.

The permanent secretary of the education ministry, Dr. YK Nsubuga says that there would also be head count for year one, year two, and year three students in primary, technical, and vocational education training institutions participating in the implementation of Universal Post Primary Education and Training programme on Tuesday 27^th march.

He says that the exercise will be conducted jointly with the ministry of education, internal security organisations, and ministry of local government.

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The leadership of opposition parties have told us that they supported NCF in the beginning but it has now turned a nuisance and a useless platform.

NCF was set up by the 1995 Constitution of Uganda and the Political Parties and Other Organisations Act of 2005. The Secretary General of DP, Mathias Nsubuga says that the members of opposition parties are concerned that  the ruling party /government doesn’t respect freedom of assembly, funding of parties, free and fair elections, democracy, safety, security of people and tackle economic problems.

The NCF was formed to resolve disputes among parties, present views of parties to the Electoral Commission and ensure that the parties adhere to an agreed code of conduct.

Nsubuga challenged the Government to build the culture of parties working together and respect and listen to each other.

By James Okello

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The MPs were led by Mityana North MP, Godfrey Kiwanda, who is the chairperson of the Buganda Parliamentary caucus.

The MPs fromBugandaused the meeting to present the new leadership of Buganda caucus parliamentary team to the Katikkiro of Buganda, JB Walusimbi.

The Vice chairperson of Buganda Parliamentary caucus is the Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze; Secretary is Nalongo Bugembe while the treasurer is Deogratius Kiyingi.

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Top scientists will tomorrow (20 February) urge governments to replace GDP as a measure of wealth, end damaging subsidies, and transform systems of governance to set humanity on a new path to a better future — or risk climate, biodiversity and poverty crises that will spawn greater problems worldwide.

These are among the messages from a new paper by 20 past winners of the Blue Planet Prize — often called the Nobel Prize for the environment.

Bob Watson, the UK’s chief scientific advisor on environmental issues and a winner of the prize in 2010, will present the paper to government ministers from around the world at the UN Environment Programme’s governing council meeting in Nairobi, Kenya on 20 February.

“The current system is broken,” says Watson. “It is driving humanity to a future that is 3-5°C warmer than our species has ever known, and is eliminating the ecology that we depend on for our health, wealth and senses of self.”

“We cannot assume that technological fixes will come fast enough. Instead we need human solutions. The good news is that they exist but decision makers must be bold and forward thinking to seize them.”

Watson’s co-authors include  James Hansen of NASA, Emil Salim, former environment minister of Indonesia, Susan Solomon of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and José Goldemberg, who was Brazil’s Secretary of Environment during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

Their paper comes ahead of the 20th anniversary of that summit – the Rio+20 conference in June this year – when world leaders have an opportunity to set human development on a new, more sustainable path.

The paper urges governments to:

• Replace GDP as a measure of wealth with metrics for natural, built, human and social capital — and how they intersect.

• Eliminate subsidies in sectors such as energy, transport and agriculture that create environmental and social costs, which currently go unpaid.

• Tackle overconsumption, and address population pressure by empowering women, improving education and making contraception accessible to all.

• Transform decision making processes to empower marginalised groups, and integrate economic, social and environmental policies instead of having them compete.

• Conserve and value biodiversity and ecosystem services, and create markets for them that can form the basis of green economies.

• Invest in knowledge — both in creating and in sharing it — through research and training that will enable governments, business, and society at large to understand and move towards a sustainable future.

“Sustainable development is not a pipe dream,” says Camilla Toulmin, director of the International Institute for Environment and Development. “It is the destination the world’s accumulated knowledge points us towards, the fair future that will enable us to live with security, peace and opportunities for all. To get there we must transform the ways we manage, share and interact with the environment, and acknowledge that humanity is part of nature not apart from it.”

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “The paper by the Blue Planet laureates will challenge governments and society as a whole to act to limit human-induced climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in order to ensure food, water energy and human security. I would like to thank Professor Watson and colleagues for eloquently articulating their vision on how key development challenges can be addressed, emphasizing solutions; the policies, technologies and behaviour changes required to grow green economies, generate jobs and lift people out of poverty without pushing the world through planetary boundaries.”

The full paper will be ready for media around 5pm (UK time) on Friday – to request a copy email one of the following:

• Tetsuro Yasuda (The Asahi Glass Foundation, Japan) yasud@af-info.or.jp
• Shereen Zorba (UNEP, Kenya)   shereen.zorba@unep.org
• Mike Shanahan (IIED, UK)            mike.shanahan@iied.org
• Patricia Yakabe Malentaqui (Conservation International, USA)    p.malentaqui@conservation.org

NOTES TO EDITORS

The Blue Planet prize laureates who contributed to the paper are:

• Professor Sir Bob Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)
• Lord (Robert) May of Oxford, former Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government and President of Royal Society of London
• Professor Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
• Professor Harold Mooney, Stanford University
• Dr Gordon Hisashi Sato, President, Manzanar Project Corporation
• Professor José Goldemberg, secretary for the environment of the State of São Paulo, Brazil and Brazil’s interim Secretary of Environment during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992
• Dr Emil Salim, former Environment Minister of the Republic of Indonesia
• Dr Camilla Toulmin, Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development
• Mr Bunker Roy, Founder of Barefoot College
• Dr Syukuro Manabe, Senior Scientist, Princeton University
• Dr Julia Marton-Lefevre, Director-General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
• Dr Simon Stuart, Chair of the Species Survival Commission of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
• Dr Will Turner, Vice President of Conservation Priorities and Outreach, Conservation International
• Professor Karl-Henrik Robèrt, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Founder of The Natural Step
• Dr James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Lord (Nicholas) Stern of Brentford, Professor, The London of Economics
• Dr Amory Lovins, Chair and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute
• Dr Gene Likens, Director of the Carey Institute of Ecosystem Studies
• Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and Director-General of the World Health Organization, now Special Envoy on Climate Change for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
• Dr James Lovelock, independent scientist and proponent of the Gaia Hypothesis

ABOUT THE BLUE PLANET PRIZE

In 1992, the year of the Rio Earth Summit, the Asahi Glass Foundation established the Blue Planet Prize, an award presented to individuals or organizations worldwide in recognition of outstanding achievements in scientific research and its application that have helped provide solutions to global environmental problems.

The Prize is offered in the hopes of encouraging efforts to bring about the healing of the Earth’s fragile environment. A full list of its past winners is online here.

The award’s name was inspired by the remark “the Earth was blue,” uttered by the first human in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, upon viewing our planet. The Blue Planet Prize was so named in the hopes that our blue planet will be a shared asset capable of sustaining human life far into the future.

2012 is the 20th anniversary of the Blue Planet Prize. The Asahi Glass Foundation wishes to mark this anniversary with a fresh start in its efforts to help build an environmentally friendly society.

Contact Information:

The Asahi Glass Foundation: 2^nd Floor, Science Plaza, 5-3 Yonban-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 102-0081 Japan

Secretary General  Tetsuro Yasuda (Mr.) TEL: 03-5275-0620 FAX: 03-5275-0871

e-mail：post@af-info.or.jp

URL：http://www.af-info.or.jp

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Date: 20^th February 2012

Hon .Members of the 9^th Parliament

Parliament of the Republic of Uganda

Re: The Position of the Law relating to EALA Elections.

Hon Members, as you proceed to debate the amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament of Uganda, including the Rules in Appendix B thereto for Elections of Members of the East African Legislative Assembly, I found it important as an Advocate, a person interested in East African Affairs, the applicant in Application No.6 of 2011 at the East African Court of Justice and the National Legal Advisor of the Democratic Party to forward this Legal opinion to you for your perusal in that noble  process.

The current law relating to the elections aforesaid is buttressed in the sources hereunder;

1. The Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community. Particularly Articles 6(d), 50
2. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties Articles, 13,14,15,16,17,18,27 and 42-72.
3. The Constitution of The Republic of Uganda.Particulary Art 8A, Objective XXVIII (i) b, Articles 21(1and 2), 29(1e), 89(1), and 94(1).
4. Jacob Oulanya versus The Attorney General of Uganda, Constitutional Petition No. 28 of 2006.
5. The Democratic Party and Mukasa Fred Mbidde versus The Secretary General of The East African Community and The Attorney General of Uganda Application No 6 of 2011 Arising out of Reference No.6 of 2011 PENDING.
6. It is equally important to note that The East African Legislative Assembly Bill 2011 has been passed by EALA into law awaiting assent by the Summit confirming all the above positions.

Article 50 of The Treaty provides that,

“The National Assembly of each Partner state shall Elect,

not from among its members,

9 members who shall represent as much as it is feasible,

 the various Political Parties represented in the Assembly,

Shades of opinion, gender and other

Special interest groups, in accordance with the procedure as the National Assembly of each Partner State may determine”

The meaning of the above Article of the treaty and also as fortified in the jurisprudence at the East African Court of Justice and The Constitutional Court are therefore as follows;

1. Elections take place at and by the National Assembly according to the treaty
2. Elections include contested or un-contested elections; this was fortified in the case of Prof Peter Anyang Nyong v AG and ors.
3. That the method of distribution is to be among all parties represented at the National State Assembly.
4. That the provision is rather qualitative and not quantitative and thus considers the nominal prevalence of a political party at the Partner State Assembly for eligibility to be represented at EALA AND NOT BY HOW MANY MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT A PARTY IS REPRESENTED IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.
5. That any reference to Numerical strength of a political party as a standard requirement by a Political Party for representation to The East African Legislative Assembly is unlawful and infringes the treaty.
6. The East African Legislative Assembly is an organ of the Community under Article 9 of the Treaty and as such in elections therefor, the treaty applies with equal force.
7. That the Democratic Party and Anor, as the Applicants in Application and Reference No 6 of 2011 have a mandatory entitlement to a slot, being a political party represented at the National State Assembly.
8. That the Secretary General to the East African Community has already written to all Partner states including Uganda to comply as aforesaid.
9. That there is an  interim injunction over parliament emanating from the case of The Democratic Party and Anor Versus The Community and the Attorney General, already served on the Speaker and the Attorney General of Uganda which  bars the Ugandan Parliament from conducting elections until Rules are amended to suit the above requirements.
10.  That the East African Legislative Assembly Elections bill 2011 was passed by the East African Legislative Assembly and the same provides for the manner of elections representative of all parties represented at the State Assemblies .Parliament is enjoined to enact Rules of Procedure that operationalizes Article 50 and not one seeking to amend it .It’s important to note that the Ugandan Parliament has no Powers to Amend the Article 50 to the Treaty.
11. Parliament has to conclude the business of amendments of the Rules if Uganda is to have elections within the stipulated time frame which is currently at  3 months to the expiry of the current term.(1^st March remains the proper date for elections since the current term expires in June this Year)
12. That entitled Political Parties should be required to nominate their candidates that will contest for the slots accorded to them either competitively or un-contested for Parliament to Elect.
13. That the Democratic Party shall not vacate our injunction until respect for our entitlement is met.
14. That the East African Court of Justice has fixed 29^th February this year as the return date by the Applicants of the Democratic party and another versus the AG and the Community on which we shall report the outcomes of the amendments where if such amended rules are found to contradict the Treaty, and Permanent Injunction shall inevitably be slummed on to the Ugandan Parliament that no elections of EALA will take place.
15. That Independents have a mandatory Slot for EALA.
16. That there are only 6 Political Parties and 1  shade of opinion represented in the house of Parliament in Uganda namely;

(i)                The National Resistance Movement –NRM

(ii)              The Forum for Democratic Change-FDC

(iii)            The Democratic Party-DP

(iv)            The Uganda People’s Congress-UPC

(v)              The Conservative Party-CP

(vi)            The Justice Forum-JEEMA

(vii)          The Independents

The above have to vie for the 9 slots obtaining at the regional Assembly and any attempt to distribute a slot for each of the entities above remains lawful and feasible within the meaning of the Treaty and does not warrant the National Parliament to develop a formula for the same. Two slots remain available for the special interest Groups and /or any other manner of distribution preferred by the Assembly.

Independent Candidates may by gazette be notified of the campaigns and as such expression of interest thereby is done to the Clerk’s office, being the returning officer in the circumstances for such category of persons to express interest and to subsequently vie for the same.

Mukasa Fred Denis Mbidde (0752697046)

B.Mass (MUK), LLB (MUK), Dip-LP (MUK), LLM-Cand (MUK)-Advocate

Chief Legal Adviser-DP

Chief Legal Adviser.

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According to sources, President Museveni and NRM Secretary General Amama Mbabazi have proposed that each MP on NRM ticket pays a monthly tax of 15% of their monthly income to NRM. Remember the MPs have to remit funds to NSSF and contribute to social events in their constituencies and families among others.

Before the President’s proposal, the MPs have been paying a monthly tax of 10% to NRM head offices on plot 10 Kyadondo road in Kampala. The request by the president to NRM MPs to cough more money to the ruling party has been delivered to the members concerned today by the party’s treasurer, Amelia Kyambadde.

However some MPs have vowed to disrespect Museveni’s proposal saying that they can not increase the amount of money they remit to the party when shilling has lost value and inflation is so high. Some of the MPs who have vowed to challenge Museveni’s proposal include Mohammad Nsereko for Kampala Central and Theodre Sekikubo for Lwemiyaga County.

By Walakira Nyanzi

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Uganda President Yoweri Museveni and the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon are among the world leaders who have left Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after attending the 18th African Union summit.

Others who have left Ethiopiaare Benin’s President Thomas Boni Yayi, and Libyan interim Prime Minister Abderrahim el-Keib. Over 40 heads of states attended the summit.

The summit kicked off with the selection of Benin’s President  Thomas Boni Yayi as the African Union chairman for the year running.  The chief guests at the summit were from China and UN.

Beijing also donated $200-million to African Union headquarters. Giving remarks on the donation, Museveni thanked china for promoting mutual interests inAfrica.

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 The talks between Museveni and Burns highlighted the strength of the bilateral partnership between US and Uganda on a wide range of  issues, including regional security and good governance and respect for human rights.

Burns is on a four nation Africa tour. The talks have also focused on the state of human rights violation in Uganda. Recently US warnedUganda government to stop violation of human rights particularly torture of opposition politicians and their supporters. For example Uganda police late last year confined FDC party leader, Dr Kizza Besigye, to his Kasangati home under colonial-era ‘preventive arrest’ legislation. Burns has told Museveni that he should ensure that his government protects the rights of allUgandacitizens, including minority groups.

Burns and his team from Uganda will visit Ghana, South Africa and also attend an African Union summit in Addis Ababa,Ethiopia.

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Propaganda is spreading in some political parties inUganda, especially in the Democratic Party (DP), Uganda Peoples Congress (UPC), Conservative Party (CP) and Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) that there will be no general elections in 2016 because president Museveni’s government would be topped in 201.

FDC president Col. Kiiza Besigye has told his supporters in Najjanankumbi (Kampala) today that all political scenes indicate that Museveni’s reign will end in 2013. President Museveni’s fourth term of office as President of Uganda ends on May 12^th 2016.

Presidential Secretary Tamale Mirundi has reffered to the romours in political parties as ‘nosence’ saying it is meant to mislead the public. The rumour has it that Ugandans would compel parties to choose between Besigye or Norbert Mao of DP or any other opposition politician to ruleUganda.

Mirundi further advises leaders of political parties to circulate developmental and real ideas that will promoteUganda’s image andAfricain general.

By James Okello

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