Information is Power

The fate of business and plight of job employments in Uganda. Two weeks ago, i took sometime to do consultations in the office of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) in line with taxation in this Country. From my consultations, i found 20 Litres of Honey is taxed 90.000 Shillings, which is almost equal to the price you buy it at! The same fate with importing Cars, URA charges a tax almost equal to the amount you bought the car. It's aslo confirmed that, URA charges more than 50.000 Shillings tax on each imported Smartphone. I realized that, "over taxation" is what hampers rapid growth in the country. It leaves many people wondering if there is interest to support and empower Citizens who are doing business in the Country, by lowering taxes on imported products and for retail traders in the country. Starting up a business in Uganda is easy but its prosperity entirely relies on how you play the tunes of mafias, one of which is tax evasion (smuggling), which is highly ris...

Hon. Moses Ali, deputy Prime Minister, has rejected the proposal to kick UPDF MPs out of Parliament. “If it’s army, I am a General. I cannot support the proposal to remove the Army representatives in Parliament,” Gen Ali said on Thursday. He also opposed the proposal to abolish Resident District Commissioners (RDCs). “The office of the RDC should not be removed, but rather we should remove individual RDCs who degrade the environment.” He was supported by UPDF Chief Political Commissar Brig Gen Felix Kulayigye. “The military is part of our body-politik. For us to sustain what we have achieved in this country, we cannot throw away what we struggled for. I therefore, state that the army should stay in Parliament,” Kulayigye told plenary. “Looking at our history, army representation in Parliament is still necessary. For us to sustain what we have achieved in this country, we cannot throw away what we struggled for. I therefore, state that the army should stay in Parliament,” he add...

A Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) enforcement team, a counter-terrorism officer on a motorbike and an army officer on foot patrol were seen outside Bobi Wine’s home on Thursday. According to reports, the team is there to impound Bobi Wine’s bulletproof car. An officer on a bike outside Bobi Wine’s gate He was told to declare his armoured (bulletproof) car donation by March 31, 2021, else it becomes government property by the acting Inspector General of Government (IGG) George Bamugemereire. Bamugemereire says where a leader fails to or refuses to justify why they are entitled to the donation in question, it becomes government property. Bamugemereire, says that like any leader, Kyagulanyi is expected to declare the vehicle, whether it was donated of bought by himself. A soldier outside Bobi’s fence Bamugemereire said Kyagulanyi still being a leader of a political party registered under Ugandan laws, like any other leader, he’s expected to periodically declare his wealth, ...

Biden overturns Trump ban on many green card applicants Trump-era measure restricting many visa applicants cited need to protect US jobs amid COVID-19 pandemic. US President Joe Biden has revoked a proclamation issued under the Trump administration that blocked many green card applicants from entering the United States. The order by former President Donald Trump, known as Presidential Proclamation 100014, cited a need to protect US jobs amid high unemployment rates caused by the coronavirus pandemic. In a statement on Wednesday, the White House announced that Biden overturned the measure through an executive order, saying Trump’s ban separated families and “does not advance the interests of the United States”. “To the contrary, it harms the United States, including by preventing certain family members of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents from joining their families here,” the statement reads.   Human rights advocates have been calling on the Biden admini...

Telecom service provider, MTN, has advised its subscribers to avoid using virtual private networks (VPNs) and instead pay the Over-The-Top (OTT) tax if they are to have better internet experiences. Sen Somdev, the MTN Uganda chief marketing officer said that using VPN makes one’s internet experience much slower because they are going through another country to access internet, thus hampering data speeds. Additionally, he said that it also opens up one’s devise to hackers to hack into their system and possibly commit fraud. “Some people use VPNs because they want to bypass the OTT but they must understand that using VPN comes with a lot of trouble. As a telecom professional, I would always want people to pay OTT to be safer,” Somdev said. Government introduced OTT tax in 2018, requiring social media users to pay a sh200 daily tax to access social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. While some Ugandans were happily paying OTT, the recent internet shutdown forced many...

The Police in Adjumani district on Monday (February 23, 2021) killed a soldier of the Uganda people's defense forces who allegedly got involved in an armed robbery of a native doctor in Ciforo central village, Ciforo sub-county. According to Moses Mugweri, the deputy Adjumani Resident District Commissioner, the UPDF soldier, Mohammad Ambaga, and three others on Monday afternoon stormed the shrine of Muraa Josephine in day light armed robbery. Ambaga, armed with a pistol, reportedly placed Muraa under gunpoint while his three colleagues ransacked the shrine of the native doctor for money and valuables. The four shortly made off on a numberless motorcycle with an unspecified amount of money robbed from Muraa, before encountering a Police patrol, where Ambaga, was shot dead in a fire exchange with Police after injuring one Wilson Obulejo. Mugweri, said documents recovered from the pockets of Ambaga, indicates that he's attached to the security details of the royal guards o...

The Uganda Security Printing Company (USPC), the firm that will take over from Face Technologies as far as issuing driving permits is concerned, will start its operations on March 1st, government has announced. This was revealed by Minister of ICT and National Guidance Judith Nabakooba in a press briefing. “Come March 1st, the process of issuing new driving permits will be done from the Uganda Railways building at Nasser Road in Kampala,” Nabakooba said. “The upcountry offices will remain offering the same services but working with the company that is taking over,” Nabakooba said. Nabakooba urged motorists to cross check and follow up on the new changes to avoid inconveniences. “You can visit the Ministry of Works website to follow up on the new regional offices,” she added. Motorists have however urged government to reduce the cost of driving permits since they are now issued by a government agency.

Donald Trump faces two cases involving sexual misconduct that may move forward faster now that he is no longer US president. Former United States President Donald Trump is facing two defamation cases involving sexual misconduct allegations that could move forward more quickly now that he is out of office [File: Cheriss May/Reuters] 23 Feb 2021 During a December visit to New York City, writer  E Jean Carroll  says she went shopping with a fashion consultant to find the “best outfit” for one of the most important days of her life – when she will sit face-to-face with the man she accuses of raping her decades ago, former United States President Donald Trump. The author and journalist hopes that day will come this year. Her lawyers are seeking to depose Trump in a defamation lawsuit that Carroll filed against the former president in November 2019 after he denied her accusation that he raped her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990...

On August 13, 2016, a hacking unit calling itself "The Shadow Brokers" announced that it had stolen malware tools and exploits used by the Equation Group, a sophisticated threat actor believed to be affiliated to the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Although the group has since signed off following the unprecedented disclosures, new "conclusive" evidence unearthed by Check Point Research shows that this was not an isolated incident, and those other threat actors may have had access to some of the same tools before they were published. The previously undocumented cyber-theft took place more than two years prior to the Shadow Brokers episode, the American-Israeli cybersecurity company said in an exhaustive report published today, resulting in U.S.-developed cyber tools reaching the hands of a Chinese advanced persistent threat which then repurposed them in order to strike American targets. password auditor ...

Your app will start losing functionality on 15-May-2021. WhatsApp has detailed what will happen to users who don’t accept its new privacy policy in an FAQ on its website. Starting May 15th, its functionality will become more limited, and users will no longer be able to send or read messages from the app. They’ll still be able to receive calls and notifications, but this will only be possible for a “short time.” Speaking to TechCrunch, the company confirmed this period will last a few weeks. The new privacy policy has been controversial among some users, who worry that it allows WhatsApp to share their private messages with its parent company Facebook. However, messages between individuals on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted, so only their recipients can see their contents. What the new privacy policy relates to is messages sent to businesses, which may be stored on Facebook servers and whose data may be used for advertising. WhatsApp has shared some personal information, like ...

The leader of the National Unity Platform (NUP) Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine on Monday morning announced he had instructed his lawyers to withdraw the 2021 presidential election petition he had filed in the Supreme Court challenging President Museveni’s election. “We have decided to remove our case from Owiny Dollo’s court, we shall now take the matter to the court of public opinion but we are not opting for violence. Just like Museveni sought to challenge the victory of Obote in 1980 and later withdrew the case and chose to go to the bush, we have also sought the same since the circumstances are not any different,”Kyagulanyi told journalists on Monday at the NUP headquarters in Kamwokya. Kyagulanyi’s announcement came a few days after the Supreme Court dismissed an application in which he wanted to file additional evidence in the petition after the elapse of the February14 deadline. On Sunday, lawyer representing the three respondents including Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Mus...

The Italian ambassador, Luca Attanasio, and a military policeman travelling with him were killed, the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement. The park had said earlier that two people in the convoy had been killed and the ambassador wounded. The third person killed was a driver, diplomatic sources said. It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. “It is with deep sorrow that the Foreign Ministry confirms the death today in Goma of the Italian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, and of a policemen from the Carabinieri,” the foreign ministry statement said. “The ambassador and the soldier were travelling in a car in a convoy of MONUSCO, the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” it said. According to the ministry website, Attanasio had been Italy’s head of mission in Kinshasa since 2017 and was made ambassador in 2019. Dozens of armed grou...

A THANK YOU NOTE ! Good morning friends.  Let me take this opportunity to appreciate all friends in Uganda and abroad who have continued to support us in this struggle for freedom and democracy.  On behalf of the National Unity Platform, I would love to thank all comrades here and abroad who supported our campaign financially, to a point that we never lacked anything on the campaign trail. Some Ugandans gave as little as 500 shillings, as testament for their commitment to the cause. There are some friends who deposited money at petrol stations so that our vehicles never lacked fuel. THANK YOU.  Some Ugandans took it upon themselves to raise funds which supported our polling agents and supervisors countrywide. THANK YOU  From the time we were attacked with live bullets on the campaign trail and particularly when a projectile hit Dan Magic smashing his face, many Ugandans out of concern sent me bullet proof vests and ballistic helmets, which I put on throughout...

Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo has told National Unity Platform leader Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine not to dare intimidate him again. “The last time we sat here I spoke on how we will conduct ourselves in the matter before us. The lordships as it is provided for in the constitution took an oath to protect it without fear favor affection or ill will,” Owiny-Dollo said Friday while presiding over the hearing of the application by NUP to file the remaining 200 affidavits. “…All matters that arise outside court we don’t have time for it. If anyone thinks they can intimidate, blackmail the chief justice Of Uganda, he is going to crash.” As of addressing Bobi Wine directly, Dollo stated: “You cannot intimidate, blackmail judges. If anyone thinks he can intimidate, blackmail, induce the Chief Justice, then he is headed for a crash.” He said that the judges of the Supreme Court cannot be intimidated by statements made by the former presidential candidate in the handling of the Presidenti...

No VPNs As online learning and teaching resume using emergency ODeL model. This is to remind both the staff and students about zero-rated Makerere University websites. This means the sites can be accessed without internet data. The Sites Are Still Actively Zero-Rated These are the lists of the sites. i.   muele.mak.ac.ug ii.  admissions.mak.ac.ug iii. aims.mak.ac.ug iv.  student.mak.ac.ug v.   payments.mak.ac.ug vi.  webconf.mak.ac.ug Discourage Use Of VPNs While Accessing Those Sites It has come to our attention and after serious analysis and experimentation that when VPN is turned on, it affects access to the zero-rated sites. We have also confirmed this with the Telcos(MTN, AIRTEL & AFRICELL). There could be complaints coming in from both staff and students that they can’t access the sites. This could be because a person is using a VPN on their smart-phone, Laptop, and Desktop. Turn-Off Vpn While Accessing Zero-Rated Sites W...

The people in Maracha District are in shock after DPC ASP Hassan Hiwumbire was transferred to Kyotera District. Some of the people our sources spoke with, expressed their gratitude of how the DPC was so nice and friendly to everyone regardless of status, religion and gender. The DPC who was transferred to Maracha on 24-August-2019 and transferred out on 4-February-2021, is greatly remembered for working tirelessly in fighting crime and spearheading community policing through engaging the Youths in Okokoro Town council plus other locals in meetings  with the police and giving out his telephone number to the people in Maracha who worked hand in hand with him. By the time he took over as the DPC, he combated rising cases of mob action, land conflicts, committing suicide, mob justice and many others. In a telephone call the DPC made with Osuta Yusuf online publication team, he applauded the people of Maracha District for being kind, lovely and cooperative with the police / UPDF...

Workers MP Sam Lyomoki has apologised for sleeping at parliament while pushing for amendments in the NSSF amendment bill 2019. Sam Lyomoki last year kicked up dust saying the Speaker had refused to listen to his concern over the delay to pass the bill, when she said that the ministers for finance were not around. He thus opted to sleep at parliament forcing the minister of finance to table the amendments on the floor. Some of the amendments included workers accessing 20% their midterm NSSF savings for all those who have saved for at least 10 years and when they are 45 years and above. On Wednesday February 17, 2021, Lyomoki has thanked Parliament for passing the National Social Security Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2019. He equally apologized for the Un-Parliamentary conduct late last year, as Parliament in his view was delaying to pass the Bill. The Bill now moves for presidential assent before it becomes a law. The bill aims to provide for midterm access to voluntary contributions,...

  The proposed amendment of Article 105 of the constitution to reinstate presidential term limits, contained in Constitutional Amendment Bill 2020 by Ndorwa East MP Wilfred Niwagaba, has been welcomed by both ordinary persons and political analysts. However, most people have rejected another proposal in the bill, one that seeks to extend the term of office of all political leaders from five to seven years, as a proof that most politicians are self-seekers. These were some of the reactions to a report on the constitutional amendment bill presented in parliament on Tuesday.