The role of politics in any given society cannot be underrated. Politics continues to influence service delivery and policy development. This section will give you news from the political undertaking from Parliament, district councils among others.
Uganda’s 2011-2016 Cabinet was another list of controversial human beings from across different religions, regions, education backgrounds, age and sex. Catherine Eye presents to you the info-graphics of the above attributes in regards to the cabinet that was reshuffled before its term could elapse in 2016. See the graphics below;
The South African tourism minister Derek Hanekom has urged African countries to sell tourism as continental bloc. His call comes after the realisation that what happens in other African countries affected the rest of Africa.
He thus put “We are all united in our aspiration to build and brand Africa as a continent of unparalleled opportunity. We have joined hands to make tourism a sector of hope and progress for our people. We must now focus on concrete actions to achieve our aspirations.”
Hanekon raised his appeal during a panel discussion moderated by CNN International anchor and journalist at the on-going INDABA 2016 travel show in Durban, South Africa.
“The Ebola outbreak which took place in West Africa,” He said, dwindled tourism numbers in South Africa because the world looks at Africa as one big country.
INDABA, held annually in Durban, South Africa, is the third largest annual tourism expo in the world and the largest in Africa. It typically attracts between 8,000 and 11,000 of Africa’s tourism leaders, policy makers, global buyers and travel media seeking to promote tourism as a means of Africa’s economic growth and transformation.
Continue reading “African ministers agree to sell tourism as a continental bloc”
Teodoro Obiang Nguema has never received less than 97 percent of the vote in an election. On Monday, with partial results indicating that 99.2 percent of the vote has gone in his favor, Equatorial Guinea’s leader was surely all set for another seven years in a seat that has no doubt molded to his figure.
One-sixth of African countries including Uganda have an executive who has been in power for more than 20 years — that’s nine out of 54. Obiang, who took power nearly 37 years ago in a bloody coup, is in the company of Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (who turned 92 in February), Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea and King Mswati III of Swaziland. But Obiang is most similar to — and most closely followed in terms of the number of years in office by — José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola.
Dos Santos and Obiang preside over Africa’s No. 2 and 3 crude-oil producers, respectively, and are accused of embezzling much of the resulting wealth, while not distributing it fairly, if at all, to their citizens. Equatorial Guinea, once a Spanish colony, has the biggest gap of any country worldwide between its per-capita wealth and its human development index — a sure sign that there are a few outliers skewing the per-capita figure way upward.
The dour political rivalry between President Yoweri Museveni and his long-time political nemesis Dr Warren Kizza Besigye might take a strange twist if local institutions that are supposed to deal with human freedoms do not fully exhaust their potential in respect to the rights of Ugandans, most especially after the 2016 elections in which Mr Museveni was declared winner by the Electoral Commission.
Speaking exclusively to the EagleOnline Dr Besigye, a former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) presidential candidate in the last elections (whose results he disputes) said that Ugandans had been disenfranchised in the polls and that seeking the intervention of the international community to weigh in on political situation in Uganda was one of the options open to the Ugandan opposition.
“All I am saying is that we will more actively seek the intervention and the support of the broad international community in getting our struggle for a democratic transition better understood and supported and I think the international community can do a lot in exerting pressure on the Museveni regime to respect the will of Ugandans and to accept to have an audit of the election,” he said in an interview at his home in Kasangati.
By Catherine Namanya
Catherine Eye 