Former Deputy Prime Minister Paul Orono Etyang has passed on after reportedly losing the battle to #Covid-19. He was 82 years.
Amb. Etiang died at International Hospital Kampala where he was rushed three days after he collapsed at his Muyenga home.
Ambassador Etyang served as acting Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Idi Amin. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Information in President Yoweri Museveni earlier regime.
Former Tororo Municipality and now senior National Resistance Movement member Sanjay Tanna told Eagle Online that Amb. Etyang had been in ICU after being admitted to the hospital but his condition remained unchanged.
“Tororo has lost an icon, a uniting factor and the country has lost a statesman given his service to all regimes. So for us as the young generation, we have looking onto his as a role model. He played clean politics without intrigue” Sanjay said.
His most significant appointment was when he became High Commissioner to Britain for the government of Milton Obote from June 1969 until 1971 when be was withdrawn to the Foreign Ministry in Kampala. He became Permanent Secretary and was automatically appointed acting minister when his chief Wanume Kibedi was sent on sick leave, after to resign on April 28, 1973.
He joined the provincial administration as a district officer in 1962, being transferred to the Ministry of foreign Affairs in 1964 and becoming the second secretary to the Uganda embassy in Moscow from 1965 to 1967. He went as a member of the Uganda mission to the United Nations for a year before being appointed First Secretary.
One of the permanent secretaries in President Amin’s military government who was upgraded when the Uganda ministers were sent on leave. A highly able diplomat and former High Commissioner in Britain, he has emerged as one of the leading spokesmen in the new style government and played a leading Part in discussing and formulating the shape of a new Uganda constitution
He was born on August 15, 1938 in Tororo District and attended Busoga College Mwiri before Makerere University.
