The Minister of Education and Sports Janet Museveni has reiterated her recent message, calling up on parents to provide and pack food for their children.

“Education doesn’t only depend on teachers and schools, parents also have a role to play. I call upon parents in rural and urban areas to take up the responsibility to provide meals and care for their children,” Mrs Museveni said today, while officiating at the release of the 2016 results of Primary Leaving Exams (PLE).

Previously, she advised parents against packing cold food for school going children, instead telling them to buy food flasks so that pupils can eat the food when it is hot.

“What I don’t agree with is packing lunch in banana leaves and children eat it cold as lunch. You can buy small flasks for packing lunch so that these children can have it hot,” she was quoted by media.

Meanwhile, Mrs Museveni has said she was pleased with the increasing number of girls gaining education. “We have seen many young girls adopting education, therefore doing away with early marriages and teenage pregnancies. I am happy to announce that since the introduction of Universal Primary Education (UPE), PLE candidature has increased,” she said.

In a related development, the Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) chairperson, Prof Mary Okwakol, observed that urban areas had increasingly dominated education sector performance in examinations.

Out of the 640,833 candidates who sat from 12,391 centres registered for 2016 PLE, Division one had a total of 63,400 candidates while Division two had 251,787. Boys performed better than girls with 541,089 (87percent) passing compared to 517,889 (86.2percent) the previous year.

“Overall performance shows that male candidates performed better than females but females performed better in English,” she said.

According to Prof Okwakol, this is the first in a series of three examination results to be released; UCE and UACE will follow in that order.

The UNEB Executive Secretary Dan Odongo said 51.3% of the total candidates who completed the primary education cycle were girls.

He however noted that in comparison, Boys performed better than girls with their failure rate at 5.3% and that of girls at 7.7%

He also noted that distinction performance in English rose from 10 to 11.5%, SST from 5.8 to 10.3%, Math from 3.9 to 4.5%, while Science dropped by 7%.

Fort Portal Municipality, Entebbe, Ntungamo, Rukungiri, Jinja, Kabale, Masaka, Mbarara, Lira, Masindi were best districts with 98 percent and above pass rate.

Serere, Namutumba, Bulambuli, Kyankwanzi, Iganga, Kaliro, Mayuge, Kween, Luuka, Buyende were worst performing districts.

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Jinja High Court Judge Eva Luswata has set tomorrow as the day she will make a ruling on the bail application by Rwenzururu King Charles Wesley Mumbere.

The decision follows the Judge’s earlier ruling in which she declined to grant an application by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP), seeking to refer case to the International Crimes Division of the High.

Mumbere, whose bail application will be heard tomorrow at 3pm, is charged with treason, terrorism and murder among other crimes and is currently on remand at Luzira Prisons.

His incarceration at Nalufenya Police station and later in Luzira followed an attack on his palace, where over 100 people including security agents and the Rwenzururu Kingdom royal guards were reportedly killed.

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Jinja High Court Judge Eva Luswata has declined an application by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP), seeking to refer Rwenzururu King Charles Wesley Mumbere’s case to the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the High Court.

Lady Justice Luswata has made the ruling early today, and her court has continued with proceedings. Mumbere is charged with treason, terrorism and murder among other crimes and is currently on remand at Luzira Prisons.

His incarceration at Nalufenya Police station and later in Luzira followed an attack on his palace, where over 100 people including security agents and the Rwenzururu Kingdom royal guards were reportedly killed.

Developing story

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Parliament was yesterday set to launch investigations into the Shs6b oil cash bonanza dished out to 42 government top officials for the role they purportedly played in the oil dispute between Uganda and Heritage Oil and Tullow Oil over capital gains tax.

However, when Mbarara Municipality MP, Michael Tumusiime moved a motion calling for investigation of the money dished out, the debate was interrupted by the deputy Attorney General, Mwesigwa Rukutana who informed Parliament that he had been served with a Court order regarding the debate of that particular topic.

The order, issued by Justice Steven Kavuma barred parliament from discussing or investigating the matter.

In response, the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga suspended the house until the “Attorney General vacates the stupid order”.

The Uganda Law Society (ULS) has come out to the defense of parliament. Through a statement issued Wednesday by the Francis Gimara, the president ULS, he said that Kavuma’s directive stopping Parliament from debating the Shs6 billion oil cash bonus closes down parliament as an arena to debate issues of public importance and those related to how public affairs are managed.

“The order sets a dangerous precedent with serious negative effects on the functioning of the legislative organ of the state,” he said further adding that the principle of separation of power forbids the judiciary from intervening in the deliberative process of parliament and that its mandate is limited to determining the validity of the outcomes from the legislative process.

“ULS has decided to apply to be joined as an interested party to constitutional petition NO. 07 of 2017 from which the impugned order arises. ULS will move to challenge the interim order and the petition. We urge parliament and all decision makers to strengthen the vetting process for the appointment of judicial officers. It should be recalled that the Judicial Service Commission had reservations about the appointment of the Deputy Chief Justice and parliament appointment committee glossed about it,” he advised.

In a related move, a statement issued today by Judiciary’s Chief Registrar, Paul Gadenya Wolimbwa, they applauded parliament for respecting the order and advised them to appeal it if they are aggrieved.

“The Judiciary has noted that parliament is aggrieved by the decision of the Constitutional Court and has in that respect directed the Attorney General to take immediate steps to have the order set aside by the Constitutional Court. The action taken by parliament is commendable and is in accordance with the rule of law because the law allows any aggrieved party to appeal or challenge the decision of a court,” reads a statement by Wolimbwa. He further adds that the AG is at liberty to appeal the decision.

Meanwhile, another lawyer, Isaac Ssemakadde has petitioned High Court seeking orders to sue Doris Akol, the Commissioner General of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) on behalf of those who received the oil case bonuses.

He argues that that Akol and other officials allegedly received the impugned cash bonuses through unlawful, irrational, unfair, arbitrary and unjustifiable procedure and thus they ought to refund the monies to the national treasury.

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