KAMPALA: President Museveni has threatened to suspend the ongoing construction of the two hydropower dams of Karuma and Isimba because of shoddy work.

In a tough letter dated March 22, 2016, written to the Energy Minister Irene Muloni, President Museveni said the engineers constructing the two dams should be dismissed.

“If it is necessary to suspend work until the defects are corrected, it should be done. The “owners Engineers” could either be reinforced or even dismissed,” he wrote

The president described the reported shoddy work as disturbing and directed Eng. Muloni to immediately investigate the sloppy work being done by the Chinese firms.

“My information, for instance, points out that there is something known as draft tube where the turbines are supposed to sit. These draft tubes should be assembled outside the hollow structures that are supposed to be their ultimate home and put in the hollows when they are able to align with the other parts. Instead, I am told they wielded in the hollow. I am told that is very risky,” he wrote.

Sinohydro, a Chinese construction company is working on the US $1.6 billion Karuma project that will produce 600Megga watts while Isimba is worth US $570m and is also being constructed by Chinese.

The President directed Muloni to investigate and if found to be true, the construction of the two dams worth US$2.3bn be halted.

“I, therefore, direct you to, at once; confirm if these stories are true so that you stop further and more irreversible mistakes. If, for instance concrete is poured over such defective structures, it will be an irreversible situation of having a defective dam and power house,” Mr Museveni wrote.

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Says he is to discuss issue with elders

 Kapchorwa-President Yoweri Museveni has called on the attackers of the Kapchorwa Police station to surrender peacefully or be followed up in the forest and be killed from there.

“These people who came to attack here would have been killed here. They should not have been allowed to go back since they came on their own. Police just killed one; they would have killed all of them” Gen. Museveni who is also the Commander in Chief of armed forces said

Adding “But the Police were not alert or well prepared. Am going to discuss with your leaders and find a way of bringing these children out peacefully and find a solution to this. If not, we will go after them and kill them there,” he said and at an impromptu rally that he held in Kapchorwa town shortly after getting a brief on the attack by the District Police Commander John Odokonyero.

Museveni was this afternoon speaking to the people of Sebei region in Kapchorwa Municipality, Kapchorwa district. He told the gathering that they he will discuss the issue caused by some of these boys with the Police officers and some elders so as to let the boys to come back peacefully.

The crowd that quickly gathered and waited for the him to address them responded by urging the president to let them surrender peacefully.

“Some people used to think the Karimojong issue could not be solved, now where are they? The problem is we used to talk to them peacefully until we decided to act. Fire is handled by fire. Even when getting honey from bees, you use fire. If these children can come out peacefully….already they have killed people, but we shall see how to solve that. This is now a time for development,” he said.

Museveni’s visit follows an earlier attack by about 15 unidentified people who killed a policeman, injured three and fled with a prisoner from the police station.

According to sources, the attackers exploited the laxity at the station to attack and forcefully release one of their colleagues who had been arrested earlier for stealing guns from Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) game rangers in Mt. Elgon Forest. The attackers left one policeman ASP Akim Kaddu dead and two others injured seriously. One of the attackers was also killed. Museveni faulted the police in Kapchorwa district for not being alert and prepared to provide maximum security.

“There is the issue of insecurity caused by some boys here and mistakes made by the police not being very alert and prepared,’’ he said.

He thanked the people of Sebei region for voting very well in the recently concluded Presidential and Parliamentary elections that saw the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party sweep to victory.

“You used to demand for electricity, now it has reached Bukwo and will be switched on soon. The road project delayed but now the loan has been finalized and the project will kick off in December,” he said.

Initially, the Museveni who is accompanied by the First Lady Janet Museveni and the Kapchorwa Resident District Commissioner, Jane Francis Kuka held a closed door meeting with the security chiefs in the area before meeting the family of the slain police officer. He pledged government support to the family.

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The Deputy Chief of Defence Forces Lt Gen Charles Angina is reportedly embroiled in a row with the Chief of Staff Land Forces Brig Leopold Kyanda, and sources say the acrimony might bog down work in the UPDF.

Both Gen Angina and Brig Kyanda  are said to be blue-eyed boys of the Commander in Chief Museveni and have reportedly been wrangling over how UPDF operations should be run.

The sources said the two have also been accusing each other of wrong doing before the First son, Brig Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

According to the sources, Brig Kyanda, the former Chief of Military Intelligence, recorded Gen Angina in February, while the latter reportedly complained about ‘lack of will to stamp out corruption in the military and the ministry of defence’.

It’s also said that Brig Kyanda ‘fought so hard’ to make sure Gen Angina failed in the parliamentary elections for the UPDF conducted in Bombo military headquarter where the deputy army boss failed to make it back to the house after garnering only 103 votes.

According to the sources, there were reports of some army units celebrating the failure of Gen Angina, ‘whom soldiers don’t like because of his strictness on corruption and indiscipline’.

Further, the sources say, the wrangling between the officers has reached a level where the two cannot be in the same room for a meeting.

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The Natural Resource Conservation Network together with Police in conjunction with Uganda Wildlife Authority recently arrested Major Allen Rutagira (Black T-shirt) and Corporal Collins Kamugisha, both Uganda Peoples Defence Forces staff under the Special Forces Command (SFC), while selling 21.5kgs of pure elephant ivory.

The duo and others were finally arrested on Thursday March 24 at Hotel Africana Kampala after long time investigations by conservationists and police and according to a release by one Laban Muhindo, the arrested SFC officers are attached to Entebbe International Airport, raising suspicions that they might have obtained the contraband from the vaults at the Airport. The SFC is an elite unit that among others provides guards for the President, his family and for all strategic installations in the country.

Meanwhile, according to Muhindo, Cpl Kamugisha`s confession led to the arrest of George Otika an accountant at Entebbe Handling Services, Able Bamonjobora, a State House driver and Simon Mbonye, a miner and businessman in Kampala who was waiting for the money from the transaction and was arrested at a petrol station in Kampala. Mbonye said the contraband belongs to Alex Sande, a businessman who was also arrested later on the same day.

The four civilian suspects are detained at Central Police Station waiting to appear in court as the hunt for their counterparts intensifies while the soldiers were first detained at the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) in Kireka but later transferred to Nalufenya Police Station in Jinja.

These tusks could be part of the one impounded ton of tusks that disappeared from UWA stores in 2014. The ivory tusks had previously been confiscated from traffickers at various sites in Uganda. UWA had also collected some of the ivory from elephants dying of old age.

Uganda is among African countries that have been struggling to curb widespread poaching of elephant tusks by well-armed criminal gangs for shipment to Asia, where they fetch thousands of dollars per kilo for use in ornaments and medicine.

Last month, Entebbe Magistrate’s court sentenced five Vietnamese nationals Hoang Manh Hong 31, Thai Xuan Sanh 26, Nguyen Mau Manh 34, Ha Van Ba 36, and Troong Cong Dinh 29 to a 3-years jail term over attempted smuggling of ivory and rhino horns and unlawful possession of protected species. They were also fined a sum of Shs10million (approximately $2,950).

Hoang Manh Hoang and Thai xuan sanh were arrested at Entebbe International Airport on November 30, 2015 as they reportedly attempted to smuggle out two wooden boxes containing 36kgs of ivory and 3kgs of rhino horns valued at Shs637, 560,000 (approximately $187,520).

In her ruling Entebbe Chief magistrate Kaitesi Mary stated that the Vietnamese used Uganda as a conduit to smuggle illegal goods out to their country.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists elephants as ‘critically endangered’ after their numbers dropped drastically to an estimated 5,000 last year.

CITES lists elephants in Appendix I (18/01/1990), and environmentalists say the elephants could be extinct within three decades unless they are protected.

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