The Court of Appeal has dismissed Uganda Muslim Supreme Council’ (UMSC) petition which sought to halt the sale of eight properties of over 19 billion debt.

On June, 24, 2020, UMSC and Justus Kyabahwa entered into a sale agreement for the land comprising LRV 3693 Folio 12, Ranch 31A Land, Ssembabule. The land was allegedly occupied by squatters.

According to the agreement, both parties agreed that the squatters will be given 60 days to vacate the said land; however after three days, Kyabahwa and his agents attacked the squatters which prompted one of the squatters to drag UMSC to court over the loss of their properties.

It is averred that the land in questions had caveats thereon. The encumbrances were allegedly known by Kyabahwa. Three years later, Kyabahwa dragged UMSC to court seeking Shs 18.9 billion compensation for the said land. Court however agreed with the applicant. Following the court ruling, UMSC appealed the ruling.

Last week, Kyabahwa sought instructions from the Commercial Division of the High Court Registrar to sell eight properties. The properties a plot in Entebbe opposite victoria Mall, two square miles of land in Migyera, plot of land at Mbale City, one acre of land on Lubas road Jinja, One square mile at Buikwe,  Plot of land at Kyanja, plot 23-25 old Kampala and plot 30 on William street.

Upon seeking the advert, UMSC petitioned court seeking for halting the sale of its properties.

In his ruling delivered earlier today, Court of Appeal judge Christopher Gashirabake dismissed UMSC’s petition.

“The applicant has failed to prove that it has livelihood of success in the pending appeal or that it will suffer any damage or harm that cannot be atoned by an award of damages. The balance of convenience would be in not granting the application for stay of execution but to allow the party with judgment in hand to proceed with the execution process,” he ruled.

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The Minister of Defence and Veteran Affairs, Hon. Vincent Bamulangaki Ssempjjja together with the Chinese Executive President of NORINCO (North Industries Corporation), Mr. Yang Xiaoqing have commissioned a Joint Research and Innovation Centre, Anfo production line for Kyoga Dynamics, and groundbreaking of a comprehensive unmanned aerial vehicle workshop in Nakasongola.

This follows the signing of a Cooperation Agreement between the Ministry of Defence and Veteran Affairs and NORINCO.

Hon. Ssempijja welcomed NORINCO’s willingness to share knowledge in research and innovation to develop the defence capacity of Uganda.

The Minister commended the partnership between the Ministry of Defence/UPDF and Norinco over the years having been vital in the establishment of Kyoga Dynamics, a Joint Venture between National Enterprise Corporation and NORINCO.

Mr. Yang Xiaoqing in his remarks said that these events marked a milestone in the history of the cooperation between Uganda and Norinco.

“In six months, a workshop dedicated to the final assembly, testing, maintenance and training of UAVs will rise up here and will be a turning point for Uganda’s take-off of the UAV industry, a new important field for defence modernization,” Mr. Yang said.

He added that this cooperation will effectively enhance Uganda’s military capabilities, create social values, drive economic development and elevate Uganda’s International influence.

The Chief of Defence Forces, General Wilson Mbadi in his remarks said that partnership with Norinco in the expansion of the facilities is a demonstration of the ever-growing relationship between the Republic of Uganda and the People of the Republic of China.

“As two cooperative sides, we have made major breakthroughs in the theme of developing and modernizing our forces to create internal effectiveness and efficiency that has well been tested internally and in the region,” Gen Mbadi said.

He commended Norinco for their commitment and speed towards developing and setting up the facilities which will go a long way in creating capacity for the UPDF.

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While commissioning the first-ever diagnostic test kit manufacturing plant in the Great Lakes region, President Museveni commended the local scientists and the manufacturing plant proprietors for enhancing Uganda’s local manufacturing capacity in the health sector.

Located in Ntinda, Nakawa Division, Kampala, the state of the art plant- Microhaem Scientifics (MHS) will support Uganda and the regional health sectors to develop local manufacturing capacity towards improving and sustaining the medical supply chain needs by producing high-quality and affordable malaria and HIV diagnostic testing kits in the country.

“I want to congratulate the Ugandan scientists for really waking up. The human race was not very scientific, it was only in 1865 when a man called Louis Pasteur found out that there are other organs which live around us, and we cannot see them with our naked eyes. This was not long ago when Louis Pasteur was able to see bacteria which cause fermentation in milk or something else. Before, the whole world didn’t know that there were other organisms around us,” he said.

“It is really not good for people who say they are scientists to fail to understand and use this scientific knowledge to solve problems. For instance, how does quinine attack the malaria you are talking about, how does it do it? This is just biochemistry or molecular biology so how would the scientists not know this, and you say you are a scientist? In the army we were able to understand explosions by just using the properties of different compounds,” he added.

President Museveni further encouraged the local scientists to partner with their colleagues around the world so that they can develop the science sector in Uganda more.

“If you wake up it will be easy for you to find partners in the world because those partners are there; the ones who woke up earlier than you. I thank scientists from the US and China for working with you.”

The President noted that the partnerships are possible because Uganda has got a very powerful resource which is the market.

“The partnerships are good. Recently, I visited Nakasero Hospital, and I found Dr. Mbonye there and he told me that they partnered with a Dutch company to expand the hospital. This is possible because you already have a very powerful resource; that is the market. Market is part of the business, somebody who manufactures, if he cannot sell, then that is not business,” he said.

“So, you Africans who are sleeping, you have a resource which you don’t know. You have got 46 million people here; these are all consumers of drugs, and other products and services. Then you have East Africa with more than 300 million people now, you also have the continental market of 1.5 billion people. In the next 30 years, the African population will be 2.5 billion. Until recently, Africa has been under populated; India and China had a bigger population, each, than Africa and yet Africa is 12 times bigger than India in size and four times bigger than China yet China and India had more people than Africa but now the killer diseases which had been killing Africans have been contained and for the first time in history, Africa will have what we call optimal population.”

He also assured the local scientists that the government will continue injecting more funds into their projects to ensure that they are a success.

“There are these funds which we have put in UDB, and we shall always put in more which are meant to support that transformation from a superstition-controlled society to a science-led society. That money is just for the beginning we shall inject more,” he assured.

“If you coordinate and you approach partners, they will work with you because you have one element of business which is market and other factors like cheaper Labour and raw materials. Therefore, I really salute you young people for waking up and getting out of the slavery of dependence because that has been the problem.”

On the issue of off take, the President assured the manufacturing plant that it is not a big issue, explaining that the Ministry of Health had already told them that they shall buy the minimum quantity which they need to enable them to get partners.

“Up to now we have not made an HIV vaccine and why? It is because HIV became mainly an African problem so other people were not bothering so much about it but now our people have spent more time and they are coming up with the vaccine.”

The Prime Minister, Rt Hon. Robinah Nabbanja thanked President Museveni for his visionary leadership that has seen Uganda’s health sector develop.

“When we met you last year, the proprietors of this facility told you that they were going to produce two manufacturing plants; one for diagnostics and another for vaccines. I’m happy that we are launching the one for diagnostics today. The fourth fully automated diagnostic manufacturing plant, the first of its kind in Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa. We are lucky that we are reaching this milestone in the course of our Health sector as a country,” she said.

The Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng noted that for years, Uganda has been facing a challenge of unsustainable importation of the required diagnostics and medicines for diseases like Malaria, TB, Sleeping sickness, ebola, among others.  She noted that local manufacturing is the only solution to this challenge.

“Like Your Excellency you always say we must benefit from our diseases. Unfortunately, for a very long time, Uganda has been dependent on the importation of drugs, medical equipment and other supplies from overseas. Your Excellency, it was about just 15 years ago when Quality Chemicals Limited began to manufacture malaria and HIV drugs locally and it is now manufacturing more drugs including for hepatitis B,” she said.

“We are therefore very excited that we are now expanding the local manufacturing capacity to include laboratory reagents and other diagnostic devices. I congratulate Microhaem Group of Companies for leading in the local diagnostic manufacturing space. Your Excellency, this investment is worthwhile because Uganda is at the heart of 8 East African countries including Somalia with a combined population of more than 300 million people. We also have market access to over 1.4 billion people of the African Continent through the African Continental Free Trade Area,” the Minister added.

Dr. Cedric Akwesigye, the Managing Director and proprietor of Microhaem Scientifics informed the President that the huge facility has been equipped with state-of-the-art technology to produce a range of both Molecular and Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) kits, HIV Viral load test kits, HIV Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) test kits, and HIV Drug Monitoring kits.

Microhaem Scientifics portfolio also includes HIV RDT kits, HIV Self-Test kits, Malaria RDT kits, and Hepatitis B kits.

“Your Excellency, when we met you in 2021 we promised you to make a manufacturing plant for Uganda to serve this nation. Sir, when I came back to give a progress report in October 2022, I promised you that I was adding vaccines on our agenda. Your Excellency, I’m delighted that today we are launching one of the promises that we made to you,” he said.

“Your Excellency, this manufacturing plant is a fourth generation fully automated manufacturing facility, the first of its kind in Sub Saharan Africa. In Africa we have five companies that have ventured into diagnostics. They are in Morocco, Senegal, Ghana, South Africa and now Uganda.”

Dr. Akwesigye also assured the President that the plant is ready for orders and to supply the products.

“The manufacturing plant has been constructed in accordance with the World Health Organization’s Standards, ISO 13485 and cGMP, and has been inspected and supported by the Uganda National Drug Authority (NDA).”

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The Opposition legislators have returned to parliament following one a month-long boycott.

Last month, the opposition legislators led by Nyendo-Mukungwe MP Mathias Mpuuga tasked the government to account for missing persons and the continuous detention of their supporters without trial.

Following the government’s delay to account for the 18 missing opposition supporters, the MPs embarked on the campaign to boycott plenary sittings. The missing supporters were allegedly nabbed during and after the 2021 presidential campaigns.

The  missing people include; Hassan Mubiru, Martin Lukwago, Peter Kirya, John Ddamulira, Dennis Zzimula, Michael Semuddu, Muhammada Kanatta, John Bosco Kibalama, Moses Mbabazi, Yuda Ssempijja, Musisi Mboowa, Mustafa Luwemba , Isma Ssesaazi, Godfrey Kisembo, Shafik Wangolo, Vincent Nalumoso, George Kasumba and Joseph Baguma.

Last week, the Speaker Anita Among threatened to throw the boycotting MPs out of the August house if they miss 15 parliament sessions. She asked the chairpersons of the various committees to block them from attending sittings.

Yesterday, the speaker bowed to the pressure directed by the government to present a statement on the missing persons tomorrow. The Deputy Prime Minister Rukia Nakadama confirmed that a statement will be presented today as directed.

Earlier today,  the opposition attempted to suspend the sitting for 15 minutes, awaiting the arrival of State Minister for Internal Affairs Gen David Muhoozi. Speaker however asked them to calm down and wait for the minister.

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Secretary to Treasury Ramathan Ggoobi has cleared Tororo Woman MP Sarah Opendi to proceed with the enactments of the Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill 2023, after he issued a certificate of financial implication, indicating that her bill will not impose a charge on the consolidated fund.

This was revealed by Ms Opendi on Tuesday, 28 November 2023, while appearing before Parliament’s Health Committee that has started scrutinising the Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill 2023.

In the Bill, Ms Opendi is proposing a jail term of 10 years or fine of Shs20 Million for anyone found selling alcoholic drinks before 5pm and beyond 10pm on working days.

“Just yesterday, I saw the letter from the Secretary to Treasury, in response to our request for the certificate for financial implication and he did respond, but this has been overtaken by events, because we had to rely on our Rules that give the MP 60 days. And so, when he responds now to give me a certificate, with comments, it is beyond the 60 days rule. But the certificate was issued and it clearly shows that there is no charge on the consolidated fund,” she said.

Opendi also defended her proposal to impose a time limit within which alcohol should be sold in bars, saying the move is intended to reduce noise pollution because some bars are located in residential areas and whoever wants to drink beyond the legal time, they should drink in their homes.

“If somebody buys (alcohol) and goes to drink from home, we have no problem with that, for us we shall not control people’s homes, you are actually free. That is why we said supermarkets can sell alcohol from 10am to 10Pm, so if one wants to drink, you can go and buy from the supermarket, go and drink from home. Why do people fear drinking from home?” she wondered.

Ms Opendi also attacked fellow MPs who use alcohol as a campaign commodity, saying their actions are drowning their voters in poverty and it was about time they had an honest conversation about the impact alcohol abuse is having on the lives of Ugandans.

She said: “You are happy because you are MP to buy alcohol for people to just get drunk, you are actually making people drown in poverty, just because you want to remain as MP. We must be serious and tell people the truth, people must be able to work, be productive so that they can be able to take care of themselves and their families and we shall have peace and prosperity in this country.”

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