Aboneka Writes

 By Michael Aboneka Jr The release of the national exam results has often been welcomed by celebrations and many schools and parents, most out of excitement and perhaps ignorance, are quick to have their children’s information published in the various media without thinking of the repercussions on the children’s privacy. Whereas it may look fine to share the good news to the world concerning your child’s performance, what you may not know is that you are exposing them to potential harm. There are processes to ensure the robust safeguard of both personal data/information and general information concerning the publication of these results and the celebrations thereto. Article 27 of the Constitution of Uganda and the Data Protection and Privacy Act provide protection of privacy and personal data in all aspects. It provides avenues where data and personal information including pictures, names, grades and the school of the child can be shared. The African Charter on the Rights and Wel...

 By Michael Aboneka Jr If you have not been to Kampala and are planning a trip, please don’t come, for your own good. Kampala is allergic to rain, a few showers and the roads are gone. We have lost over 10 lives due to the splash rains and continue to lose 13 per day and 4,745 lives per year in road carnage. Much as there are other factors, the blame has heavily and unfairly been placed on the motorists and road users. The roads are poorly designed, with no lights or pedestrian walkways or road shoulders to support emergencies. We should not be having scenarios of crashes into stationary vehicles, later on concrete barriers. We have an extremely unprofessional workmanship for roads in Uganda. The Northern bypass is a perpetual road construction site and recently the Munyonyo expressway which has claimed lives. There is no proper road signage and lights to guide motorists and users of the new developments on the road and it seems no one cares. We had to cry and file a legal suit to ...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr We have continuously talked about the need for constitutional reforms as a country and a lot has ended in talks rather than the actual work. Several people were appointed to the constitutional review commission in 2018 and up to date, unfortunately, the commission has never kicked off---this, again, is bad start off. There has also been a push for electoral reforms but we need to on the larger question of constitutional reforms which then will inform the necessary reforms such as the electoral reforms.  Some electoral reforms are anchored in the foundation of the Constitutional principles and norms and thus will require constitutional amendments. Elections produce leaders who must govern within the rubric of the Constitution, the need therefore to focus on the larger issues of the constitutional reforms with the same energy as is with the electoral reforms. Whereas it may not be apparent that a constitution by itself means full democracy, at least the l...

By Michael Aboneka Uganda is State Party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance since April 2022. The Convention makes it explicit that there is no exception whatsoever to justify any enforced disappearance and that states have an obligation to investigate and bring those involved to justice. Chapter four of the Constitutional of Uganda provides for civil liberties including freedom of liberty under Article 23 and freedom from torture, cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment under article 24 and these are non-derogable rights under article 44. Since 2020, there is growing concern of enforced disappearances of persons especially those that are critical of the regime or belong to the opposition party. There have been numerous reports of the disappearances of Ugandans especially those belonging or supporting the young and vibrant opposition party; the National Unity Platform (NUP) led by Bobi Wine. In 2021, Bobi Wine released a...

 By Michael Aboneka Jr Uganda, 62 years after independence still faces the challenge of creating a more effective and responsive government that serves the needs of its people. The same government created various departments and agencies in a bid to foster service delivery. The government has today argued that it needs to take control of delivering services thus the need to rationalize various agencies such as UNRA, NFA with UCDA attracting heated and sharp differing opinions. Much as the government seems to be operating in good faith, by saving millions of money spent in the running of agencies, the question of efficient delivery of the same services has not been discussed. The Ministries have been limping before, with the return of the agencies to them, no one knows how exactly this is going to look like as we forgot to deal with the real patients, the Ministries. Be that as it may, if the government is serious about cutting the public wage and focusing on service delivery, why...

  By Michael Aboneka Jr The rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly, and expression are recognized in various legal instruments including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the African Charter, the Africa Democracy Charter, and the Ugandan Constitution. The responsibility of Uganda is to protect, promote, and abstain from violating the above rights. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has developed international standards, including 10 general principles that apply before, during, and after a protest which every actor must pay attention to. These include, among others, protecting protesters, holding perpetrators accountable, respecting constitutional bodies, denouncing violence, investigating human rights violations, denouncing the closure of public spaces and facilities, and promoting dialogue. Uganda must examine itself against the above standards if it is to claim a high score in protecting and promoting the freedom to protest...

By Michael Aboneka Kampala has been a hive of activities since the last quarter of 2023 because it dawned on us that we were to host three big summits/conferences-the Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Common Wealth, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit and the G77 3RD South Summit all to take place in January. We have never leant from doing last minute planning and implementation-up to January 14 th , we were painting roads, placing rubbish bins and doing last minute stuff including “planting” grown trees among others. Then come to communication about the traffic updates and the confusion it has caused-the “rescuing” of street children-which literally was like kidnapping them to Kampiligisa and the same had been done previously when we had “serious” visitors –after the visitors were gone, the street children were back happily smiling and begging from those who had made the decision. In record time, lights have been fixed at the Kampala Entebbe Expressway-after we have...

By Michael Aboneka In the social contract framework, citizens elect leaders whom they entrust to protect them, run the state for their benefit and govern them in accordance with the set legal rubric and the promises made. When politicians go around making juicy promises, upon being elected, those promises form part of the social contract.  The Constitution of Uganda, under  Article  17(i)  places a duty on the citizen to combat corruption and misuse or wastage of public property . This means, that a citizen should, at all times when they detect or suspect corruption tendencies or wastage of public property should do all things legally acceptable to thwart them. Citizens in Uganda have taken on various forms of expression and demand such as social media exhibitions, citizen organizing like the black Monday movement, petitions, writing letters, demonstrations among others. These means are acceptable in as far as demanding accountability is concerned. The public institu...

As the saying, the size doesn't matter but quality; the size of Uganda’s public administration does not correlate with services. Uganda, with a GDP of 45.57 Billion Dollars has 82 Ministers, 529 Members of Parliament, over 40,000 civil servants and over 1.56 million elected paid politicians which number is projected to grow to 3.3 Million of which 1.4 Trillion shillings will be spent on the 2026 general elections. According to the 2024/25 Budget Framework Paper, Ugandans will spend over 7.4 Trillion shillings on public administration alone. Turkey, with a GDP of 901.7 Billion Dollars has a cabinet of 18 while Kenya, with a GDP of 113.4 Billion Dollars has 21 cabinet secretaries (equivalent to ministers). Uganda, with a population of about 47.2 Million people has a parliament equal to India which has the biggest population in the world of 1.417 Billion people which is incomprehensible. There is no guarantee that having many officials leads to service delivery, but it is evident that...

By Michael Aboneka Uganda has over 20,000 persons with Albinism. Uganda recognised Albinism as a form of disability in 2020 which means that they too enjoy the same rights as those prescribed for persons with disability.  Uganda is a party to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability and its optional protocol since 2008, the African Charter,1986 and the African Disability Protocol in November 2023 which all enjoin Uganda to take all measures to ensure the effective protection of persons with albinism, and their family members, elimination of any type of discrimination and to accelerate education and public awareness-raising activities. This is further cemented by the United Nations Human Rights Council resolution 23/2013 and the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights resolution 263/2013 which in summation, call upon State Parties  to effectively protect the persons with Albinism. All the international and regional human rights systems and Uganda’s domest...

Uganda loses over 10 Trillion Shillings (Over 27 Million US Dollars) per year to corruption according to government sources. This alarming amount only indicates that Uganda is a rich country-we just chose to steal the money that is supposed to deliver services and develop the country. According to Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Uganda scored 26 and is ranked 141st out of 180 countries and according to World Economics, Uganda's 2024 level of corruption perception stands at 13.5, compared to a global average of 48.4.  These indicate that the fight against corruption has not yet yielded the much-desired results. One of the 10-point programs of the NRM is the fight against corruption. The NRM Government has been in power for the last 38 years and yet corruption continues to grow bigger and bigger. Where is the missing link? There have been rampant exposes of corruption and cries from the citizens to have the corrupt charged and mo...

Uganda loses over 10 Trillion Shillings (Over 27 Million US Dollars) per year to corruption according to government sources. This alarming amount only indicates that Uganda is a rich country-we just chose to steal the money that is supposed to deliver services and develop the country. According to Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Uganda scored 26 and is ranked 141st out of 180 countries and according to World Economics, Uganda's 2024 level of corruption perception stands at 13.5, compared to a global average of 48.4.  These indicate that the fight against corruption has not yet yielded the much-desired results. One of the 10-point programs of the NRM is the fight against corruption. The NRM Government has been in power for the last 38 years and yet corruption continues to grow bigger and bigger. Where is the missing link? There have been rampant exposes of corruption and cries from the citizens to have the corrupt charged and mo...