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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Museveni's expensive grandchild |
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| Halima |
| 10/01/03 at 07:46:32 |
| News Spotlight Wednesday, October 1, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Museveni's expensive grandchild By SSEMUJJU I. NGANDA and NABUSAYI L. WAMOKA Natasha, President Museveni's daughter at her colourful wedding. Uncle Moody Awori has been making headlines since he was named Kenya's ninth Vice-President last week. As Moody and his supporters were raising dust in celebration, across the border in Uganda, his younger brother, Aggrey Awori, who ran for president unsuccessfully in 2001, was raising a storm too. It was over President Yoweri Museveni's very expensive new grandchild. Recently, it emerged that Mr Museveni's eldest daughter Natasha Kainembabazi Karugire flew the presidential jet to Germany in August to give birth to her second child. A team of journalists with The Monitor, Nation's sister publication in Uganda reported that this birth cost $90,000 (Sh6.8m). The President's Press Secretary, Ms Maria Karooro Okurut, confirmed when The Monitor rang her on September 25, that indeed Natasha flew the GulfStream IV-SP jet to deliver her second child. "It is true the jet went with the mum," said Karooro. The daughter and her entourage returned on August 29 aboard British Airways with the baby. The younger Awori, who's the MP for Samia Bugwe North, is a man with good aviation knowledge, and far more controversial than Uncle Moody. He told The Monitor that it costs $5,000 (Sh375,000) for every hour the jet is on the air. The standard flight time to any European destination from Entebbe Airport is eight hours. The Gulf Stream takes fewer hours, and spent between 12 to 18 hours in the air the day it flew Natasha. The cost of flying it for 18 hours to Germany and back to Entebbe therefore would be $90,000. "This doesn’t include expenses like flight crew allowances, air and parking fees and accommodation," explains Awori. Though he came to power on a platform of simplicity and frugality, the Museveni State House is thought to have outstripped previous ones in ostentation. The government built for President Museveni a sauna with piped music, which is alleged to have cost over about Sh30 million. The news that Natasha became the first First Daughter to fly the presidential jet to Europe to give birth, comes barely two weeks after Parliament was asked to drop its "luxurious life" which costs the taxpayer huge sums of money. The Monitor could not establish how much per diem was spent on the first family for the 10 days, on the crew and any contingence as State House comptroller Richard Muhinda was not answering his cellphone. Conservative estimates by officials who preferred anonymity, put the figure at about $50,000. Ms Okurut said she had no idea how much was spent. State House insists no regulations were broken. Ms Okurut said the law provides for such a flight. She said the Presidential Emoluments and Benefits Act provides that each of the four biological or adopted children of the president shall be entitled to one trip abroad per year. She explained that any trip for education or medical purposes shall not be counted as the mandatory one. Ms Okurut said the law states that such trips shall be at the expense of the State. The Act further stipulates that when the child travels with either or both parents, the child shall travel first class or by the presidential aircraft. Natasha had her first child at the private Kololo Hospital in Kampala. Normal delivery at the referral Mulago Hospital Complex’s private wing costs the equivalent of Sh6,000. This means that the money spent on Natasha flying to Germany could pay for 1,200 mothers to deliver at Mulago’s private wing. In the ordinary wing, where the less privileged have their children, the $90,000 spent on Natasha's one baby would give 36,000 mothers an opportunity to have their babies delivered in a hospital. According to the ministry of Health, malaria is a serious problem in Uganda - as in most of Africa - and currently poses the most significant threat to the health of the population. Malaria currently accounts for 25-40 percent of all outpatient visits at health facilities, 20 percent of hospital admissions, 9-14 percent of inpatient deaths. It kills approximately 79,000 Ugandans every year. If the money spent on Natasha's single delivery were to be used to buy mosquito nets, the country would purchase up to 19,000 treated nets at a cost of USh9,500 each, according to information from Commercial Marketing Strategies, the distributors of Smartnet. This means that the Germany trip would possibly reduce the figure of death to 60,000. In northern Uganda, mothers and children live in unhealthy conditions and are exposed to mosquitoes that cause malaria. President Museveni who allowed his daughter the use of the official Presidential jet. Commercial Marketing Strategies, in collaboration with the ministry of Health, have subsidised the nets at USh4,000. That means over 45,000 mothers and children in the north and northeast would be safe from malaria. The money could also be enough to buy 36,000 cheap blankets for the internally displaced people (IDPs) in a country estimated to have 800,000 IDPs in the northern region. Alternatively, USh180 million would be enough to buy mammogram machines to help detect breast cancer, one of the silent killers of Ugandan mothers. For the last two years, Miss Uganda has been struggling to raise USh100 million for a mammogram to be set up in Mulago Hospital. Neither State House, President’s Office nor President Museveni and the First Lady contributed to the project. The only mammogram machine in Uganda is found at the elite Kololo Hospital. Mr Awori said health centres in the country, especially at sub-county level, are without basic facilities. He said 75 percent of Ugandans have no access to the basic needs of life. Awori said State House spent Sh48m on constructing a gymnasium and Sh1.28m on two tennis courts, which no family member has ever used. The parliamentary committee on presidential and foreign affairs, while considering the State House/President’s Office 2003/4 budget last month, pleaded with the officials to check their "luxurious life". This followed reports that the First Lady, Mrs Janet Kataha Museveni, had acquired an office block at Sh9.6m, used Sh8m to renovate it and wanted another Sh8m to erect a fence around it. Mr Awori had told the committee that each of the married Museveni daughters had just acquired a Sh8m Mercedes Benz. "There must be a cut off point at which the taxpayer could finance the president’s family," Awori demanded. There are reports that the daughters also have a Range Rover they use for shopping at Uchumi. "I see body guards playing with it. It is an amoured vehicle and the Vice-President does not have one," Awori said. Mr Muhinda told Parliament in August that strong armoured vehicles like the one Museveni uses, cost Sh500 million each. It is possible that the daughters are ‘playing’ with the Sh20m or the lesser priced Sh12m Range Rover. Ms Musumba said in an interview on September 25, that her committee did not want to embarrass the family by telling them in the report to check their lifestyles. "We thought they would receive the message with humility," she said. She said the daughters have grown up and have their own identities. "They are saved people and I thought they would behave as such. Aren’t they saved?" she posed. Musumba said the lifestyle of the First Family was very expensive for the poor country and pleaded with State House to check itself. Not even the world’s best guarded politician - the American president - will let his children take a hike in a presidential jet without him. According to the Cultural Affairs expert at the American Embassy, Mr Micheal Gonzales, the American President can only be accompanied by his family - children and wife - but the children can not be allowed access to Airforce One on their own. State House exhausted its Sh1.52 billion 2002/3 budget of 12 month in about six months. The budget was passed by Parliament in August and it was over in February. The treasury gave another Shs 4 billion. This financial year (2003/4) State House has been given Sh1.8 billion, minister for the Presidency Kirunda Kivejinja told the Musumba committee in August, that it won’t be enough. "However, going by the past experience and given the nature of State House impromptu programmes, this too will be insufficient and there will be need for supplementary funding," Kivejinja wrote in the State House 2003 policy statement. If one trip by one of the president’s child costs more than Sh 7.2m, the money will be exhausted soon. And, beyond the State House allocation, there is another Sh1.5 billion budget for the President's Office. www.nationmedia.com |
| Re: Museveni's expensive grandchild |
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| Halima |
| 10/01/03 at 07:58:19 |
Editorial Wednesday, October 1, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Such opulence is obscene Uganda is abuzz with a story of opulence in the First Family. President Museveni's daughter, in the company of her mother and an entourage, flew the presidential jet to Germany to deliver her baby in an "advanced" environment. An informed parliamentary source estimated that the trip could have cost the tax-payers $180,000 (Sh14 million). One of the remarkable things about this incident is that the First Daughter is a happily married woman, and does not, therefore, fit the category of dependants who might benefit lawfully from the privileges provided for the dependants of the President. Reports of an extravagant lifestyle at the Museveni State House were inconceivable 10 years go. Then, Mr Museveni was still preaching modesty and honesty, and criticising corrupt African leaders. Kenya has lived through the excesses of presidential households under President Moi and has important lessons to share with our Ugandan brothers and sisters. If a firm stand by Parliament, the civil society and the media is not taken now, Uganda could end up in the kind of situation in which Kenya ended when some of our leaders' fully grown children became a law unto themselves. There are enough laws and regulations in all the three East African countries forbidding misuse of public resources. The fact that they did not work was, therefore, the result, mostly of lack of political will to enforce them and a critical mass movement to ensure they were observed. The one country which saw a major difference in this regard was Mwalimu Nyerere's Tanzania. What Dr Nyerere demonstrated is that responsible and frugal government is best inspired by the power of example. There was a time when East Africa admired Mr Museveni. The disappointment that incidents like those cause, therefore, is not entirely a Uganda affair. It is very much an East African embarrassment. |
| Re: Museveni's expensive grandchild |
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| Halima |
| 10/01/03 at 08:08:24 |
| Ear to The Ground -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Charles Onyango-Obbo To be or not to be M7's grandchild for Shs 3.6bn; that's the big question Oct 30, 2003 The Ugandan press has been toying with the story of First Daughter Natasha Kainembabazi Karugire flying the presidential jet to Germany to give birth to her second child. President Nujoma (Right) pictured in September 1994 with the first black Mayor of Windhoek City, the capital of Namibia, His Lordship Mathew Shikong. Nujoma sees nothing wrong with a lavish lifestyle at the expense of the state (File photo). The tale truly matured when the papers put a price to the cost of becoming President Yoweri Museveni's grandchild - about $180,000 (Shs 3.6bn). Yet, I can't help but "warn" the press about this presidential jet childbirth. African presidents and their relatives do not react very well when their wish to buy a private jet is challenged, or its use questioned. Mr Abdulrahman Muhammad Dan-Asabe, a Nigerian student studying in China, not too long ago wrote about Namibia's President Sam Nujoma's response to jet matters. Like our good president, he also does not like term limits, and had the constitution amended to extend his rule. Nujoma and his household have strong views about presidential jet privileges. Dan-Asabe reports that in what was an "irrational reaction" from the president, it was reported that in an interview with German southern African journalist Thomas Knemeyer, "Nujoma was pissed at the criticism of his purchase of a private presidential jet by the journalist's paper, Die Weld. Nujoma was said to have shouted: 'we are entitled to travel by jet just like other people. If you go to Germany you find all over jets, even private people have them, and therefore the Republic of Namibia cannot buy a jet? That is arrogance, arrogance." To which Dan-Asabe retorts; "No, Mr. President, what is arrogance is that the President of one of the poorest countries in the world thinks good use of public funds is buying himself a private plane." A grieved Dan-Asabe, reflecting on this kind of behaviour, together with a long list of disgraceful things done and said by his President Olusegun Obasanjo says; "It is painful to know that the World has again, been given a cause to laugh at Africa in general and African leaders in particular.." And I have not found someone who has laughed louder than Timeri Murari, a columnist for the Hindu Business Line. Writing early in the year in an article entitled "Situation Wanted; Dictator", Murari was struck by African strongmen's obsession with expensive toys like private jets. Wrote Murari: "I am seriously considering applying for a job as a dictator. The pay is pretty good, you choose your own working hours, you get any number of freebies. "Of course the downside, and there is always a downside to any good job, is that you have people gunning for you. I could live with that." Commenting on a report by Fortune magazine about the world's richest men in March, Murari is struck that; "This time around, Fortune also published a list of the richest dictators. "According to Fortune, President Fidel Castro is worth $110 million. My admiration for the man only increases at his moderation. He has been in power in Cuba for nearly 50 years. This works out to an annual salary of $2.2 million a year! You could not hire any CEO for that kind of small change. "The big guys in GE [General Electric], GM [General Motors] pull in 40-50 million dollars a year, and that is not including stock options and other perks. "However, compare Mr Castro's fortune against the ex-President Suharto of Indonesia who stashed away $8-10 billion dollars during his relatively brief rule of the country." Then it is the turn of Africa. "African 'Presidents-for-life' from [Robert] Mugabe downwards, have stashed away billions too, and impoverished their countries. "I watched them gather in Paris recently, dressed in their Armani suits and Dior dark glasses, looking like a bunch of gangsters. They brought in their families and chamchas in private jets, who shopped until they dropped." Murari veers off to other strongmen, saying; "I am surprised that [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat has stashed away $300 million. When did he get the time to make any money? More importantly, where can he spend the money? He is trapped in Gaza and cannot even buy himself a three-course meal." So what is the point? It is that the Museveni household is not alone in ferrying its members in the presidential jet to go shopping or to bear children. I have not heard the president say he is different from the other African presidents, so it is only fair to treat him like the rest. Remember the words of Nujoma; "We are entitled to travel by jet just like other people. If you go to Germany you find all over jets, even private people have them." If you go to deliver your baby in Germany, you do as the Germans do. Email: cobbo@nation.co.ke www.monitor.co.ug |
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