Former Uganda tourism minister in cross hairs

UGANDA (eTN) – The immediate former Minister for Tourism Trade and Industry, the Hon.

UGANDA (eTN) – The immediate former Minister for Tourism Trade and Industry, the Hon. Kahinda Otafire, removed from this ministry, has come under intense scrutiny for alleged incompetence over a range of decisions he made in regards to the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), as is now being widely reported in the local media. It appears that the UWA saga had rattled the entire cabinet at the time when an election campaign was underway, giving way to an internal investigation to be carried out on the direction of the Prime Minister, who had been tasked as one of his deputies to provide a fast-tracked report before Christmas last year to the President.

The damning document, parts of which now leaked into the public domain, focused on the appointment of the current Acting Executive Director, who was uprooted from his position as Executive Director of the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre in Entebbe by the ministerโ€™s appointment, which was declared irregular before stopping short of hanging out Otafire to dry when adding that his (Otafireโ€™s) request to have the President appoint a caretaker board would have complicated issues, diplomatically leaving out what might well have been added verbally, that this too would have been another illegal move.

A resolution by the investigative committee that a new board be proposed within a fortnight by Otafire seemingly fell on deaf ears though as no such proposals were reportedly made, leaving the Uganda Wildlife Authority in a lurch and hamstrung, adding further injury to the damage the minister had done earlier already.

While Otafire is now Minister of Justice, the new Minister for Tourism, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, diplomatically refrained from direct comments on the circumstances of exactly who is legally who in UWA at this moment in time. Sources from within the Ministry of Tourism, itself now seeking a new home after becoming a separate entity from Trade and Industry again, however, confirmed that the UWA affair keeps occupying both the Minister and the Minister of State, both of whom were working hand in hand with the office of the Attorney General in order to bring about legal responses and action as provided for under the Wildlife Act, which governs the running of UWA and which was contemptuously ignored by Otafire.

Staff at UWA in the meantime are said to be worried about their own future, considering the Otafire-instituted Commission of Enquiry recently caused four more staff to be suspended, and work, while scontinuing, is according to internal and external sources far from running smooth, with decisions instead of being taken as was the case in the past being referred upstairs if for nothing else but to protect individuals from being railroaded.

How the once mighty and shining organization has fallen at a time when oil companies are about to embark from test drilling to move to production, and multiple sites being located inside the Murchisons Falls National Park or along the Kaiso Tonya Game Reserve along the shores of Lake Albert, when first and foremost a strong UWA would be needed to ensure environmental compliance and full compliance with mitigation measures, already agreed and still to be agreed.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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