Ugandans baffled by sleeping ministers

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.tribune.com.ng/images/uganda-sleeping-ministers.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: auto; margin: 10px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">स </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">several media reports about Ugandan top government functionaries caught sleeping at important public function is becoming worrisome to many Ugandans, a report has indicated. </span></div> <center style="height: 0px; margin: auto; overflow: hidden; width: auto;"> <div style="padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: left;"> </div> <div id="ebzNative"> </div> </center> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moses Ali, 74, is one of the cabinet ministers who seem to have improvised a way to escape the scrutiny of nosy media cameras that have on several occasions caught senior government officials and MPs dozing when the president is delivering his address and when the national budget is read. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">At the most recent state-of-the-nation address, Uganda’s second deputy prime minister wore sunglasses too dark to enable anyone to see whether his eyes were opened or closed.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It all started four years ago when a local tabloid splashed the pictures of sleeping ministers and MPs on its front page as President Yoweri Museveni delivered his address to the country.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The paper’s headline on the day was “Sleeping Nation.” </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The public has since come to covet these events as much as the politicians seem to dread them. TV cameras are always out for who is napping, and photographs of ministers and MPs sleeping through these important speeches - delivered annually in June - end up on social media, with many lampooning the politicians. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“When I served in Museveni’s government things were exciting and one would have no reason to sleep,” said Professor  Edward Kakonge, who served as the first minister of local government when Museveni became president in 1986.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“What is happening now is a clear pointer that there is nothing exciting in there any more.”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Snoring away </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Whether MPs and ministers simply sleep through these events has become a key focus for the media. Some commentators have said that if government officials can doze while attending important events they know are being covered live, they can do anything in the privacy of their offices. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Sleeping is not a bad thing. Sleeping on the job is,” Bernard Tabaire, a columnist for the Sunday Monitor, wrote. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“No one has yet done the count that I am aware of, but the number of our big men and women who snored away as the president delivered his annual state-of-the-nation speech ... was possibly the largest in five years.” </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The media’s prying eyes into the matter is creating problems for journalists. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Last month, NTV, a local broadcaster, beamed images that appeared to show the president himself dozing while listening to the budget speech, prompting a government spokesman to say he was “meditating.”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The station’s reporters who had been accredited to cover the president’s press conference days later were turned away, sparking speculation as to whether the station was banned from covering events presided over by Museveni. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.tribune.com.ng/images/uganda-sleeping-ministers2.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: auto; margin: 10px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The NTV crew on June 30 was again unable to cover the president as he presided over an event at parliament. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hellen Kaweesa, the parliament’s spokeswoman, however, says that the reporters from the station missed the event because they arrived late. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The reporters came to my office and I gave them footage. We have not banned anybody from covering (presidential events at parliament),” Kaweesa told Al Jazeera. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Officials at NTV station declined to comment on the incidents for this article. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Kaweesa came under fire from Museveni’s spokesperson, who accused her of failing to “regulate” the media during parliamentary events. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tamale Mirundi, the president’s spokesperson, said that the TV station was not banned from covering presidential events but that, “it should stand warned.”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The president is the fountain of honour and he must be respected; under no circumstances can the president of the republic be depicted in such a manner,” Mirundi said. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Government critics such as Betty Nambooze, an opposition legislator, say old age is taking its toll on the politicians. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“They are too old and their attention spans have been reduced,” Nambooze, 45, told Al Jazeera. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Deputy prime minister Ali is one of the most senior members of cabinet, second only to Henry Kajura, 80, another deputy prime minister and minister of public service. Museveni, in power since 1986, will hit 70 this September. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">However, the president has infused some youth into his cabinet. Presidency Minister Frank Tumwebaze, one of the most influential members of the cabinet, is 38.  </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In a further dig at the government, Nambooze said: “The president never has anything new to say and his colleagues know in advance that this is the case (so they doze off).” </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She claims that what the politicians exhibit in public is not different from what they do in the comfort of their offices, negatively affecting the productivity of ministries. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“If the honourable ministers cannot attentively listen to their boss speaking in parliament, do you expect them to pay attention to briefs from technocrats in their ministries?” asked Nambooze.   </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Rose Namayanja, the government spokesperson, however, claims that Nambooze’s statements are made “out of ignorance of how [the] government works”. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Those senior members of cabinet she is trying to disparage make tremendous contributions to the workings of government,” said Namayanja.  </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">She added that it is “natural that people will close their eyes to process” what is being said. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Managing [the] government is a mental process and it must necessarily involve thinking,” she adds. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Regime of sleep</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Mathias Mpuuga, who shortly after Museveni’s re-election in 2011 led protests against the government over the rising cost of living, is having a good laugh about the situation. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“President Museveni has never been delusional about it; he warned Ugandans early enough that his will be a regime of sleep and he has not disappointed,” Mpuuga says. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the earlier years when Museveni first competed for the presidency, after his government restored elections following the bush war, he bragged about pacifying the country and allowing Ugandans to sleep without worrying about violence. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When he took over power in 1986, the country had had six different administrations in a space of just six years since the overthrow of Idi Amin in 1979. He therefore turned the narrative about “restoring sleep” into a key campaign catchphrase. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Of the state-of-the-nation address and budget speech, Mpuuga said, “Museveni is supplying the sleep he promised Ugandans.”</span></div> <div> <br /></div> </div>

Ugandans baffled by sleeping ministers

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