Following the suspected rebel attack on a school in Kasese that left 43 people dead, legislators from the district have poked holes into government’s response to beef up security.
On Friday 16, June 2023, rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces attacked Lhubiriha Mpondwe Secondary School, setting buildings on fire leaving 37 students, a security guard and four other civilians dead.
It was then agreed, during a Parliament sitting on 23 June 2023 that the Government would swiftly move to deploy security in Kasese especially along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The intention was to prevent a recurring attack.
In the House on Thursday, 29 June 2023, Bukonjo County West MP, Hon. Atkins Katusabe, however, updated Parliament that the Government had been slow to react in keeping its promise to up security deployment in Kasese.
He said that the situation was still tense and the residents in the area where the attack occurred and along the border were living in fear.
“Not so long ago, there used to be several Police checkpoints in and around Kasese but now, there is nothing and that gives us little confidence on matters concerning security,” Katusabe added.
The MP implored government to act on its promise and secure the area so that life can get back to normal with businesses operating and parents sending their children back to school.
Katusabe also asked the government to endeavor to compensate the families of all the victims who were killed in the attack.
“We were told that the bodies of some of the students who were burnt beyond recognition were still being examined using DNA analyses before compensating the respective families; we hope that when the results are out the government follows through,” he said.
In response, the Minister of State for Education and Sports (Sports), Hon. Peter Ogwang, said that he will work with the area MPs and ensure that when the DNA results are out the rightful families are compensated.
He revealed that the ministry was working closely with the Ministries of Defence, Security and Internal Affairs to secure the schools in Kasese located near the border with DRC.
On the other hand, speaking on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Joseph Ssewungu (NUP, Kalungu West County) urged government not to just stop at compensating the victims of the attack but to go deeper in investigating the circumstances surrounding and leading to the attack. By Moses Kayigwa, Tower Post
KIGALI, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda's direct economic losses from the disasters triggered by heavy rains in May amounted to 222.31 billion Rwandan francs (about 191 million U.S. dollars), Rwandan Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente said Friday.
During his presentation to the plenary session of both chambers of parliament, Ngirente provided an overview of the government's actions in disaster management and prevention.
Ngirente emphasized the gravity of the challenges confronted and highlighted the cruciality of implementing effective measures to mitigate and respond to such natural disasters.
He said since May, efforts have been underway to repair a total of 438 houses, while new homes will be constructed for 3,088 families whose residences were destroyed.
As part of the government's response and support for affected families, 3,711 households were provided with rental assistance for a period of three months, along with food and basic necessities, while their homes are being repaired or built, said Ngirente, urging families and households still residing in high-risk areas to promptly relocate to safer regions.
At least 135 people were killed and 110 others injured in the disasters triggered by heavy rains in May in Rwanda. More than 20,000 people were displaced after nearly 6,000 houses were destroyed.
Last month, the Rwandan cabinet approved the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Policy, which aims to strengthen the legal and institutional framework for disaster management and build capacity for disaster management at all levels. - Xinhua
Majaliwa said that the government has directed all schools to continue providing education to students from the pre-Primary level to Form Six about the consequences of engaging in immoral behaviours.
Dar es Salaam. The government has said that it will take strict action against all those who are proven to encourage and engage in acts that violate the Tanzanian society’s moral code, while stressing that the issue should not lie on its shoulders alone but requires cooperation to stop such acts.
Speaking while closing the 11th session of the 12th parliament in Dodoma on Wednesday, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa, along with many other issues, echoed about the moral decay that has been discussed since The Citizen published the investigation of the erosion of morals in schools early this year.
In The Citizen’s investigation titled: ‘There’s more to students’ failure than meets the eye’, the causes of massive failure in examinations in Mburahati and Mbagala secondary schools were revealed, with the main factors being indiscipline and moral decay among students. In the report, students under the age of 18 were identified as engaging in prostitution and others in homosexuality. This level of moral decay has prompted debate as it goes against Tanzania’s culture.
On Wednesday, when he adjourned parliament’s meeting until August 2023, Mr Majaliwa noted that, “Let me reiterate that this issue is not the government’s alone; we need the cooperation of every Tanzanian in stopping those actions that threaten the welfare of the workforce in this country.”
“We have to protect our future generations against foreign cultures that endanger the well-being and development of the Tanzanian society,” he said.
In another step, he said that the government has directed all schools to continue providing education to students from the pre-Primary level to Form Six about the consequences of engaging in immoral behaviours.
“The issue should go hand in hand with strengthening gender desks so that they can provide services to our children,” he said, adding that the government had continued to encourage community participation in condemning moral violations.
“I strongly urge my fellow Tanzanians to work together to raise our voices so that we can put an end to immorality that has a big impact on our current and future generations,” he said.
He further exuded confidence that the government, in protecting the morality and personalities of Tanzanians, has taken effective measures to control the promotion and spread of actions that are against the traditions and customs of the country.
According to him, the law review commission has already reviewed some laws, gathering opinions from various stakeholders to work on them.
The aim of the review was to identify areas of weakness that contributed or provided loopholes for the spread of such practices.
In addition, the government has developed national methods to deal with the challenge by involving all important stakeholders from the Mainland and the Zanzibar Islands, he noted. By Jacob Mosenda, The Citizen
The Supreme court generally mishandled the Ham vs DTB Civil Appeal No. 13/2021 when it delivered its judgment on June 6, 2023.
This judgment was against the public policy of Uganda. In the handling of the case, the court intentionally set up its ladder against the wrong wall and it ended up resolving the wrong problem.
There are two imaginary problems which influenced the Supreme court decision. The first imaginary problem was that Ham is using legal technicalities to avoid paying his debts said to be owed to DTB. The second imaginary problem was that the High court decision which was made in favour of Ham outlawed syndicated lending transactions between foreign banks and Ugandans.
We note that an unusual dissonance greeted the delivery of what should have been a landmark judgment in guiding the prudential regulation of the banking sector. This muted reception of the decision is caused by the court’s failure to yield to the true facts of the case.
The court also completely misdirected itself on the sovereignty of the Ugandan law when it declared incredibly, that there is no law which stops a foreign bank from lending in Uganda and that any transaction it carried out was legal per excellence.
By subscribing to a deregulation of foreign led financial transactions conducted in Uganda, the judgment consigned itself into an irretrievable legal absurdity.
ORIGIN OF THE DISPUTE
Ham’s dispute with DTB Uganda started in 2019 when he conducted an audit of his bank accounts and discovered that DTB had over a long period of time stolen the equivalent of Shs 123bn from his accounts. Ham sent his audit findings to the bank in November 2019 and requested for a meeting to reconcile accounts.
At that time Ham had an existing credit facility with DTB Uganda and Kenya amounting to $10m. This facility had been contracted in 2017/2018. Ham was however surprised when DTB turned down the audit meeting request and instead started taking enforcement measures to recover the $10m facility.
Ham run to court in early 2020 to report the stealing of money from his accounts and also to raise the issue of the illegal lending transaction of DTB Kenya which was done without prior approval of the central bank as required by the Financial Institutions Act 2004 (as amended).
The dispute would not have escalated to the courts if DTB had acted reasonably and sat down with its customer to look into the audit queries he had raised. On the facts, it is Ham who demands money from DTB, not vice versa.
DECISION OF THE HIGH COURT
After hearing the arguments of the parties, the High court declared that the $10m credit facility was illegal for want of regulatory approval. The illegality attached to the $10m credit transaction and not Ham’s claim of Shs 123bn which court ordered to be refunded. Secondly, court refused to order the audit of the $10m credit transaction since it had already been declared to be an illegality.
The above decision gave rise to the second imaginary problem which relates to the alleged outlawing of syndicated loansbytheHighcourt. For the record, the High court did not make any order in its decision, outlawing syndicated lending transactions between a foreign bank and any Ugandan.
The only inference which can be drawn from the High court decision is that any lending by a foreign bank in Uganda required the prior approval of the Central Bank.
SMUGGLING OF THE SYNDICATED LOAN ISSUE IN THE CASE
The syndicated loans was never part of the DTB appeal lodged in the Court of Appeal nor was it part of Ham’s appeal lodged in the Supreme court. Anyone reading the file causally would have established that there was no syndicated loan arrangement between Ham and the DTB banks.
In simple terms, a syndicated loan is an arrangement where two or more lenders come together to raise a loan to a customer by issuing the loan under the name of one of the lenders who is licensed to operate in the territory of the borrower.
In our case, DTB Kenya issued a direct credit facility of $4.5n by issuing offer letters on the 23rd of October 2017 and August 24, 2018 for $4m and $0.5m respectively. There was no syndicated loan offered by the DTB to Ham and each Bank made a separate loan offer.
In April 2023, the Commercial court of Tanzania sitting at Dar es Salaam delivered an instructive judgment on the legality of a loan issued by a foreign bank and an alleged arrangement of syndication in the case of Kilimanjaro Oil Ltd vs KCB (Tanzania) Ltd and KCB (Kenya) Ltd Commercial Case No. 7/2020.
In that case, KCB (Kenya) Ltd issued a loan of $15m directly to the plaintiff and KCB (Tanzania) Ltd, its subsidiary was the arranger/intermediary. The plaintiff challenged the legality of the transaction on the ground that it was procured in contravention of the banking and foreign exchange laws of Tanzania. The bank’s plea that this was a syndicated loan was rejected and court nullified the loan transaction for want of regulatory approval.
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE UGANDAN LAW
Under the principle of the sovereignty of laws, a country’s legislature passes laws for the governance and regulation of any matter conducted in that contrary.
If any person, local or foreign, is involved in any regulated matter in that country, that person is subject to the laws of that country to the extent that they are involved in the regulated activity.
It is, therefore, repugnant to the sovereignty of our national law for the Supreme court to have ruled that the Financial Institutions Act, which is the substantive law regulating banking business in Uganda, does not apply to foreign banks conducting the same business in Uganda.
Under Article 79 of the Constitution, it is only parliament which has the power to make laws on any matter for the peace, order, development and good governance of Uganda. These laws are made to govern all persons that dwell and operate in Uganda, whether local or foreign.
We take the view that the Supreme court had no power to usurp the power of parliament and start discriminating between foreign and local banks in respect of a statute of general application relating to the banking sector. (See Article 21 of the Constitution).
DENIAL OF A FAIR HEARING
Whereas there was no evidence of loan syndication, the Supreme court still allowed DTB to smuggle a ground of foreign loan syndication into Ham’s appeal.
This was allowed in violation of the rules of the court which required DTB to have submitted a cross-appeal or notice of affirmation of the decision of the court of Appeal before introducing new matters. (See Rules 87 and 88 of the Judicature (Supreme court Rules) Directions S. 113 – 11).
Whereas the court allowed DTB to flout its rules and seek orders outside the appeal, the same court could not allow Ham’s request to be heard on a formal application for judgment against DTB in respect of the admitted grounds of appeal (see Order 13 r. 6 Civil Procedure Rules).
It also refused to entertain an application to adduce additional evidence from the Central Bank of Kenya indicating that DTB Kenya had illegally conducted banking business in Uganda (see Rule 30 the Judicature (Supreme court Rules) Directions (supra).
The public policy of Uganda does not allow the courts to selectively apply their rules and the law to favour one party against the other nor does it allow the courts to deny a litigant access to the courts to plead his or her case. The Supreme court judgment in Ham vs DTB was issued in contravention of the constitution and its constitutionality shall be challenged.
Despite the court indicating that the application for judgment on admission would be considered in the final judgment, it made no mention of this application in the said judgment. What is odd is that the application to adduce additional evidence is pending ruling even if the court has issued its final judgment. This is a real mockery of the administration of justice.
THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPLICATION OF THE JUDGMENT
It is ironic that the Supreme court decision is promoting a shadow banking system at a time when Uganda is struggling to get off the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international watchdog which monitors countries with significantly weak anti-money laundering and terrorist financing enforcement regimes.
Whereas supporters of the Supreme court decision would like us to believe that the decision is endeared to international practice of foreign lending which will increase foreign cash inflows, studies show that grey-listing may lead to a decline of foreign capital inflows, downgrading of the country’s credit rating while increasing the cost of doing business in the respective country.
The latter occurs partly due to the attendant high costs on electronic and financial transfers of commercial banks, large costs on processing letters of credit, etc.
Logic would have dictated that allowing unregulated foreign banks to engage in predatory practices which compete against the regulated banks can only increase the fragility of the financial system. Syndicated loans are regulated financial transactions everywhere in the world. The Supreme court had no legal basis for ruling otherwise.
ABDICATION OF DUTY BY BOU
The BoU has abdicated its statutory duty by declaring that it does not regulate lending obtained from foreign banks since they do not take deposits from the Ugandan public.
However, one of the key functions of the Bank of Uganda is to maintain monetary stability. (See S. 4 Bank of Uganda Act Cap 51). One wonders how BoU maintains the monetary stability of the country when it refuses to monitor the external cash inflows from foreign sources.
Why should BoU, as a regulator of the banking industry, work so hard to constantly devise means of ensuring that some players in the Banking industry operate outside the rule book? It is the duty of BoU to ensure prudence of the monetary and fiscal policy of the country. It appears, however, that BoU has joined hands with the Supreme court to take us in the opposite direction.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, though the Supreme court judgment is dangerous, it will remain largely irrelevant to the gainful regulation of commercial banking and the practice of the law in Uganda. No serious bank will be motivated to engage in illicit money transfers and come out to openly acknowledge it, because of this judgment.
Secondly, no serious court (including the Supreme court itself ) can allow to continue flouting its rules of procedure and the established principles of law. Any court which chooses to do that will cease to function as a court of law.
Thirdly, no serious lawyer in Uganda can risk his client’s case (whether local or foreign) by casually defying the court’s rules of procedure and the governing law of Uganda. We cannot just mourn the passing of this Supreme court decision; we shall challenge it.
The authors are Counsel for Ham Enterprises (U) Ltd, Kiggs International (U) Ltd and Hamis Kiggundu, The observer
IEBC Select Panel Chair Nelson Makanda, his Deputy Charity Kisotu and other members during the media update on the ongoing recruitment process of the IEBC Commissioners on March 28, 2023. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]
The bipartisan talks that prioritised reconstitution of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) have seemingly collapsed but the IEBC selection panel is up and running.
In an exclusive interview with The Standard yesterday, the IEBC selection panel chairperson Nelson Makanda dismissed claims that their operations were suspended to give room for the bipartisan talks aimed at resolving political differences between President William Ruto and Azimio leader Raila Odinga.
“The IEBC panel is still working and has not abandoned its duties. The panel is in office, properly constituted and working. As a matter of fact, we are sitting tomorrow afternoon at 2.30 pm. There is nothing to hide,” he said.
Dr Makanda said the selection panel took a break on their own volition when political temperatures heightened in the country and denied allegations that they got orders from President Ruto to halt operations until a resolution is reached on by the bipartisan committee comprising of Azimio and Kenya kwanza legislators.
The bipartisan committee’s top agenda was finding a resolution on the mode of selection of the new IEBC commissioners.
However, the IEBC selection panel said they are working but with the consideration of the political atmosphere in mind.
Start shortlisting
“This panel has not adjourned and no directives from any arm of the government was given to adjourn. The panel took note of the political environment and realized that one of their key agenda was the composition of the panel and we decided to allow a process that remains peaceful,” Makanda told The Standard.
“Since I took office I am yet to receive any sort of communication from the Executive or anyone,” he added.
Before they went on a break the selection panel was to start shortlisting candidates to fill posts left vacant by the Wafula Chebukati-led commission.
“As at the 5pm deadline, the preliminary perusal of physical and electronic records indicates a total of nine online applications and 16 hard copy applications for Chairperson of the IEBC had been received,” Makanda told the press at KICC in Nairobi.
He further noted that the preliminary examination of their records had indicated that 900 applicants, out of which 385 had submitted hard copy applications while 515 had applied online for the positions of six commissioners of IEBC.
The selection panel was to embark on scrutinising the applicants physical and electronic submissions before they gazette the successful candidates to be interviewed.
Makanda revealed that they have already gone through the applications.
“The panel has taken judicial duty to thoroughly go through the names and qualifications so that we ensure that we are fair to each one of them. We know that we have a deadline so we are still working and on course to complete that task,” he told The Standard.
He further said that the selection panel has been meeting to discuss IEBC matters and that all their communications are on record.
“The panel has been meeting openly and there is nothing to hide. If the panel is meeting once in while all our proceedings are recorded. There are in Hansard,” he said.
And although they are yet to shortlist the applicants, Makanda said they are still on track and will adhere to constitutional timelines.
“No one is to blame for the delay, we are still on the timeline, we need to be careful when choosing those who will be mandate to take control of the IEBC. Remember the product of this panel has a great responsibility,” he said
Even though the selection panel chair insists that he has never received any instructions from political players, on Tuesday, the Bipartisan Committee co-chair George Murugara said Azimio had demanded that the committee writes to the team to stop them from undertaking their roles.
“But since there is no law backing us to instruct an independent institution as Kenya kwanza we were against the idea so we agreed to request the selection panel on its own volition and most likely because they are human beings and care for the nation, they could opt to suspend and that was our agreement,” he said. He however said Azimio went behind his back and redrafted the letter.
But Bipartisan Committee co-chair Otiende Amollo (Azimio) yesterday said they had already agreed that in the interim they would stop the selection process but Kenya Kwanza team later changed their minds arguing that the selection panel is an independent institution and cannot be directed.
“His argument is totally flawed because the bipartisan talks are founded on the sovereignty of the people. The IEBC or the selection panel cannot be independent in any event if we cannot instruct them in the interim to stop the process and to preserve the servers. How will we then eventually instruct them on our final decisions as a committee?” Amollo posed.
Makanda clarified that he was not in receipt of any letter from either Kenya Kwanza or Azimio.
Kenya Kwanza gave Azimio an ultimatum to resume talks on Tuesday next week failure to which the selection panel will proceed with reconstitution of IEBC.
But Amollo said: “These talks were predicated on a political agreement between Ruto and Raila. That was the foundation of the talks. It’s not about formalities. The talks have been dissolved. Our party leader announced it. What other formalities do they need?” By Grace Ng'ang'a, The Standard
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