By Joseph Kizza
KAMPALA - Uganda’s First Deputy Prime Minister, Eriya Kategaya is dead. According to reports, the 67-year-old died Saturday early evening in Nairobi, Kenya.
His reported death, which occured at Nairobi Hospital, comes against a backdrop of a flurry of public concern about his health.
Born July 4, 1945, the fallen minister also served as Minister for East African Affairs by the time of his death.
Speaking on phone to state media Saturday evening, information and national guidance minister Mary Karooro Okurut said governement regrets the death of Kategeya.
She said: “He has not been well. He had been hospitalized. We shall feed you with details.”
Kategeya passed on at the Nairobi health facility where he was suffering from a condition known as Thrombosis, caused by a blockage preventing the flow of blood in the body.
He was taken ill earlier in January and was later shifted to Nairobi Hospital following consultations with his personal doctors.
Also a lawyer, he was active in the political spheres of the country since 1975, until his reported death on Saturday.
Growing up in western Uganda, the fallen politician was a long-time associate of current president Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, spanning back from their school days in Ntare School in the early 1960s.
He later pursued and attained a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Dar-es-Salaam in neighboring Tanzania.
Survived by a wife and children, he is said to be one of the longest serving cabinet ministers in Uganda's politcal history.
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