Good news about our properties
Aug 16, 2003
GREAT news! On Thursday it was reported that all government properties abroad would be managed by a new company, Uganda Property Holdings Limited.
One Man’s Week By John Nagenda
GREAT news! On Thursday it was reported that all government properties abroad would be managed by a new company, Uganda Property Holdings Limited.
It seems like only yesterday (but was actually on July 5) that this column railed against Government’s seeming indifference, which it termed “pathetic and even worse†to these properties. I called Government, quoting Dickens on the law, “a assâ€. I suggested that anyone standing in the way of improving the situation “should be lined up against a wall and shot!†As it happens I am not the only bloodthirsty human around. Reading yesterday’s Telegraph obituary of Diana Mosley, one of the famous Mitford girls, and years ago infatuated by Mr Hitler, I came across this section: “‘Know anyone in the government?’ she cried. ‘I know all the Tories beginning with Churchill. The whole lot deserve to be shot.’ This was reported to Churchill, who was not amused.†She and her Nazist husband, Oswald, scions of the British aristocracy, were imprisoned during World War II under Defence Regulation 18b, which empowered the Home Secretary to detain in prison “any particular person if satisfied that it is necessary to do so.†Are we not at war with Kony? Internal minister Rugunda, get ready to take a leaf out of the British book! (How the incredible Gulu Archbishop Odama, would take this, or anything else under the sun, is another matter.) The cleric termed the heroic Teso Arrow Group “suicidal†for taking up arms against Kony. God bless his soul, he probably preferred them to be as supine as some other groups of his acquaintance! But back, after this circumlocution, to our properties. UPHL’s managing director Brewer Abaliwano should first seek exemption from having to return funds from our embassies to the dreaded Consolidated Fund. They should go direct to repair bills, and after that to maintenance. Of course the funds should be used generally: our richer outposts subsidizing the poorer. UPHL should set a limit of 18 months to finish the repairs. After this Uganda’s name can shine brighter abroad. Before there are ambassadors, there are the properties from which they work. It is such a truism, that we should hang our collective heads in shame for having forgotten it. I will raise the reported pulling out of AES from the electricity project soon. But I foretold it many moons ago.
* * *
If you come to this section expecting high political thinking, or anything in that line, you will be disappointed. What I am doing is to delve a little in the undergrowth in which we sometimes step; collecting stuff that sticks to your shoe. In this case, Monday August 11 dawned like any other, until I received on my website a message from one Mutinda: “I know that Museveni saved you from Financial disaster (Huge debts!) and therefore you feel indebted to the man. But please don’t take us for fools. Being able to write good english [sic] is one thing (and very easy) and being objective another. Your malice and obsession with Winnie Byanyima’s popularity exposes your innermost fears…That you are nothing but a broke drunk.†I replied, “My father told me this: If somebody says something about you, it is either true, in which case take it. Or it is not true, in which case, why worry? …This is why I ignore personal rubbish about me from whichever source.†I called him a sad case. I also told him truthfully that I had never had huge debts, and any debts I had, had paid off myself, as had our Namutamba estate done to its debts: “We would never have dreamt of going hat in hand to Museveni.†He was back on Wednesday: “…For your information I am a humble Ugandan by the name of Mutinda Mungezi…But suffice it to say that I can tell you what even still [sic] owe the Banks as of today.†For good measure he inferred I was a bankrupt. The man is “out to lunchâ€, “off his trolleyâ€, “off the wallâ€, crazy with hate, etc. More, he is difficult to wipe off your shoe! I replied, for the last time: “…’Some of us know you too well,’ you say. Me, I know absolutely nothing about you. Therefore I can’t answer allegations that you live off the immoral earnings of prostitutes, and that your house is used to store stolen goods from around Kampala. What a fate!†But he keeps coming, and has spawned a clone, something called Kaana. Fantastic; where in my humdrum life would I have met such creations?
* * *
From there I end with the issue of the openly “gay†male who has just been made bishop of New Hampshire, USA. Why they are called “gay†I know not — it narrows an otherwise inclusive and joyful word; we used to call them queer. I am no hater of homosexuals, but I still feel squeamish when they come on so strongly in your face, so to speak. Should they be made, as in this case, bishops – an office which even to non-churchgoers still represents, or should, an apex of strong moral authority and rectitude? Perhaps yes, if their bishoprics were confined to congregations of equally “gay†types. Oh, plus other consenting adults! I would at all times have minors strenuously excluded.
I pass on one rumour about the above new bishop, Gene (what gene!) Robinson. Apparently in “gay†relationships, one is the man and the other the woman. Bishop Robinson is the woman. For some reason, my Lord, this made me, I regret to say, whoop with laughter without end.
Ends
GREAT news! On Thursday it was reported that all government properties abroad would be managed by a new company, Uganda Property Holdings Limited.
It seems like only yesterday (but was actually on July 5) that this column railed against Government’s seeming indifference, which it termed “pathetic and even worse†to these properties. I called Government, quoting Dickens on the law, “a assâ€. I suggested that anyone standing in the way of improving the situation “should be lined up against a wall and shot!†As it happens I am not the only bloodthirsty human around. Reading yesterday’s Telegraph obituary of Diana Mosley, one of the famous Mitford girls, and years ago infatuated by Mr Hitler, I came across this section: “‘Know anyone in the government?’ she cried. ‘I know all the Tories beginning with Churchill. The whole lot deserve to be shot.’ This was reported to Churchill, who was not amused.†She and her Nazist husband, Oswald, scions of the British aristocracy, were imprisoned during World War II under Defence Regulation 18b, which empowered the Home Secretary to detain in prison “any particular person if satisfied that it is necessary to do so.†Are we not at war with Kony? Internal minister Rugunda, get ready to take a leaf out of the British book! (How the incredible Gulu Archbishop Odama, would take this, or anything else under the sun, is another matter.) The cleric termed the heroic Teso Arrow Group “suicidal†for taking up arms against Kony. God bless his soul, he probably preferred them to be as supine as some other groups of his acquaintance! But back, after this circumlocution, to our properties. UPHL’s managing director Brewer Abaliwano should first seek exemption from having to return funds from our embassies to the dreaded Consolidated Fund. They should go direct to repair bills, and after that to maintenance. Of course the funds should be used generally: our richer outposts subsidizing the poorer. UPHL should set a limit of 18 months to finish the repairs. After this Uganda’s name can shine brighter abroad. Before there are ambassadors, there are the properties from which they work. It is such a truism, that we should hang our collective heads in shame for having forgotten it. I will raise the reported pulling out of AES from the electricity project soon. But I foretold it many moons ago.
* * *
If you come to this section expecting high political thinking, or anything in that line, you will be disappointed. What I am doing is to delve a little in the undergrowth in which we sometimes step; collecting stuff that sticks to your shoe. In this case, Monday August 11 dawned like any other, until I received on my website a message from one Mutinda: “I know that Museveni saved you from Financial disaster (Huge debts!) and therefore you feel indebted to the man. But please don’t take us for fools. Being able to write good english [sic] is one thing (and very easy) and being objective another. Your malice and obsession with Winnie Byanyima’s popularity exposes your innermost fears…That you are nothing but a broke drunk.†I replied, “My father told me this: If somebody says something about you, it is either true, in which case take it. Or it is not true, in which case, why worry? …This is why I ignore personal rubbish about me from whichever source.†I called him a sad case. I also told him truthfully that I had never had huge debts, and any debts I had, had paid off myself, as had our Namutamba estate done to its debts: “We would never have dreamt of going hat in hand to Museveni.†He was back on Wednesday: “…For your information I am a humble Ugandan by the name of Mutinda Mungezi…But suffice it to say that I can tell you what even still [sic] owe the Banks as of today.†For good measure he inferred I was a bankrupt. The man is “out to lunchâ€, “off his trolleyâ€, “off the wallâ€, crazy with hate, etc. More, he is difficult to wipe off your shoe! I replied, for the last time: “…’Some of us know you too well,’ you say. Me, I know absolutely nothing about you. Therefore I can’t answer allegations that you live off the immoral earnings of prostitutes, and that your house is used to store stolen goods from around Kampala. What a fate!†But he keeps coming, and has spawned a clone, something called Kaana. Fantastic; where in my humdrum life would I have met such creations?
* * *
From there I end with the issue of the openly “gay†male who has just been made bishop of New Hampshire, USA. Why they are called “gay†I know not — it narrows an otherwise inclusive and joyful word; we used to call them queer. I am no hater of homosexuals, but I still feel squeamish when they come on so strongly in your face, so to speak. Should they be made, as in this case, bishops – an office which even to non-churchgoers still represents, or should, an apex of strong moral authority and rectitude? Perhaps yes, if their bishoprics were confined to congregations of equally “gay†types. Oh, plus other consenting adults! I would at all times have minors strenuously excluded.
I pass on one rumour about the above new bishop, Gene (what gene!) Robinson. Apparently in “gay†relationships, one is the man and the other the woman. Bishop Robinson is the woman. For some reason, my Lord, this made me, I regret to say, whoop with laughter without end.
Ends