10,000 Amin Portraits Destroyed In Archives Repair

Aug 04, 2001

OVER 10,000 portraits of former president Idi Amin were destroyed during recent rehabilitation works of the National Records and Archives Centre in Entebbe, reports A. G. Musamali.

OVER 10,000 portraits of former president Idi Amin were destroyed during recent rehabilitation works of the National Records and Archives Centre in Entebbe, reports A. G. Musamali. The US$400,000 rehabilitation exercise started in January 1998 and ended last month. It was funded by the Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA). The contractor was K2 Consult (Uganda) Limited. Froydis Dybdahl, the K2-Consult project manager, said yesterday that the aim of the rehabilitation was to prepare the archive records for transfer to a new home. Dybdal was speaking at the official hand-over of the archives back to the Ministry of Public Service. She said the Amin posters had been kept in the archives since the mid-1970s and were taking up space meant for more useful records. Sources told The New Vision that the portraits were meant to be part of a nation-wide publicity campaign for Amin but were overtaken when he promoted himself to Field Marshal and rendered the titles on the posters time-barred. The source said government officials at the time decided that all those posters should be stored in the archives. Present were the Danish Ambassador to Uganda, Flemming Bjork Pedersen, and Public Service Permanent Secretary, Jimmy Lwamafa, who represented state minister for Pensions, Benigna Mukiibi. Lwamafa said in a speech he read on behalf of Mukiibi said the new building would be constructed next to the Ministry of Public Service headquarters in Wandegeya. Ends

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