Museveni opens King Fahd Plaza

“IF His Majesty King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz can sponsor another plaza for the Islamic University in Uganda (IUIU), the government will be ready to support it with all its means.”
“We (government) will give another piece of land for the building,” President Yoweri Museveni said yesterday while opening the 10-storey King Fahd Plaza on Plot 52 Kampala Road.
Yunusu Abbey reports that Museveni inspected the cream-tiled building and unveiled the plaque amid cheers.
The project, whose construction Museveni launched on November 27, 1997, is a personal donation from Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd to the Mbale-based Islamic University in Uganda. It is supposed to generate income for the often cash-strapped university.
Museveni, who hailed King Fahd for the donation, said he would also be grateful if the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank fulfiled the pledge it made in 2000 to build a commercial building for the university.
Museveni’s visit to the plaza drew crowds.
They braved the scorching sun and wildly cheered when he arrived. “Yoyo Kaguta Abeewo,” they shouted.
Sheikh Swaleh bin Abdul Aziz Muhammad, the kingdom’s minister of Islamic affairs, represented the 79-year-old Fahd at the colourful ceremony.
He led a high-powered delegation, which flew in a private jet from Riyadh, the federal capital, on Monday.
Museveni said, “This Plaza was my own initiative. I personally wrote to King Fahd and asked him to donate to the Islamic University in Uganda. Sheikh Yusuf Al-Hijji (the Kuwait-born University Council chairman) agreed that the donation be invested in income generation. Here it is,” he said.
Museveni said, “I am glad at last the Islamic University in Uganda is beginning to behave like other universities do internationally.”
He said, “You don’t depend on donations all the time. You should invest in income generating projects.”
On misuse of donor funds, he said, “You cannot eat the seeds but you plant them. I am surprised that these days even university professors eat seeds. I thought people who studied botany would know that it’s not good to eat seeds.”