Kazibwe just doesn’t merit the bucks!
Oct 27, 2004
SIR— It is embarrassing that Dr Specioza Kazibwe can have the guts to blast critics that they are envious of her.
SIR— It is embarrassing that Dr Specioza Kazibwe can have the guts to blast critics that they are envious of her.
If she knows herself to be such a great thinker, why must she depend on taxpayers’ money for her education and her children’s? I would have thought that as a sharp thinker, she would have a thousand ways of making her own money!
As long as individuals continue being valued above national programmes, the masses will continue to suffer. This behaviour is promoted from the very top. Why should public funds continue to be squandered on an individual when there are so many needy people?
Kazibwe should get what she is entitled to as former vice-president but that must be spelt out by the law. What does the law say about her benefits?
It is impossible to fight corruption in this country when it is so blatantly encouraged and defended in high places.
Is this the much-hyped fundamental change?
J. Bakaihahwenki
Kampala
SIR— I would like to comment on the money the Government is spending on former vice-president Wandira-Kazibwe. That is a lot of money for Uganda to pay for a student.
Uganda is a developing country and looks to donors for financial help to have development projects going on. Why spend all that money on someone who had already been rewarded before with the position of vice-president?
I am a feminist and even though Kazibwe is a woman, she doesn’t seem to represent the interests of Ugandan women who live in abject poverty, suffering violence, disease and death. Why not use that money to open a maternity clinic in a village where such services are not available?
Many women die during childbirth due to lack of medical attention and the long distance they have to travel to the nearest health centre.
To do something for Ugandan women, Kazibwe should, while in the US, make use of her former position to raise money and build maternity hospitals for the women in Busoga and other districts. In addition to a maternity hospital, Kazibwe should raise money in the US to build a children’s hospital. Many children are afflicted with jiggers and eye diseases which affect them for the rest of their lives. Her stay in the US, if government-sponsored, should be for the benefit of the under-privileged in Uganda.
Jennifer Jagire
Kampala
SIR — Allow me to express my views on Dr Specioza Wandira-Kazibwe’s rebuttal of her critics about her 2.5-billion-shilling government sponsorship.
She was quoted in the last Sunday Vision as saying that the Government should invest more in thinkers than talkers.
With all due respect, it appears she does not know what she is talking about. People talk or write about what they think. It is what they think and write that may be wrong and it should be what would have been concentrated on.
There two ways of acquiring intellectual growth, especially after the first degree. The first one is further study in school. The second one is through experience.
Institutions like Harvard University, from which she is pursuing the PhD, respect
and recognise experience
as a way of intellectual growth and excellence. Past leaders without even a second degree from the world are invited
as a external lecturers to teach students there. President Yoweri Museveni is booked for the purpose.
Having been vice-president
in Uganda for 10 years,
experience would have created intellectual growth in Kazibwe to the extent that she would not need to go back to school for the doctorate. Instead,
she would have picked a cause to advance like fighting AIDS, high maternal mortality, high infant mortality, in Africa, name them.
Ndinawe Byekwaso
Needy MA student in Development Studies Uganda Martyrs University Nkozi
If she knows herself to be such a great thinker, why must she depend on taxpayers’ money for her education and her children’s? I would have thought that as a sharp thinker, she would have a thousand ways of making her own money!
As long as individuals continue being valued above national programmes, the masses will continue to suffer. This behaviour is promoted from the very top. Why should public funds continue to be squandered on an individual when there are so many needy people?
Kazibwe should get what she is entitled to as former vice-president but that must be spelt out by the law. What does the law say about her benefits?
It is impossible to fight corruption in this country when it is so blatantly encouraged and defended in high places.
Is this the much-hyped fundamental change?
J. Bakaihahwenki
Kampala
SIR— I would like to comment on the money the Government is spending on former vice-president Wandira-Kazibwe. That is a lot of money for Uganda to pay for a student.
Uganda is a developing country and looks to donors for financial help to have development projects going on. Why spend all that money on someone who had already been rewarded before with the position of vice-president?
I am a feminist and even though Kazibwe is a woman, she doesn’t seem to represent the interests of Ugandan women who live in abject poverty, suffering violence, disease and death. Why not use that money to open a maternity clinic in a village where such services are not available?
Many women die during childbirth due to lack of medical attention and the long distance they have to travel to the nearest health centre.
To do something for Ugandan women, Kazibwe should, while in the US, make use of her former position to raise money and build maternity hospitals for the women in Busoga and other districts. In addition to a maternity hospital, Kazibwe should raise money in the US to build a children’s hospital. Many children are afflicted with jiggers and eye diseases which affect them for the rest of their lives. Her stay in the US, if government-sponsored, should be for the benefit of the under-privileged in Uganda.
Jennifer Jagire
Kampala
SIR — Allow me to express my views on Dr Specioza Wandira-Kazibwe’s rebuttal of her critics about her 2.5-billion-shilling government sponsorship.
She was quoted in the last Sunday Vision as saying that the Government should invest more in thinkers than talkers.
With all due respect, it appears she does not know what she is talking about. People talk or write about what they think. It is what they think and write that may be wrong and it should be what would have been concentrated on.
There two ways of acquiring intellectual growth, especially after the first degree. The first one is further study in school. The second one is through experience.
Institutions like Harvard University, from which she is pursuing the PhD, respect
and recognise experience
as a way of intellectual growth and excellence. Past leaders without even a second degree from the world are invited
as a external lecturers to teach students there. President Yoweri Museveni is booked for the purpose.
Having been vice-president
in Uganda for 10 years,
experience would have created intellectual growth in Kazibwe to the extent that she would not need to go back to school for the doctorate. Instead,
she would have picked a cause to advance like fighting AIDS, high maternal mortality, high infant mortality, in Africa, name them.
Ndinawe Byekwaso
Needy MA student in Development Studies Uganda Martyrs University Nkozi