Museveni praises E.Guinea over oil use

Vision Reporter

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has praised the government of Equatorial Guinea for its proper use of the country’s oil revenues, particularly on human resource and electricity development.

Museveni was attending a joint press conference on Friday with his visiting counterpart President Theodore Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea at State House Nakasero.

The West African statesman, who has been on a three-day official visit in the country, was also a part of the 26^th anniversary celebrations of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party.

This year’s January 26 NRM day had its main celebrations staged at Tegres Senior Secondary School in Kapchorwa district.

Museveni hailed Nguema for providing free primary, secondary and university education using oil resources, saying it was the “real infrastructure” and once dealt with, the rest would be simple.

He believed that by dealing with crucial areas like electricity and human resource development, the West African country was on the right path.

With Nguema’s visit to Uganda, Museveni pointed out that the two countries would share experiences especially in the area of oil exploration and resource management.

Uganda and E. Guinea both have an oil training centre.

The visiting president, on his part, recommended an establishment of a national body that would oversee petroleum exploration and resource management. He lauded his Ugandan counterpart for using African scientists, especially Ugandans, to discover the oil.

On his experience in the first year in office as chairman of the African Union (AU) Nguema said he was disillusioned to discover that the AU that has been in existence for a long time had not been accorded due respect that it duly deserves.

“There is a lot of external interference on issues concerning the continent and it is high time African leaders united to avert this trend of events,” Nguema remarked.

He went on to encourage African leaders to embrace solidarity as exemplified recently when they contributed over US$400 million to help the suffering people of Somalia in particular, and the Horn of Africa in general.

Later, Museveni held another press conference with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who was concluding his three-day state visit to Uganda. He was accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Jeannette Kagame.

Historical bond

In a joint communiqué that was issued before the press conference, the two countries re-affirmed, among other things, the historical and unbreakable bond between Uganda and Rwanda to fast-track the East African Community (EAC) integration, the consolidation and focusing on identified areas of cooperation.

The identified areas include; Information and Communication Technology (ICT), cross border trade, defense and security, education and research, agriculture and food security as well as international cooperation.

The report also stated that Uganda and Rwanda agreed to eliminate non-tariff barriers to facilitate cross-border trade and work jointly to eliminate non-tariff barriers in coastal countries.

Cooperation

Later, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cross-border trade, on tariff barriers, co-operation on micro small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and that of cooperation on cooperative development, was signed.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Cooperatives, Mrs. Amelia Kyambadde, signed on behalf of the Government of Uganda while the Rwandan Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry, Mr. François Kanimba, signed the MoU on behalf of his government.