Hands Off The mini Skirt!

I try to keep off frivolous chat, but this thing about banning mini skirts has got me irritated. I had to watch the Minister of ethics and integrity, Mr. Nsaba Buturo, lecture the nation about how we are conservative and thus not used to seeing women ‘almost naked’. Apparently its not our culture.

Well lets explore a little:

Since he decided to let loose the tradition genie, lets start there. Isn’t it true that most young girls in African tribes wore short skirts made of animal skins and bark cloth. The skirts only getting longer when the girls got married…..not before!

Secondly, can you just imagine a prosecutor standing before a judge , demanding that young Nakawunde needs to be jailed because her hot pants caused an accident on busy William street. Its so ridiculous it buggers belief. How idle are we?????

And for Nsaba Buturo to claim the moral high ground as the guardian of what is Ugandan is laughable. Uganda is a nation with thousands of people in north who have never been back to their homes in decades, a raging hepatitis E epidemic, a crumbling education system, ministers who steal money from aids patients and more ministers who take advantage of worker’s NSSF savings.

Instead of taking the high ground on this, the Mr. Buturo decides it is mini skirts that are a priority. Perhaps it’s the news value……he is a politician after all. Or is it a distraction…………….. Yes, I do believe in conspiracy theories.

My two cents would be:
If you have a body like Naomi Campbell then please set the streets on fire, stop traffic if you have too!

If you don’t have a body like Ms. Campbell, and instead have a body mass index greater than 30, then set us free and cover it up. There nothing worse than an out of shape woman who looks like she will have to use hedge clippers to get out of her dress.

Down Memory Lane

(Photo: malcom McCrow)

Any guesses where this is in Kampala?

Books, Books and More Books.

I came across a post on the Ugandan insomniac's page. It was all about books we have on our shelves and yet we are embarassed to say we have not yet read.

So here's my spin on this:

Books that have given me the greates joy!!!!!

1. Tick bite fever
2. No.1 ladies detective agency (series) ( Alexander McCall)
3. Miguel Street (VS Naipaul)
4. Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda A)
5. The Prince (Machiavelli
6. Shogun (Jame Clavell)
7. Asterix
8. Tintin

Books that I have and have not read (Shame!)

1. Great railway bazaar (Paul theroux)
2. Isles of Oceana (Paul theroux)
3. A bend in the river (VS Naipaul)
4. Art of War

Books that I seriously need to buy ( and hopefully read)

1. A long walk to freedom
2. A house for Mr. Biswas

Books I have been told that if I haven't read then I am semi literate

1. War and Peace ( oh lord!)
2. Heart of Darkness
3. Midnight's children (salman Rushdie)
4. 100 years of solitude (Garcia Marquez)
5. A suitable boy(Vikram Seth)

Books that I cant be bothered to look for

1. Rich dad Poor dad
2. The monk who sold his ferrari

Buying land in Temangalo ( The NSSF way)

Two weeks ago the story broke in the papers of a land deal that the NSSF was involved with that has the public shaking their heads in disbelief. It runs something like this:

1. Minister Amama Mbabazi has 400 acres (or so) of land to sell in Temangalo.
2. He asks the NSSF to buy it off him.
3. The NSSF, in their wisdom, realise its a serious case of conflict of interest, so they 'cleverly' advise Mbabazi to first sell the land to Mr. Amos Nzeyi (well connected business man and owner of the ugandan pepsi franchise) and they would then buy it off him.
4. Mr. Nzeyi, being the entrepreneur, adds another couple acres to the lot and then sells a total of 463 acres to the NSSF
5. Parliament sees red and demands an explanation!
6. Simple arithmetic shows that the land titles add up to a lower acreage than was purchased (414 to be exact).
7. The government valuer was avoided because he has 'frustrated' the NSSF before and so a private valuer was engaged and he put the value at 10 million Ug Shs more than two previous valuers.
8. The NSSF used an external lawyer to facilitate the deal ( they do have a whole legal department), only for it to be discovered that the same lawyer is also the minister Mbabazi's private lawyer!
9. And the bank (NBC) that handled the transaction on behalf of the NSSF has the minister and the chairman of the NSSF as shareholders.

Do we need to be rocket scientists to realise that something is not right! How much more can the public take of these blatant theft and influence peddling, SURELY!!

Or is is this the wake up call we needed, liberalisation of the pension sector!!!

Dare I say I told you so

After a such long lay off, technical reasons, I am back to blogging and am determined to make a better meal of it, now that I have a jet powered laptop and a great internet connection.

So I cannot help but start off with with one of my favourite subjects and that is airlines. especially our beloved Air Uganda. Remeber her, that beautiful plane and all the optimism and hope of a land locked nation resting on her shoulders, everyone praying that she woould take on the big red machine (KQ) and win.

Well despite the deep pockets of the Aga Khan development fund and the management expertise of Meridiana airlines, the cracks have appeared and even grown into fault lines!!!

The 98% on time performance has gone to the dogs, delays lasting hours and even days are not uncommon. And the image has been shattered. Apparently they are down to one plane instead of two, what ever the reason, and what a mess they have left alot of people, including many who recommended to friends that this was the best option to Entebbe.

Air Uganda is so constrained that it has cut its flights from 2 to only one, in the evening.

Well in the real world patriotism can overcome delays, inefficiency and poor options only for a short while. Busy lives and un missable flight connections cannot allow us to patronise Air Uganda for much longer. And KQ is not standing still, they have finally acquired a replacement for the B737 that crashed in cameroon and shoould be back to full strength in a jiffy.

Are we about to watch another brave Ugandan David get devoured by the Big red Machine, I will close my eyes, the thought being to painful and the puch in the pocket too gut wrenching

Oh Lord! Not Again!!!

First we were told Revolutionaries Live forever.Then he came and promoted a lieutenant to a major.Now we are told revolutionaries cannot retire, apparently term limits are not African.Honestly!!! Anyone who thinks we do not need presidential term limits in Africa needs a serious psychiatric evaluation, especially when you have thousands of sycophants cheering you on.

Battle of the Skies

Well finally we have another David trying to take on Goliath. This time in the name of Air Uganda. We can only hold our breath and hope not to turn blue!

Air Uganda is a consortium that is made up of Aga Khan Development Network and the meridian airlines group from Italy. This is clearly a total departure form the amateurish attempts of the East African airlines and the VIA to take on Goliath (Kenya Airways). This is a well heeled, monied and managerialy experienced outfit, which they have to be because KQ takes no prisoners.

The Nairobi-Entebbe route is undoubtably one of the most profitable in the world, from an airlines point of view. And the most unbelievably expensive route if you are a passenger. After all its just a 45 minute hop, so why on earth do you have to pay $350 for a return ticket. You can almost get to Dubai with that and that is a 5 hour flight!!!!!!

The answer comes in one word, MONOPOLY. KQ is king on this route and if you dont like it catch the bus. They can afford to undercut competitors just top put them out of business and then raise the price again. They have doen that so many times.

Thats why Air Uganda is a different kettle of fish, its backers have deep pockets and are aware of the lurking dangers of this bare knucled fight. But they have public goodwill and they also have a KQ straining under the load of too many passengers and too few planes, they are victims of their own success and passenger service is going down hill, delays are a fact of every day life.

We thus can only look forward to having more compettition and hence better pricing on the Nbi-Ebb route.....afterall we do deserve it.

But then again, is a duopoly really a competitive environment. What stops these two chaps having a coffee break together and fixing the prices...........Yes it can happen, so we watch and wait.