Valentine is one of the days that cause huge excitement among Ugandans.
Couples and those who are dating are always at the forefront of the valentine’s day celebrations as they storm different love corners of Kampala to celebrate their love while the dating singles meet up to strengthen their relationships.

The day draws several expectations among lovers with each party hoping for something special and romantic from their spouse or fiancé. Ugandans have never been short of options when it comes to how to spend and celebrate valentines. The to do list of Valentines activities in Uganda include the following;

Presentation of flowers
Presenting flowers to loved ones has become a must do among lovers and it is viewed as one of the major indicators that your spouse really loves you. In Uganda, women tend to expect flowers from their male counterparts than the other way-round. Men have also stepped up to fulfil this expectation having known that it strongly stirs up a great emotional response from lovers.

Gifts
Valentines open such a big opportunity for lovers to show that they really care and love each other. On this day couples will do anything to surprise their loved ones with a special gift to reassure them that they still hold the first place in their hearts. Common gifts presented on this day include clothes, shoes, jewellery, cosmetics, while those who are more well of financially can go an extra mile and present more valuable gifts like cars, phones and other electronics.

Dressing
The customary Valentines dressing of red and black colors is well earmarked in Uganda. Places for hangouts are painted red and black by couples and those who are dating to match with the theme of the day.

Outings
Going for hangouts with loved ones has become the order of the day on valentines. the evening of valentine’s day is always busy and places for chilling are always congested with such couples trying to mark it in style. Beaches, cinemas and entertainment centers are among other areas that are flocked by the valentine’s day revellers.

Proposals
Curious Ugandan men have used valentine’s day as an opportunity to present their marriage proposals to their lovers. As a result, many married couples today are beneficiaries of Valentines proposals.

What exactly is valentine’s day?

Valentine’s day is celebrated on February 14th annually and it is also called Saint Valentine’s Day or the feast of Saint Valentine. It originated from a Western Christian feast day that was marked to honor the early saint named Valentinus. Many religions around the world recognize valentine’s day as a significant cultural, religious and commercial celebration of romance and romantic love.

There are several martyrdom stories with this day including a written account about the imprisonment of Saint Valentines of Rome. The Saint was charged for performing weddings for soldiers who were not allowed to marry and for helping Christians who were persecuted by the Roman Empire. During his imprisonment, the Saint restored the sight of his judge’s daughter and he wrote to her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell before he was executed.

Valentines and Romantic love

It was in the 14th century when the day first became associated with romantic love as the tradition of courtly love flourished. In England, in the 18th century, lovers started exchanging flowers, greeting cards and offering confectionery as a well of expressing their love for each other.

Various symbols associated with Valentine’s day that are used up to date include the dove, heart-shaped outline and the winged-cupid figure.

For those who have already found their partners for the day and are already in the day’s mood, we would like to wish you a colourful and lovely Valentines and we hope that your love will be stronger at the end of the day. We would also like to encourage our single brothers and sisters to keep up the search. Stay open to the opportunities the day may avail and you never know it may be the day you may hook up with your long awaited half as you chill in one of the hotspots of the Valentines evening.

The plan to add curvy and sexy women to the list of tourist attractions in Uganda has turned controversial after seeing a series of criticism directed towards it.

“We have naturally endowed, nice-looking women that are amazing to look at. Why don’t we use these people as a strategy to promote our tourism industry”’, said the state Minister for tourism Godfrey Kiwanda pointing at a group of curvy contestants at the stage during the launch of the event in Kampala.

However, since the launch of the event, angry rebukes from various sources including the ministry of ethics and integrity, parliamentarians, women rights activists, religious leaders and the general public.

Some members of Parliament have demanded that the minister comes out and apologizes to the public.

Mr. Kiwanda had officially launched the “Miss Curvy Uganda” beauty pageant on Tuesday and the campaign to register contestants had kicked off immediately. The contest was part of the “Tulambule” (Let’s tour) promotion that attracts both local and foreign travelers to visit Uganda’s attractions. The finalists of the Miss Curvy Contest were to be selected in June this year.

The chief organizer of the contest, Ann Mungoma, in support of the move says that the initiative was designed to promote and appreciate beauty in Uganda in diversity.

“Miss Curvy is an event that will bring out the endowment of the real African woman. It is an exceptional event that will see young ladies showcase their beautiful curves and intellect”, said Mungoma.

According to the organizers, women aged between 18 and 35 are eligible to contest.

The state minister for ethics and integrity, Simon Lokodo says that the contest cannot happen.
“It’s shameful”. I strongly condemn it. It demeans women and completely destroys their integrity. You can’t bring people from abroad to come and see the physiognomy of your women. It is not different from the striptease that they put in bars and lodges. It completely reduces a woman to toys of entertainment”, said Lokodo.

Apart from the curvy and sexy ladies, minister Kiwanda has used socialites including Zari Hassan and Anita Fabiola as faces of the “let’s tour” promotion.

In another related case, Kenyan TV personality Grace Msalame who claims that the organizers of the contest used her image for promotion, has vowed to sue them for abusing her image rights. Although Msalame says that she was not aware of the campaign, she strongly opposes the idea of using women’s bodies that way.

More reactions

Ms. Rita Aciro, the executive director of the Uganda Women’s Network called upon the Minister to resign for “dehumanizing” and “degrading” women.

“it’s a shame to women and girls of Uganda. It’s an exposure of scant knowledge of his job and what it takes. Common sense tells you tourism is not promoted using women’s bodies. Women are not sex objects”, said Aciro.

“Ugandan women have offered better for this country. He should apologize to Ugandans and should resign his position. The government should disassociate itself from the minister”, she added.

Currently the tourism industry is Uganda’s highest foreign exchange earner. The sector fetches approximately $1.5bn a year with wildlife safaris in the country’s national parks as the major contributor.

As we ended January a few days ago, many Ugandans welcomed the new month excitedly with the hope of overcoming the financial stress of January.

There has always been a serious credit crisis among Ugandans in the month of January and few details of the situation have been demanded. One of the long term problems that have not been addressed and perhaps this is the main reason why it has continued to haunt Ugandans up to this very day.

The January credit crisis in Uganda has got its unique characteristics that have become so common to a point that its diverse effects no longer cause eyebrows among people. The major highlight of this crisis is the general shortage of cash in the public.

What causes cash shortage?

The massive expenditure in the festive season of Christmas is hugely blamed for the cash shortage in January. Other causes include the money repatriation of foreign companies that operate in Uganda. These companies tend to collect money from their businesses in Uganda and send it back to their home countries at the end of the year. Banks and other financial institutions also tend to make their monetary policies strict at the beginning of the year which makes it hard for Ugandans to obtain loans from such institutions.

The shortage of cash in circulation causes a general surge in economic activities and this affects both product and service businesses in terms of quantities produced. The low cash levels affect production leading to low output and low income levels in return.

The opening of new academic terms in schools at all levels of education in Uganda is also another big player in this financial game that is worth mentioning. This forces parents and guardians who have school-going kids to spend sparingly hence limiting cash in circulation. There is too much financial pressure in this period with parents facing pending expenditures on school tuition, accommodation and feeding fees and other related expenses. This forces parents and guardians to withhold their money in order to meet such expenses leaving other areas in the economy with cash shortages.

Consequences

The crisis comes with such diverse effects to Ugandans leaving everyone on their knees for it to end. Delayed salaries, low volume of economic activities, cut salaries, loan and credit applications, deferred payments, borrowing, foregone meals, low or no savings, huge debts and many more are among the severe consequences Ugandans face during this desperate period.

Way forward/ Remedies

It looks likely that there will be little or no government intervention in response to this crisis given the previous experience and this calls for individual action. This means that Ugandans at individual level have to take the lead to rescue themselves if they are to ever get any relief from this problem. A few measures can be taken to tackle the crisis; these may include proper planning or planning ahead, prior saving, controlled expenditure, spending wisely, among others.

Proper planning

Ugandans should consider starting to plan very well how they are going to spend their income in the demanding seasons. If it is the expenditure pressure in the festive season that consumes most of the income, then plans have to be drawn on how this can be done in a controlled manner. Usually traders hike the prices of all commodities in Christmas season due to the rise in demand and this calls for an early shopping before such prices are hiked to avoid over spending.

Prior Savings

Another good measure to curb the crisis would be saving some money aside for January use. Such money can be called “emergency money”, and can be turned to when things turn hard in January. Reckless expenditure without considering the tough financial conditions of January has been one of the major causes of the slump. Once considerations have been started on how to go over the tricky month, life will be a bit better.

Controlled Expenditure

Spending sparingly or wisely during the high demand season of Christmas is another great escape plan from the financial stress of January. It is high time Ugandans learn to forego some of the less important expenditures in order to limit the resultant stress and other challenges. Excessive expenditures on entertainment, travels and beverages can all be controlled.

The Uganda National Examination Board has released the results of last year’s Uganda Certificate of Education.

Cabinet minister for education Hon Janet Museveni together with her counterpart the state Minister for higher education Hon John Chrysostom Muyingo were both present at the official release of the results at Statistics House in Kampala.

According the results read by the UNEB Executive Secretary Dan Nkorach Odongo, boys performed better than girls in the overall performance of last year’s O’Level exams. However, girls performed better in individual subjects like English but their male counterparts out-performed them in all the other subjects.

Mr. Odongo mentioned that a total of 335,435 candidates were registered last year and this indicated an increase of about 10,000 candidates compared to those registered the previous year (2017). 152,278 were beneficiaries of the Universal Secondary (USE) Education program.

There was an increase in the number of candidates who passed the exams compared with the previous year (1,000 candidates). Improvement in individual subjects has been registered and these include English, Islamic Religious Education and Physics. However, there is still a challenge in passing of other science subjects especially Chemistry which was the worst done subject.

UNEB Chairperson Prof. Mary Okwakol notes that the UCE process went on smoothly and she approved the candidature increase was from 0.9% in 2017 to 3.3% in 2018.

The UNEB Secretary also noted other key areas as far as last year’s results were concerned:

The issue of language deficiency affected performance significantly and this was exhibited in candidates’ failure to interpret questions correctly. Candidates were more comfortable answering direct questions but found trouble with more logical questions and those that required some level of analysis.

It was also discovered that some candidates produced crammed passages from the texts instead of writing their original compositions. Mr. Odongo blames the teachers for failure to train candidates to produce original work but rather encourage them to cram written texts with the hope that they will be awarded more marks.

There is still a challenge in the handling of apparatus in the science subjects and writing balancing equations in Chemistry and this partly explains the huge failure registered in the subject.

A deficiency in conducting of practical lessons in time by students was also pointed out. The Secretary says that teachers wait until late towards the final exams and that is when they introduce students to practical lessons something that leads to their poor performance in such subjects.

Teachers have also embarked on giving candidates spotted areas using the past UNEB papers which limits them from reading other parts of the syllabus. Failure to complete the syllabus by the teachers while teaching students has been pointed out as one the major causes of failure. Students have subsequently failed questions asked from parts of the syllabus they didn’t cover.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi has been sworn in as the country’s new president succeeding Joseph Kabila.

The new president takes over power in DR Congo’s first ever peaceful transfer of power in almost 60 years since the country gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

The swearing in took place in the capital Kinshasa on Thursday and it was attended by Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta who was the only outside head of state present out of the 17 who were invited.

Tshisekedi has been finally sworn after a bitterly disputed election that saw fellow opposition leader Martin Fayulu challenge his victory in the court after rejecting the results in which Tshisekedi was declared winner by the electoral commission.

After the elections, several sources including the country’s influential Catholic Church came out to declare that Fayulu had a landslide victory in the elections but he was denied by the backroom deal between Tshisekedi and former president Joseph Kabila.

There were several calls for a recount of the votes made by Fayulu and other parties including the regional blocs SADC and the African Union but they were all ignored by the electoral commission that decided to uphold the status quo.

Exhaustion!

During his inauguration speech, Tshisekedi collapsed on the podium after feeling faint but he shortly returned to continue and he stressed that he was exhausted from the long presidential campaign and the emotion of the day.

While addressing the excited and jubilant crowd, Tshisekedi said “We want to build a strong Congo, turned toward development in peace and security, a Congo for all in which everyone has a place”.

The first peaceful hand over of power is deemed by many as a sign that DR Congo is becoming more democratic though others are still critical of the conditions under which the transition is conducted.

Former president Joseph Kabila called upon all Congolese to rally behind Tshisekedi and support him and assured his successor that he could call on him for advice at any time.

Father’s legacy?

As he comes into presidency, Mr. Felix Tshisekedi is mostly known as a son of the late veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi who is remembered for his long term fight for democracy in DR Congo until he passed on in 2016.

Etienne Tshisekedi was the founder of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) in 1982, a party Felix Tshisekedi leads currently.

A challenging office?

Felix Tshisekedi comes into power amidst speculations that the outgoing president Joseph Kabila remains a big stronghold in this new government and he may continue to exert control indirectly.

The new president’s party, UDPS, is also poorly represented in parliament something that is likely to give him hard time to implement his views and policies. Likewise, in the army and the police there are senior echelons who were appointed by the old regime and any attempt to remove them would be seen as a sign of the new government trying to become independent.