Fellow Distinguished Brothers and Sisters on this Forum,
I would like to thank Mr. Sebastian Owilla for a good point of information in
re-informing this forum of the important debate the President of West Nile
Foundation requested about activities of the Foundation. I know Mr. John
Avudria has been persistently mentioning this issue in the past few weeks, but
we have not been able to initiate any discussions or deliberations on the
administration or coordination and/or activities of the Foundation. Thank you
Mr. Rogers Anguzu for re-posting the President's submission which I actually
had never seen before. Infact I have not seen the minutes of the last meeting
which probably was also posted, but slipped off my attention somewhere when I
was probably not a away for sometime.
>From the Presidents submission, there are quite a list of issues we as forum
>subscribers are faced with with respect to the development of our region, West
>Nile. They are many and almost all of them are equally important when one sits
>to think about them. According to the President, there are almost 220
>subscribers to the forum to discuss the development issues of West Nile. I
>would like to believe that these 220 people have made a serious decision to
>subscribe to the debate and discussions to move our region to a different
>level of development as opposed to what it is at this present time. However,
>we should not be naive to believe that all these subscribers have the same
>agenda in their subscription to the forum. In our discussion and/or
>deliberations for the development of the region we are bound to ridicule and
>antagonize each other and the government wherever appropriate. However, we
>shall have have to bear in mind that vigorous intellectual debate should be
>encouraged without fear and favour but in the interest of finding a solution
>to the problem(s) at hand. We shall definitely identify and isolate
>subscribers who may have sinister objectives and other agenda with regard to
>the development of our region.
First I would like to suggest that since the foundation is has no funds as it
has just been initiated, we should all agree to pay the annual sh.50,000.00/-
as suggested. [Assuming all the 220 subscribers paid up, we shall have (220 X
50,000.00) = 11,000,000.00 (11 million) which I believe is a reasonable
starting funds for the Foundation]. I will begin by pledging my membership -
please treasurer write me in and I will pay sh.100,000.00/- for my membership
by this weekend. I think we should should start from this point of paying
membership fee so that the foundation has some operational funds.
Secondly, I would like to suggest the foundation should follow up with the
Education Task Force deliberations and the Hunger Project we already started
since last year.
As for the education project, we saw a report sometime last year, a submission
of which I believe was only associated with schools in Yumbe district. Much as
we may have similar problems with schools in the whole of West Nile, I think we
need to find out what happened to the reports from other districts? Although
the president's submission had a plan to have 150 PhD holders and 200 Master
degree holders in west Nile, I would like to say that I think the problems with
Kindergarden (Pre-Primary), Primary and Secondary school level are the most
important the foundation should address. If the early foundations are not
properly laid, we are bound to have problems in achieving those targets for the
higher learning. We have all seen how in the past 20 or so years the levels of
Primary and Secondary education has deteriorated in our region. My suggestion
would be for the foundation to establish or support at least two or three
Primary and Secondary schools in each of the districts in West Nile. These
schools should become model schools from which the highest academic standards
are expected, enforced, with excellent school infrastructure provided and
qualified and well motivated teachers recruited. While higher education (PhDs
and Masters Degrees) is a good bar we have set, it is imperative to note that
our expectation in the kind of education we should think is should be linked to
many improvements in quality of life, such as increased employment
opportunities, lowered fertility rates, more productive farming, better
nutrition, empowerment of women, reduction of maternal and child mortality,
improved hygiene, and lower incidence of diseases.
The Hunger project should continue, and more seeds needs to be procured and
distributed to the people in need and perhaps the program can be modified to
agricultural self help projects with the focus on food security.
Thirdly, the Foundation should be at the centre of finding ways to provide
energy for our region. We all know that one of the problems we face in West
Nile is lack of stable energy supply for almost any possible development
activity. If we want to attract foreign investments or even local investments,
we shall need to have a stable and adequate source and supply of energy.
Fourthly, we have a major catastrophe awaiting if we do not address the water
supply issues in the whole of West Nile. Sometime back I mentioned that we have
to brace ourselves for a serious fight for source of water to supply the much
needed water in West Nile. Although we have the River Nile flowing within our
reach, Sudan and Egypt which entirely depend on the Nile will not make it easy
for us to tap some of the water from the NILE. In which case we need to begin
planning for conservation of the Borehole water which we mostly depend on. This
requires us to think of better ways to harness our limited groundwater
resources. With vagary of climatic uncertainties we should not be complacent
that we shall have enough quantity of quality water for our daily use. Other
than the daily domestic use of water, if we are to aspire for industries in our
region we shall need sufficient water supply. We therefore need to think of
planning and implementing water conservation as soon as possible.
Fifth, we need the Foundation to plan for the reconstruction or advocate for
reconstruction of Arua Airfield as an International Airport as in the initial
plan in the 1970's. I believe with the improvement of Arua Airfield to an
international airport, we shall create businesses which will will translate
into jobs. Movement of good and people through Arua will have a tremendous
economic impact in our region. Goods and people travelling to Equatorial region
of Congo and Southern Sudan will create a huge market with down fall of other
businesses being created in our region. Suffice to say, good infrastructure is
important; it is the bedrock of economic growth. Good leaders understand its
importance; great leaders ensure that it is built.
Sixth, the issue of following up with matters affecting our people. In this
particular case, I would like to suggest the issue of Tobacco farmers not being
paid up to two years since they sold their had earned produce breaks my heart.
I was able to experience the agony of these farmers who have worked so hard.
These people have on numerous occasions gone to the centres to claim their
money but many at times in vain. BAT does not even appreciate the efforts of
these farmers. These farmers are left to feel like beggars begging for some
free money from BAT when these people are demanding their hard earned money.
Some of the people pay their children's school fees with that money and some of
the kids may not attend or go to school because BAT has not paid their parents.
I think it is high time we need to demonstrate to BAT that we shall not allow
our people being treated like beggars any more when these people are demanding
for their rightful wages.
There are many issues to tackle but I will stop here for now.
Back to you Forum members, what do you say?
I thank you all,
Vasco Oguzua
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