Dear friends, I will not write thesis on the problems in West Nile region as most of us are aquanted with most of these challenges. I will only pick two issue for my commends
a) Education. In the last ten years we have all watched academic standards in the entire region decline without taking any action to remediate the qaulity of education, which is a foundation for any sustainable development. Schools like Ombaci, Koboko, Mvara, Nyapea, etc which used to sign just like other schools around Kampala have been shading off their glory. Where is the source of the disease? When do we start to treat the patient, from symptoms or when he/she is almost reaching the grave or when he/she still can lift up his/her head? (i) Where do our election andidates stand on the issue of decline on eduacation in the region? What is their strategy to reverse the problem? (ii) UPE has boosted school enrollment to a point where teachers are stretched to the limit, which innevitably erodes qaulity of teaching, coathing, mentoring students to be successful. What will our elected representatives do to address the problem of over crowding in the classrooms? (iii) Many years ago, in the 70s/80s, there used to be Inspectors from the Ministry of Education who would visit schools and ensure that teachers are teaching to the professional stardands they are trained to have. Who has dropped the ball and what will our elected representatives do to ensure supervision of schools is enforced? (b) Health Delivery & Public Health (i) Although many health centers have been built throughout the region, most of these health centers have no drugs. Some including two in my constituency have not been opened for the last five (5) years. Yet the govenment spends billions of dollars for ordering drugs and distributes these drugs to the regions or districts. Why is there such drug shortage in the hospitals or health centers in West Nile region? Where do the drugs go if at all delivered? Who is responsible to ensure that drugs actually get to the health units? (ii) Do our elected representatives care to know if drugs actually reach their district/constituency health units? What will they do different if elected or re-elected? What can they do to ensure there is adequate staff or equipment in the hospitals or health units? (ii) There has been frequent outbreaks of communicable diseases like cholera, meningitis, etc in the region. These are diseases that are preventable by public health education campaign. What will it take our elected representatives to collaborate with health authorities to design programs on PREVENTIVE MEDICINE that addresses prevention rather than cure? So many diseases could be reducedor eliminated by educating the public. Lastly, is there any way to organize our candidates who are aspiring for votes to have open debates on the issues. These debates could be held in schools or other facility. I would like to encourage those candidates who share our views on this forum to focus on issues rather than personal attacks. JJavudria On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 1:26 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Send WestNileNet mailing list submissions to > [email protected] > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > [email protected] > > You can reach the person managing the list at > [email protected] > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of WestNileNet digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: What are or should be the Priority Issues to be seriously > addressed this Election Year (Ezama Ruffino) > 2. Topics (Ezama Ruffino) > 3. Re: Re: What should be the Election issues in West Nile > (Gilbert Ringtho) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:54:00 -0400 > From: Ezama Ruffino <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] What are or should be the Priority Issues > to be seriously addressed this Election Year > To: A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi Vasco > Thanks for these brilliant thoughts. > Just a point of clarification: I did not mean we need to get our political > candidates to express themselves but we would like the West Nilers only on > this Forum to see whether political parties have clear policies about > power, > health etc and whether they can be broken down into doable components. Its > us to air these views so that we know how to share them through the media > to > forearm our people when the politicians only come to ask them for votes > without any clear policies on our real issues. > Once again thanks. > The secretary will add some of the emerging topics to our list of topics we > have but have not yet received attention. > God bless > > Fr Ruffino EZAMA > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://orion.kym.net/pipermail/westnilenet/attachments/20101013/62006cf5/attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2010 21:01:45 -0400 > From: Ezama Ruffino <[email protected]> > Subject: [WestNileNet] Topics > To: A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile <[email protected]> > Message-ID: > <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > My brothers and sisters > For those who caught the train of discussions later, this Forum had so far > expressed some views on various topics such as > > Deforestation > Electricity Supply > Education > Public University > Roads > Water Supply > Poverty, Hunger & starvation > Public Health and health education > Economic Development > Youth and Substance abuse > Unemployment & Job Creation > Promoting West Nile Cultures > Elections & Voter education > > This time our secretary is taking note and summarizes it so that we see > which doable actions to be taken, by whom and when. > > In case you find a theme worth discussing let the moderators know so that > the secretary takes note of it and we allocate time for its discussions. > > Thanks > > Ruffino > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://orion.kym.net/pipermail/westnilenet/attachments/20101013/8bae2519/attachment-0001.html > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:26:30 +0100 (BST) > From: Gilbert Ringtho <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] Re: What should be the Election issues in > West Nile > To: A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile <[email protected]> > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Hi friends, > > Definitive topics-covering areas of our needs are important.Lets itemise > them > and see which policians have programmes that suit us; > > Road, educ, health, agric potential, agro-industries, skills gap, > social/cultural hegemony, position Arua as a city, rural transport, > eelectricity, clean water & sanitation, Arua airport, improvement of farm > institutes, environmental protection.etc. > > > The agenda/programmes must answer Westnile's specific needs and not blanket > needs & with specific timelines. > > It is only then that we can have politicians answerable to us and the other > way > round. > > Friends, Lets build on this to define ourselves better.Its no more about > rhetoric. > > rgds > > Gilbert > > > > > > ________________________________ > From: Vasco Oguzua <[email protected]> > To: A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile <[email protected]> > Sent: Wed, 13 October, 2010 22:40:53 > Subject: [WestNileNet] Re: What should be the Election issues in West Nile > > > Fellow WestNilers, > > Fr. Ruffino suggested that we should have a discussion on what the issues > of > priority will be for our region in the coming elections. I know almost > everything is our region is a problem, including food which used to be in > abundance during those days when each homestead had at least two or three > granaries to store produce from the gardens. Immediately after the war and > and > coming back from exile, our homesteads have no granaries and we have seen > the > suffering of people who now have to buy food from the market. Although part > of > the problem of scarcity of food in our region is selling of produce by the > local > farmers in Southern Sudan, we need to have a serious agenda to advocate for > food > security in West Nile. > > 1. Food Security becomes in my view an important issue to be address in our > region. The loss of soil and soil fertility due to erosion, the depletion > of > vegetation associated with the labour intensive tobacco production, coupled > with > population pressure has diminished and exhausted available arable > land, resulting in reduced food production. We need to advocate for > elimination > of tobacco growth in our region and find other ways to improve food > production > which can have some economic benefit in place of tobacco. Hopefully the > recent > issues taken against tobacco companies can highly feature in the campaigns > to > bring the tobacco companies to book. Food security in some has a close > association with poverty and unhealthy population. I hope we can all agree > that > a hungry population is an unproductive population. > > 2. Energy - (Electricity supply) to me is another serious development > factor or > contributor which has eluded our region for a long time. Our region has > been > played as ping pong game by the government for a long time - WENRECO has > failed > the region with Intermittent power, Nyagak has not been completed and it > looks > like it will not be completed in the near future. I heard from the > newspapers > that there is a discussion with Malaysian company to build yet a new a > thermal > power plant in West Nile (I am not sure if anything has been mentioned > about > completing Nyagak). With an already degraded environment in our region, and > the > dangerous environmental consequences of Thermal power, I wonder if the > issue of > thermal power is a good idea for our region. Whatever happened to the > completion > of Nyagak? I would tend to think that the challenges we have experienced > in the > energy sector should be used as an opportunity to plan to a long term Green > Energy concepts. Green Energy would at least help in alleviating some of > the > environmental consequences we have experienced in our area. I think this > issue > needs to be addressed with specific time frame, lest we are doomed in our > development agenda. I think that a reliable and sufficient energy/power > resources is vital and a one of the key drivers of development. > > > 3. Water and sanitation - this is another area of priority which I think we > should very seriously consider because most of the water supply in the > region is > from Boreholes. Our fast growing population equally has > significantly increased water demand for both domestic and agricultural > use. We > are bound experience serious water shortage in the near future as the > vagaries > of climate change and environmental degradation will dictate on on limited > water > resources. While we can still get water from boreholes we need to think of > conservation ideas of how we can pump and store water from the boreholes > into > storage tanks so that the supply of water can be properly controlled based > on > the how much a location uses. Storage water will also offer the opportunity > of > at least ensuring the treatment of the water before storage so that there > is > supply of clean water. This will in the end have some health benefits when > people consume relatively clean water. We should be aware by now that > getting > water from the Nile may have a lot of Problems because of the the > restrictions > from countries like Sudan and Egypt (Nile Basin Agreement) or will require > a lot > of negotiations which we may have to begin to plan for now if we think of > the > Nile as a source water supply for our region. The poor sanitation in most > of our > urban areas is one of the issues that need to be addressed, since the > danger of > increased population in urban areas without clean water and sanitation > always > results in the various epidemics we have experienced. > > 4. Investments in our region is something I think we need to seriously pay > attention to. How and what investments can we establish or attract in our > area. I am of the view that the flow of our people in to the south is as a > result of lack of employment opportunities in our region. There is limited > government and NGO employment opportunities, which means we have to think > of > creating our own employment opportunities for our region. One of the ways I > think is to diversify our agricultural economy. This will require good > business > attracting infrastructure (electricity, clean water and sanitation, good > roads, > healthy and educated population and capital. Agriculture being the main > occupation in our area may need to be reviewed from what are the most > suitable > crops people can grow with minimum or less intensive labour and gain some > reasonable economic benefits, unlike the labour intensive tobacco from > which our > people are getting poorer and farmers also being cheated by the tobacco > companies. > > I think individually we may not be able to have the capitla for serious > investiment, but we as the members on this forum should take the initiative > to > challenge ourselves to create a capital fund to start some form of > investiment. > In my humble opinion, if we on this forum contributed at least UG > Sh.100,000.00/= each, (I do not know how many members are on the forum), we > should at least be able to come up with some capital for some > investment. Such a > fund if properly invested should provide us with profits and some > strength to > borrow from banks to begin implementing some of these issues we are waiting > for > the government to do for us. How long shall we wait for the government to > rescue > us when our rural people are truly in desperate need. > > > 5. Education and Technology, health, roads and bridges, environment are all > other areas of importance which all need to be addressed. > > While the Fr. Ruffino had suggested that the electorate ask the various > political party leaders or representatives about their policy positions, I > think > our agenda for our regions development must be the forefront regardless of > the > policy positions of the parties. We must educate the people to demand for > the > the issues that will reduce the burden on their day to day life from the > representatives of the parties who are aspiring to stand in our region how > they > intend to address these development issues in West Nile. > > Note: The suggestion I have made about the contribution is to raise a > capital > fund which we can use to start an investment and we could also use the > capital > as a security to negotiate a loan from some of the banks in order to start > some > of these projects without government help so that we are able to take full > control of what exactly we want and how we want to implement what we intend > to > do. For example, if we had capital we should be able to negotiate > some partnership with private energy company to construct 10 > Megawatts Solar or > Wind power station (I am not sure if this would be sufficient for the > whole of > West Nile this was just my wild guess, I know we have engineers who would > be > able to advise on such ) which we can run jointly for an agreed period of > time > rather than have the government always playing ping pong games with us. > > Over to you fellows > Vasco Oguzua > > > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://orion.kym.net/pipermail/westnilenet/attachments/20101014/4ad88ae3/attachment.html > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > WestNileNet mailing list > [email protected] > http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet > > > End of WestNileNet Digest, Vol 26, Issue 53 > ******************************************* >
_______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________
