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OVER 500 Uganda cultural and natural tourists sites are in jeopardy owed to lack of appropriate laws, a senior tourism official has said.

Rose Nkaale Mwanga, the interim commissioner of the department of museum and monuments in the tourism industry reported that historial sites like Wamala Tombs are putrefying while other like Ntutsi Mounds are being ruined by impinges .

Ntutsi is an area formerly inhabited by the Bachwezi people who had migrated from Ethiopia before it was occupied by the Bantu, while the Wamala Tombs is the old burial site for Kabaka Ssuna II of Buganda.

Rose alleged that the danger of these sites is due to lack of funds to maintain them, ignorance of the people neighbouring the sites, and land encroachment.

She added that the department had recorded 1,000 sites but only three had been registered with the World Heritage Sites. She mentioned Kasubi Tombs, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest , Rwenzori Mountain Park as the most neglected sites

She made these the annotations last Wednesday during a sensitisation workshop on conservation and management of cultural heritage properties in Uganda at the National Museum in Kampala.

“We are in the process of registering Kibiro Salt Gardens in Hoima district but it is tedious and expensive,” she added.

The programme officer for the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Daniel Kaweesi, appealed to the Government to sensitise the masses about the importance of cultural sites and heritage.

Kaweesi said blamed the Government for not considering culture as a tourism product and yet it is of great value. He applauded culture as a rewarding tourism product and countries earn a lot from it.

He also exhorted the Government to enforce a law on the patent rights to cultural products like bark cloth.

By Tanah Hadijah
Uganda Safari News

More than 300 Karamojong families have settled on the 20sqkm piece of land at Moruajore in Namalu sub-county, Nakapiripirit district, that was formally part of Pian-Upe wildlife game reserve.

The ethnic Pian Karamojong, the majority on the land, came from Amalera Prisons where they were squatters while others abandoned rented houses in the trading centre.

Edyau Ecodu, the game reserve warden said other settlers were those that had been on Kampala streets between 2005 and 2008 and had been evicted by city enforcement officers .

Edyau said the appeal to the district authorities is to regulate the settlement in the area to stop conflicts
.

John Nangiro theLC5 chairman of Nakapiripirit said that the delay by the Government to approve the district land board had created difficulties in regulating settlement in the former game reserve.

Parliament in 2002 de-gazetted part of the game reserve to create space for settlement and cultivation following the 1995 joint assessment study of the wildlife protected areas by the tourism ministry and district leaders.

A 68-year-old-Pian elder known as Peter Lokwany said that people started migrating to the area last year in December and more arrive daily. He added that Some of the challenges the group he rules has is starvation and shortage of clean water. There’s only one borehole in this area.He added that the district promised to send us seeds and farm implements like hoes but we have not received them.

The elder said most of the new settlers survive on selling bundles of firewood that fetch between sh500 and sh2,000. But Nangiro said sh15m from the National Agricultural Advisory Services had been secured to buy the items.

He also said that they plan to buy 1,500 hoes, 1,000kgs of maize and 500kgs of rice for the settlers though the formalities in the procurement exercise that are delaying the process.

Uganda travel News
By Tanah Hadijah

LIBYAN leader Muammar Gadaffi was elected chairman of the African Union on Monday. IN his speech, he made it clear that he would pursue his vision of a United States of Africa despite reluctance from many members.

Dressed in golden robes and cap and hailed as “king of kings” by traditional African leaders who accompanied him, Gadaffi accepted a gavel from the outgoing chairman, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, at a summit in Ethiopia. The traditional leaders included Uganda’s Omukama of Bunyoro, Solomon Gafabusa Iguru and Toro Queen Mother Best Kemigisa. The summit is attended by President Yoweri Museveni and his wife Janet.

Gadaffi told the summit that his project to create a united continental government would be approved at the next meeting in July unless there was a majority against it. The AU normally relies on consensus in reaching decisions.

Gadaffi’s election was treated almost like a coronation by a group of customary African leaders dressed in colourful robes and headgear who accompanied him to the conference hall. “On behalf of the traditional kings, on behalf of all the sultans, on behalf of all the princes, on behalf of all the customary rulers, I want to say thank you to the king of kings who we have now crowned,” declared one of them, King Tossoh Gbaguidi of Benin.

Gadaffi, supported by some AU members like Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, has been pushing for a unity government for years, saying it is the only way to meet the challenges of globalisation, fighting poverty and resolving conflicts without Western interference. But others, led by regional economic powerhouse South Africa, see the idea as a distant and impractical prospect that would infringe the sovereignty of member states, although all 53 members of the AU say they agree with the idea in principle.

The first day of this summit on Sunday again pulled back from accelerating the process. Kikwete told reporters the meeting had agreed to replace the AU Commission with an “authority” rather than an immediate pan-regional government as it had proposed. This would be launched at the next summit in July.

He said this would move it closer to a federal government.

Kikwete said the leaders agreed in principle on a single government but that it was could not be realised at this stage.

Kikwete said the authority would have a President and be mandated to handle issues such as poverty eradication, the free movement of African people, infrastructure development and climate change. The others are epidemic and pandemic management, international trade negotiations, peace and security and foreign affairs.

By Tanah Hadijah

Uganda Africa News