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His probing eye is still evident as he weighs you up; and his pride – call it self-worth – never deserting him

US evangelical groups are increasingly shaping Uganda's development policies to suit their religious agenda.

Following the support of the anti-gay bill that was passed a few months ago and his positive support for a non-homosexuality country, Bobi Wine might be on the brink of never stepping in any of the cities of United Kingdom. After he was scheduled to perform in Birmingham and London respectively, different UK blogs and …

It used to be said that a lie goes twice around the world before the truth has put its shoes on. Not any more. I arrived in Israel on Christmas Eve 2008, the date chosen by Israel to launch Operation Cast Lead, an attack to end all attacks on Gaza.

The Spanish striker couldn't find the back of the net in Chelsea's game against Slovenian side Olimpija Llubjana

It’s not clear just how much was risked by passengers flying on the now
grounded Air Uganda. Its even possible we shall never know. Passenger
safety has not made it past the concern for jobs and profitability that
have so far dominated the conversation about Air Uganda. There is a pattern
in Uganda and other African countries where domestic regulators are weaker
than the constituencies they regulate. It is that story of how the civil
service is so perforated by patronage, bribery and a loss of mission
therefore, that it would be irrational to expect regulators to perform as
expected. In other words, assume the worst. Thus when Air Uganda was asked
to ground its operations that’s precisely what I did. Assume in this case
the very worst.

Since then some of my fears have been aided by whispers at Entebbe. One
journalist (who is yet to write the story) told me there is documentation
of no less than 19 serious incidents on the record of Air Uganda. [ a good
story on this can be found here}

A more trusted source put the situation like this “ ICAO [the International
Civil Aviation Organisation) gave the government two choices. Ground Air
Uganda (and Uganda Air Cargo) or we shut down Entebbe Airport”. That’s
deadly serious, don’t you think? It had the finality of those Expiry Date
stamps in the medicine cabinet. Little of this however has trickled to the
public debate. Maybe it’s understandable. Few people fly and when disasters
happen, however tragic few die in comparison to the say war and disease.

 

Aviation is one of those industries that depend almost entirely on
guaranteeing freedom from error (I once flew Precision Air to Dare salaam
all the way thinking how wrong the name was for all the mishaps on the
way).  So I find the way a country runs can be deduced from the way its
airports and aviation ports run. The more efficient, the more serious the
country and vice versa. It’s probably a blessing that whatever safety
concerns regulators had have not come to life (no pun intended).

The airline denies it put passengers at risk and CAA has refused to state
publicly the nature of the infractions, which caused Air Uganda’s license
to be withdrawn.

 

The public debate on safety however has not been encouraging. In
parliament, politicians from both sides of the aisle shot down the Works
Minister, named Abraham Byandala, when he attempted to educate the House on
the safety issues at the heart of the withdrawal of Air Uganda’s license.

 

Not even the recent flood of terrible news from the global aviation
industry or Uganda’s own record has caused pause over the tension between
people and profits. Not long ago several Ugandan military helicopters
enroute to Somalia crashed in nearby Kenya what was widely concluded as an
avoidable tragedy occasioned by poor decision-making at the Uganda Peoples’
Defense Air Force. The official report is unlikely to see the light of day
but talk around this embarrassment is that the army focused its attention
not on processes but rather on strategy. Its not very clear what the CAA
had to do with it or what their relationship is with army aviation
operations.

No proper inquiry or public debate followed. Not even on behalf of the
servicemen and their families who bore the brunt of the tragedy. The other
day a rather bizarre incident occupied the newspapers and TV stations. An
American aircraft made an emergency landing on a public road “ because it
had run out of fuel”. Luckily no crash, but once again there was little
debate about public safety and the role of CAA. Locals have made the plane
a tourist attraction trooping to have their pictures taken. Several TV
stories focused on how the plane was affecting the neighborhood, creating
opportunities for one woman’s food businesses and scaring away customers of
the traditional healer whose shack was been shunned as if the plane and its
modernity had a transcendental effect on the ancient charms of Mityana.

 There is something dark and uncomfortable about Uganda’s attempts to “be
like the rest” and paint the sky with its black, red and blue national
colors. Politicians and civil servants in the wake of Air Uganda fiasco
(not to be confused with Uganda Airlines) have revived this fiction that
Uganda needs once again a thriving national carrier. There is nothing wrong
with this ambition. But the last decade has shown Uganda’s regulatory
environment is a major stumbling block.

In 2007 I investigated at some length the banning of Das Air Cargo, then
the most important transporter of Uganda’s fresh fruit to Europe. There had
been allegations that the company was too close to CAA and was basically
given a pass on standard regulations but they were never proven. However
international regulators caught up with one of the company’s DC 10’s at
Gatwick during a routine check. The result was that the airline was banned
from European airspace collapsing the business. At the time, it seemed
prudent for the government to acquire the company’s liabilities and invest
in new planes (some talking heads dreamed of Uganda being a cargo hub and
still do). They did not. It’s not clear if CAA was ever overhauled after
what was clearly a crisis at the institution. Its like, I told a friend,
the equivalent of DAS purchasing those HIV- free certificates.

 

A similar path is being followed here with Air Uganda maybe.

 

Cecilia Ogwal, the Opposition Whip, whose political career spans almost
four decades, hunkered to the past this week suggesting once again that
Uganda needed to revive its national airline. The Uganda Development Bank
if it had the resources apparently would like to buy a majority stake in
the airline, parliament was told.  In his statement on the airlines
website, C.E.O Cornell Muleya put the blame on CAA and sought to
distinguish the audit of the regulator from the safety record of Air Uganda
itself. This logic goes something like this; that your health is no
reflection of the medical board’s issues with your doctor’s practicing
certificate.

In arriving at this, Muleya cites IATA standards the airline passed (a
two-year evaluation). In other words the regulator CAA is incompetent but
the airline it supervises is not. This is not implausible but suggests an
even worse situation. If we can’t trust CAA, who else can we trust?  The
government needs to address this question and the public interest more
urgently than national pride in a carrier with Uganda’s colors. We don’t
need another air tragedy to debate how competent CAA must be. What we need
most is re-assurance that CAA can do its job.

 

 

 

 

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