Ssembabule residents reject sh700m tank

The Ssembabule district leaders led by the resident district commissioner, Henry Baguma, refused to commission the valley tank citing shoddy work.

Ssembabule district leaders and residents have rejected a valley tank constructed  by the Government at a cost of sh700m.

The Valley tank was constructed by the Wankulukuku-based Ambitious Construction Company Ltd in Kampala funded by the Ministry of Water at Kagango village in Mijwala sub-county.

The Ssembabule district leaders led by the RDC, Henry Baguma refused to commission the valley tank citing shoddy work.

The Valley tank supposed to ho;d water for livestock during the dry season, has been abandoned by the community.

Its construction started in April and the technical hand over of the facility to the district had been set for November.

The RDC, Henry Baguma, told The New Vision that the Ministry of Water and the contractors did not allow the district authorities to participate in the planning and supervision process of the project.

We learnt that the Ministry of Water contracted Ambitious Company to rehabilitate the old valley tank, but the company preferred to construct the tank at another site. Efforts to reach Ambitious authorities were futile.

The Company Managing Director, Ramji Karsan Swaminarayan's phone was off.  He is said to be on official trip to India.   A source attached to the company said they complied with all the contract requirement set by the relevant consultants.

However, at the site rain water could not collect in the valley tank because it was constructed on a hill side and not the valley as required according to the deputy director under the Manifesto Implementation unit office of the President, Fred Kamugira.

“The problem is that tank was supposed to be constructed in the valley and not on a hilly site, water cannot collect here to serve the community,” he observed.

Kamugira, who visited the valley tank on the request of the Ssembabule district leadership, supported the decision of the district authorities for rejecting the hand over ceremony of the useless facility.

He said the Ministry of Water wasted government resources.  A source from the Ssembabule water office told The New Vision that the Ministry of water and the contractors refused to listen to the priorities recommended for the facility.

“This mess is because the district technical team was ignored throughout and the approvals were done in Kampala. We are not accountable for the losses,” the source that preferred anonymity said.

The source noted that the monthly site meetings were not conducted as required.
The local person selected to take care of the facility on behalf of the community Ben Lubega said the solar powered generator supposed to pump water from the valley tank also failed to function.

He said the pipes have also failed to access water in the valley tank because  rain water failed to collect in the facility during the rainy season.

Some of the community members from the neighboring villages complained that the facility was fensed off to benefit a few individuals.

The Ssembabule deputy DISO,Emmanuel Bagyenda, said the project consultants are also to blame over the shoddy works.
He said the 10m litres water tanks attached to the facility is irrelevant.

He said the water taps cannot provide clean water.  He said one of the project engineers from Kampala identified as Tabalo fled the site after the locals asked him to explain the mess.

The Ssembabule district Council Chairman, Dr Elly Muhumuza, expressed concern that the valley tanks constructed by the Water Ministry and the contractors at over sh500m are normally completed at sh70m under the district budget.

 “We suspect that the authorities in Kampala inflate the construct rates of the valley tanks, we complete the same works at sh70m,” he said.

He said the valley tanks constructed under the Kisozi model villages by the office of the President, have benefited the communities because of the value of money principle set

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Putin says will seek new six-year term as president in March polls

"I will offer my candidacy for the post of president of the Russian Federation."

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said he would seek a new six-year term in the country's March elections in a move that would make him the longest-serving Russian leader since Joseph Stalin.
Putin, who has been in power for the past 18 years, is expected to sail to victory, with only token opponents competing against him.
"I will offer my candidacy for the post of president of the Russian Federation," he said during a visit to a car factory in Nizhny Novgorod.
He made the widely-expected announcement surrounded by cheering workers, who prodded him to unveil his plans in a carefully-choreographed ceremony.
"There is perhaps no better place and better excuse to announce this," Putin said in a nod to his core constituency.
"Russia will go only forward! And no-one would ever stop her in this direction."
Predictably, a chorus of Russian politicians praised the announcement, while social networks were abuzz, with many ridiculing the Kremlin strongman.
Top Putin critic Alexei Navalny, who has earlier declared a Kremlin bid even although he will not be allowed to run due to a suspended sentence for fraud, called Putin a "swindler."
"I suggest we don't agree," the 41-year-old Western-educated lawyer said on Twitter, referring to Putin's plans to seek a fourth Kremlin term.
Putin's confirmation of the Kremlin bid came as Russia reeled from a decision by the International Olympic Committee to ban the country from the Winter Games as punishment over claims of state-orchestrated doping.
But despite a litany of mounting problems including corruption, poverty and poor healthcare, the 65-year-old leader enjoys approval ratings of some 80 percent.

Do you trust me?Just hours earlier Putin visited a glitzy ceremony for volunteers in Moscow where he sought to rouse supporters.
"I want to ask, do you trust and support me?" he addressed the huge audience of mostly young people.
"Yes!" the audience chanted.
Before Putin took the floor prominent figures, including athletes and Soviet-era celebrities such as 83-year-old actor Vasily Lanovoi, took to the stage to extol the country's successes, such as Soviet victory in World War II.
Cosmonaut Sergei Ryazansky addressed the audience via video link from the International Space Station.
Putin has sought to appeal to the country's youth after thousands of young Russians took to the streets earlier this year to protest alleged corruption among the elites, targeting Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev among others.
The demonstrations were sparked by a documentary fronted by Navalny.
Putin, who first became president after Boris Yeltsin sensationally resigned on New Year's Eve 1999, handed power to his ally Medvedev in 2008 at the end of his second term.
Putin served as prime minister -- though few doubted who was really in charge -- and returned as president in 2012.
If he extends his rule to 2024, Putin will have led Russia longer than Leonid Brezhnev, who presided over an era of stagnation from 1964 to 1982 and became the target of derision in his later years.
"He cannot not seek a new term," independent analyst Dmitry Oreshkin told AFP.
"If he left the system he himself created he would become weak and vulnerable."
Analysts say that after more than 17 years of leadership -- both as president and prime minister -- Putin fatigue may be spreading across the country.
Many Russians say they would vote for Putin simply because they don't see an alternative to him amid the former KGB officer's chokehold on domestic politics.
With the result of the election already a foregone conclusion, turnout could be low, dealing a blow to the Kremlin' hopes for a decisive new mandate, observers say.
According to a poll conducted by the independent Levada Centre pollster last month, just 58 percent of respondents said they would take part in the polls, down from 75 percent in December 2007.

What will happen after 2018?Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed this week that those figures came ahead of the start of a political campaign, saying they were set to grow.
Many expect that Kseniya Sobchak, a 36-year-old glamourous former host of a television reality show and daughter of Putin's former mentor, will likely be allowed to run against Putin to rekindle public interest in the dull election.
With the election virtually devoid of any suspence, the question is what will happen after Putin's expected re-election and later, after his new term ends in 2024, analysts say.
"The main intrigue is, what will happen after 2018, how the configuration of power will be changing," Tatyana Stanovaya, a Paris-based analyst for the Centre of Political Technologies in Moscow, to AFP.
Speculation has swirled over the past weeks that the Kremlin may be considering whether to change the constitution or create a brand new post for Putin in an effort to extend his grip on power.
"The main task for the Kremlin is to adapt the regime to Putin's future status - be it an extension of presidential powers or the creation of a new post," said Stanovaya.

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Sacked Gulu DPC narrates shooting ordeal

Ayiki denied climbing the TAKS Centre wall fence before being shot by a security guard.

GULU SHOOTING | AYIKI

Gulu acting Police Commander, Joseph Ayiki, who was shot and injured last week, has denied climbing over a fence at the Through Art, Keep Smiling (TAKS) centre.

Ayiki has been dropped by the Police Standards Unit pending investigation into the circumstances under which he was shot by an Exposs Security guard.

He said he entered the premises through a gate.

He said he went to the centre, located behind Acholi Inn in Gulu municipality to check on some friends. He said he was neither armed nor clad in the police official uniform.

He said he had arrangements with the his colleagues the Adjumani district Police Commander (DPC) and the OC CID at the centre.

“When I left the CPS, I walked to the TAKS centre and reached in about 5 to 10 minutes. When I reached, I knocked at the main-gate made of Bamboo wood, but there was no response. I walked to the small-gate and knocked. And again, there was response. I decided to push the door and went inside the compound of the TAKS centre. While there, the place was well-light, but I could not see anyone. I called out, but there was no response. I then decided to sit on one of the plastic chairs in the compound. I picked my phone so that I could start dialing the telephone number of my friend, the DPC of Adjumani, but realised that my MTN Paka-paka Airtime had expired. I could hear some low voices coming from one of the small houses within, but no one came out to tend to me.

“I then got up and started walking back towards the small gate through which I entered. At this point, I saw someone walking towards me and suddenly shouted that I stop. He ordered me in Luo: ‘bed piny’ (sit down), but I could not understand until he used a body language that could mean he was telling me to sit. I did not comply. He repeatedly shouted in a strong voice, then I went down on my knees  while raising my hands.

"Again, he shouted: 'but piny' (lie down). I refused to comply because that spot was wet and muddy because it had rained the previous night. He asked me to introduce myself to him both in Kiswahili and English, but when I tried to do so, he could understand me and also did not give me time to talk while I was lying down. But the guy surprised me with a bullet in my thigh. He just shot me,” Ayiki narrated.

Ayiki said the guard them stepped away and talked on the phone with someone.

He said he then used the opportunity to take off his canvass shoes and pull out the   shoelaces, which he used to tie his right thigh to avoid over bleeding, since he still had the energy.

"When the guard returned, I heard a truck coming and I was carried by some people, including a UPDF soldier, who I think came from Acholi Hotel after hearing a gun-shot, and carried me in the truck. I regained my consciousness in the hospital,” he added.

Ayiki said he could not neither dress in the police uniform, arm himself, nor pick either a body guard or escorts because he was on a private mission, not official work.

“It is not true that I climbed over a fence. First of all, there is not proper wall at the TAKS centre. The place just has Bamboos that can one cannot climb over. I just thought I would quickly go meet and pick up my friend and go for a short wedding meeting with them, since he was to wed this coming Saturday."

He said he did not know that his friends had left in the afternoon due to an emergency in Adjumani, since he had been busy with other officers trying to quell a strike by students of Gulu University.

Ayiki is at Lacor Hospital in Gulu, where he was admitted after the incident on  Tuesday, November 28.

He said his condition was steadily improving and that he hopes to get out of the hospital in about a month. He was able to get up and move supported by a four-roller trolley to and from his bed side room toilet and to the bed by the time our reporter visited him at 1:30pm today.

Ayiki is being looked after woman who identified herself only as "Never Joseph". Ayiki declined to disclose whether he is married or not, citing security reasons.

“I do not want to endanger my family members,” he said.

Ayiki was transferred to Gulu in June this year as the officer in-charge of statio, and was later appointed the Acting DPC of Gulu. Previously, he served as the OC-Station at Jinja East (2016).

He similary served as the OC-Station at Bwoma-Mawokota, South Mpigi district (2011-2016), after which he was the Office in-charge of Integrated Highway Police command at Katonga, commanding Gomba and Mpigi districts between 2011 and 2016.

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Amid Cheating Claims, Kevin Hart's Ex Claims He Was With Current Wife While Still Married to Her

'Bad' habits that are actually good for you

As Kevin Hart’s personal life is thrown into the spotlight amid cheating allegations, his ex-wife has some explosive claims of her own as she reveals to Inside Edition what it was like to be the first Mrs. Hart.Torrei Hart, 39, was the comedian’s college sweetheart. The pair was married in 2003.
“When I met him, he was selling sneakers,” she told Inside Edition. “He starts to get fame and I’m feeling, okay, well, a little left behind. We grew apart.”

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She and Hart divorced in 2011 and he went on to marry his second wife, Eniko Parrish, in 2016.
But Torrei Hart is speculating that her ex-husband’s past relationships overlapped, saying “lies and infidelity” led to the demise of their marriage.
In a recent comedy special, Hart has reportedly admitted to cheating on Torrei.
“Yes, people, I cheated. Am I ashamed of it? No, no I’m not,” he said during Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain. “Do I wish I could take it back? No, no I don’t.”
Torrei said the jokes were made at her expense.
“I have an ex-husband who has repeatedly used me in his stand-up routine,” she said. “For years, I had to endure that.”
The uproar started when Eniko Hart shared a photo from her wedding, writing that she and Hart had marked eight years together and one year married.
"Forever to go!" she wrote.
But Kevin and Torrei divorced six years ago.
© Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. Inside Edition spoke exclusively to Hart's ex-wife, Torrei. Eniko Hart claimed on Instagram that the couple was separated and living in separate homes when she began dating Hart and that she was "never a secret."
But Torrei disputed that, telling Inside Edition: "I was like, what 'never a secret?' She said we were separated, not living together. That's a lie. We were very much not separated."
When asked whether she thought her ex-husband was capable of cheating again, Torrei Hart looked to her own experience with him as the telling indicator.
“I can’t say yes, I can’t say no,” she said. “All I can say is if it happened to me, it could happen to anyone.”
Now Hart has come under fire for allegedly being unfaithful to Eniko, who is seven months pregnant.
The funnyman took to Instagram to admit he had been caught on camera with another woman.
“I made a bad error in judgement and put myself in an environment where only bad things can happen and they did,” he said. “In doing that, I know that I am going to hurt the people closest to me, who I've talked to and apologized to, being my wife and my kids.”
The footage triggered a multimillion-dollar extortion plot, he said.
According to published reports, a man thought to be Hart was captured on camera getting "cozy" with an unidentified woman in a club, and later in a bedroom. The woman and multiple accomplices reportedly demanded $10 million in exchange for the promise that the "sexually provocative" video would not be released.
“It’s a s***ty moment. It’s a s***ty moment when you know you are wrong and there’s no excuses for your wrong behavior,” Hart said. “At the end of the day, man, I just simply got to do better. But I’m also not going to allow a person to have financial gain off of my mistakes. In this particular situation that was what was attempted. I said I’d rather fess up to my mistakes.”

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$771 Trillion Worth Of Gold Lies Hidden In The Ocean: Good Luck Getting It

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1/3 SLIDES © Provided by Forbes Media LLC

In search of gold? Looking for the next gold rush? The oceans are a good place to look, however, it’s not as easy as panning for gold.

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Ocean waters around the world contain about 20 million tons of gold in them. When I say “in” that is meant literally, there is gold in ocean water. Unfortunately, the concentration lies on the order of parts per trillion, making it extremely difficult to get.

Based on today’s spot price of gold at $42.51 USD per gram, that amount of gold would be worth roughly $771 trillion. Compare that with the United States gross domestic product (GDP) in 2016 of 18.57 trillion and its 41 times. Alternatively, you can compare it to the world domestic product of $78.28 trillion in 2014, almost 10 times the entire world’s domestic product.
Needless to say, there’s a lot of money to be had just in gold within the world’s oceans. However, there’s the monumental task of removing the gold from vast amounts of seawater. Each liter of water would contain approximately 13 billionths of a gram of gold.
Currently, there’s no cost-effective method to remove the gold from seawater and be profitable. However, that didn’t stop many eager inventors and investors both legitimate and scammers. In the 1890s pastor Ford Jernegan came up with a plan for a “Gold Accumulator” in a fever dream. The plan was to extract gold from the Long Island Sound using a process involving mercury and electricity treatments.

Jernegan started the Electrolytic Marine Salts Company and convinced enough wealthy investors to raise $1 million (about $26 million in today’s dollars) in cash. The company was off and running, building a large gold-extraction operation in Lubec, Maine, far away from the watchful eyes of their investors. By 1898 investors began asking questions and wanting evidence the plant worked. Shortly thereafter Jernegan disappeared with cash in hand and leaving behind a useless contraption.

Since then a number of individuals and institutions around the world have attempted to separate gold from seawater. From post-WW1 Germans attempting to refill their coffers to Dow Chemicals to Columbia professor Colin Fink.

The list goes on and on, but they all have one thing in common: none were able to economically extract gold from seawater. However, we can be assured that inventors will continue to attempt to extract this massive amount of gold from the ocean. The prize is just too big not to have interest and perhaps one day one inventor or company will have the breakthrough necessary to make extraction profitable. Until that time, it’s a pipe dream for the most creative wealth seeking inventor.

Related gallery: 14 glittering rivers where you can still find gold (provided by Lovemoney)

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Presidential Age; Protest Posters Plastered in Kampala

A photo of the anti-presidential age limit poster on Kayunga Road in Kamwokya, Kampala. (Cr. David Rupiny) Login to license this image from 1$.

In short
Prof Ndebesa says anything that happens to Article 102b would constitute a big political turning point of the last three decades, adding that its removal, if at all, will reverberate for decades ahead.

Audio is only available to paying subscribers.

Unidentified people have pasted posters on several streets in Kampala denouncing the move to remove the presidential age limit from the Constitution. This morning, Kampala residents woke up to the anti-presidential age limit removal posters plastered on pavements, walls and electricity polls among others, setting a new tactic.

It is not yet clear who could have planted the posters overnight, but the spread of the posters is testament to a sizeable group that worked for hours in many places. The poster has a photograph of President Museveni, clad in a deep blue suit with his trademark hat and yellow tie taking the presidential oath while holding a Bible in his raised right hand.


On the top of the poster are printed in red the words "Youth Against Dictatorship". At the bottom of the poster are the words "Say Yes to Age Limit" in dripping red colour.  While taking the presidential oath, the president swears to, among other things, uphold and defend the Constitution. Scores of school children and people commuting to work could be seen reading and debating the posters. Some of the areas where the posters have been pasted are Kamwokya, Mulago, Wandegeya and the City Centre.

Ever since reports filtered in that the government has gazetted amendment of Article 102(b) of the Constitution that pegs the upper presidential age limit at 75 years, an acrimonious debate ensued between those for and against. As it stands, President Yoweri Museveni, aged 73 years now, would be ineligible to stand in the 2021 presidential elections because he would be above 75 years, a situation some of his supporters do not want.

Immediately, it emerged that there could be an attempt to remove the presidential age limit from the Constitution, those on opposing sides started using the mainstream media, social media, telephones and emails to reach out to members of parliament who are expected to debate the amendments.


Both sides have also been reaching out to members of the general public via social media, emails and text messages amongst others. When contacted for a comment, Makerere University political historian, Prof. Mwambutsya Ndebesa, says pasting of the posters is indicative of the extent to which, those for and against the lifting of the presidential age limit are willing to go.


Prof Ndebesa says anything that happens to Article 102(b) would constitute a big political turning point of the last three decades, adding that its removal, if at all, will reverberate for decades ahead. Using the analogy of throwing a stone in the bush to see what may come out, Prof Ndebesa, says the powers that be most likely want to gauge public opinion on the issue in order to determine whether or not to amend the article.

According to Prof Ndebesa, President Museveni should come out clean and state whether he is personally interested in another term or not, adding that hiding behind what his party decides or what the Constitution says is devious. Prof Ndebesa argues that claiming to go by the Constitution, especially when amended, smacks of double standards, adding that the proper way is to defend the Constitution as is.

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Should Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari resign?

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has been away for weeks getting treatment for an undisclosed ailment. 

 

President Muhammadu Buhari flew to the British capital London in mid-January to be treated for an undisclosed medical condition.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is temporarily leading the country.
But opposition leaders say Buhari has been out of the country for too long and he should resign.
What will this mean for Nigeria and the region?

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Donald Trump and Bill O’Reilly Talk Russia and Putin Before Super Bowl

By the time that Bill O’Reilly’s interview with President Donald Trump aired on Sunday, the big news out of the exchange was already well known.

That’s because Fox, to their credit, released an excerpt on Saturday in which Trump appeared to equate the “killer” actions of Russian leader Vladimir Putin with those of the U.S. government.

“We’ve got a lot of killers,” Trump told O’Reilly. “Boy, you think our country’s so innocent? You think our country’s so innocent?”

Trump is not the first president to be interviewed during a Super Bowl pre-game — but he’s certainly testing the notion that the American pastime should be a politics-free zone. His exchange with O’Reilly was hardly a time for feel-good chatter and, for good measure, Trump tweeted out a comment just before it aired that was enough to stir up a new round of social media alarm.

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Donald J. Trump 

✔@realDonaldTrump

Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!

11:39 PM - 5 Feb 2017

 
•  25,05325,053 Retweets
 
•  112,171112,171 likes

Before he refreshed the latest news cycle, Trump’s Putin comments triggered all sorts of controversy and condemnation, from the left and a few on the right. Bret Stephens, an editorial page editor at the Wall Street Journal, said that Trump had “slandered” the United States, while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, appearing on “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper, tried to distance himself from the statement.

O’Reilly wasn’t exactly prosecutorial in the interview, but he did follow up with Trump’s suggestion of moral relativism.

“I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers,” he said.

“Well, take a look at what we’ve done too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes. I have been against the war in Iraq from the beginning,” Trump responded.

O’Reilly again tried to distinguish between Putin-esque killing of political opponents, and mistakes made in U.S. foreign policy.

“A lot of mistakes. But a lot of people were killed. So a lot of killers around, believe me,” Trump said.

Then they moved on.

O’Reilly pressed Trump on his claims of massive voter fraud, and the president said that it would be something that Vice President Mike Pence would handle as head of an investigating panel. But Trump still couldn’t offer any evidence that massive fraud took place.

Trump again slammed President Barack Obama for the Iran nuclear deal, calling it the “worst deal I ever seen negotiated. But he did not commit to backing out of the deal.

Trump still referred to Obamacare as a disaster. But he suggested that it may not be until next year that they have a replacement plan in place.

He did offer his Super Bowl prediction: The Patriots by 8.

And Trump described settling into the White House as a “surreal experience, but you have to get over it.”

“Surreal”? Certainly many people share that sentiment. “Get over it”? We’ll see

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