African press review 19 June 2013

Does Museveni want a political monarchy? Is Sejusa a coward? Why shouldn't you take to a life of crime in Uganda? Why has the AU fallen out with the Sadc over Zimbabwe? Why are SA mining jobs vanishing? And why are Kenyan MPs up in arms about Mwai Kibaki's office?

David Sejusa is back in the news in Uganda.

He's the man who recently wrote to the head of national intelligence, suggesting that there was a plot to assassinate government and military officials opposed to a take-over of the presidency by Yoweri Museveni's eldest son.

Last night Sejusa was talking to our colleagues at the BBC in London, where he now lives in exile. The interview is reported on the front page of the Kampla based Daily Monitor.

In the course of the interview, Sejusa accused Museveni, in power since 1986, of seeking a life presidency . . . a “political monarchy,” with a hereditary transition when he finally decides to quit.

Asked if he would rule out an interest in himself becoming Uganda’s president, Sejusa quipped: “Why not? A four-star general without ambitions must be in the wrong place.”

Ofwono Opondo, the executive director of Uganda Media Centre, has branded Sejusa, the former coordinator of Uganda’s intelligence agencies, a “coward,” saying he should return home if he has done no wrong.

Opondo went on to say that the accusations are empty. "There is no project by President Museveni to have his son replace him as president of Uganda,” Ofwono Opondo said.

A military spokesperson told the Daily Monitor last night that, by speaking to the media without proper authorisation, Sejusa had breached military rules and would be prosecuted.

If, on the basis of recommendations in yesterday's press review, any listeners in Uganda decided to take to a life of crime, we have bad news for them

It's all summarised in another headline in the Daily Monitor. It reads: "Judiciary makes U-turn on money crisis reports".

On Monday the judiciary said the finance ministry had not released the operational funds for June, forcing them to suspended the hearing of some criminal cases. The Anti-Corruption Court was forced to suspend the pension scam trial of eight Public Service Ministry officials. The criminal classes were delighted, court chaos loomed.

But, it was all a mistake.

Yesterday the Director of Public Prosecutions said sufficient money was available and blamed the judiciary for suspending the pension scam case because of financial mismanagement.

Acording to the South African financial paper BusinessDay, the African Union has rejected the Southern African Development Community’s hardline stance against President Robert Mugabe’s push for national elections to be held in Zimbabwe on 31 July.

African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Monday that it was up to the Zimbabweans to resolve a row over Mugabe’s decision to call an election at the end of July.

Zimbabwe’s constitutional court ordered Mugabe two weeks ago to hold the poll by the end of next month but Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has rejected his rival’s declaration, saying the political landscape and environment were not yet conducive and that Mugabe was out to create a political crisis.

On Saturday regional leaders meeting at a Southern African Development Community summit in Mozambique told Zimbabwe to ask its courts to extend the deadline so it could accommodate the opposition’s anxieties.

On the jobs front, BusinessDay reports that employment in South Africa’s formal sector grew much more slowly in the first quarter of 2013 than in the fourth quarter of last year.

The latest Statistics SA jobs survey came as a report by the Nomura Bank warned of more job losses in the ailing platinum mining sector. The bank suggested that 122,000 jobs are at risk by 2015, mainly due to rising costs.

Official figures show that mining in general shed 8,000 jobs between the third and fourth quarters of last year, with some industry players estimating that the sector has lost 40,000 jobs since 2010.

In Kenya, the Daily Nation reports that the Treasury’s plan to purchase office space for retired president Mwai Kibaki at a cost to the state of Sh700 million (about four million euros) suffered a blow after a House committee rejected the proposal.

The Budget and Appropriations Committee said the amount requested was a mockery of the Treasury’s call for prudent expenditure of public funds.