Uganda will host stakeholders in the oil and gas industry from different parts of Africa at a high level National Petroleum Data Management for Africa workshop. The four day workshop will be held at Lake Victoria Serena Resort - Kampala, Uganda, starting on Monday, April 11, 2016 at 9:00 AM until Thursday, April 14, 2016 at 4:00 PM (EAT).

The meeting is being organised by Norway, under the Oil for Development (OfD) Programme which is currently active in 8 countries in Africa including; Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. It will focus on managing national petroleum data.

The Oil for Development (OfD) Programme offers assistance to developing countries in their effort to manage petroleum resources in a sustainable manner. Through the OfD Programme, Norway shares its experience from more than four decades of managing oil and gas resources.

The programme is different from country to country but there are also similarities due to common issues in all countries on development of petroleum resources. One of the important areas that all countries share, is management of the national petroleum data.

The various countries are in different development phases, but many of the challenges can be related. Against this background, experience from one country is relevant to other countries. This workshop, therefore provides a unique opportunity to learn from the experiences of other countries in Africa and to share challenges and achievements.

In various countries, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) are working on various programs including petroleum data management. The workshop will benefit from their participation by tying the experiences from one country to another.

Since 2006, Norway has supported Uganda through Norad’s “Oil for Development” initiative. In this cooperation, Uganda and Norway have focused on the establishment of competent institutions within the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, with capacity to handle the challenges in the exploration phase and early upstream phase.

The Startupper of the Year by Total challenge came to a plausible end when Ushs130m was awarded to the top three contestants as seed capital to kick-start and fund their business ideas.

Gloria Nakyejwe Kalyango proprietor of Eco-technologies took home Ushs25m as second runner up, Arthur Woniala- founder of Khainza energy took home Ushs40m as first runner up and Samuel Malinga a consultant at Sanitation Africa took home Ushs65m as overall winner of the challenge.

The challenge is part of Total Uganda and Total Group’s initiative to promote socioeconomic development in Uganda and on the African continent, bringing to life the brand’s thematic “energizing life”.

The prize money was handed over to the winners at the Startupper of the Year by Total awards gala which recently was held at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel. The ceremony followed a four -month search for the most innovative and entrepreneurial business ideas by Total Uganda and Total E&P. The competition kicked off on November 03, 2015 and ended on March 12, 2016.

Total Uganda’s Managing Director, Mr Florentine de Loppinot said, the competition received over 190 entries from Uganda alone and out of these, 10 competitive participants were chosen by a jury of ten. The 10 participants presented their projects to the jury on March 12th 2016 after a week-long boot camp at Garuga Beach Resort Hotel. 

On top of the cash prizes, the winners will get free coaching from Total Uganda on how best they can improve their projects for better results and resource utilization among other things. The seven finalists who didn’t make it to the top three were also awarded with different prizes. The top ten also got certificates of merit.

Toilet project the best

The overall winner of the Startupper of the Year by Total challenge Samuel Malinga is the founder of Sanitation Africa. Malinga holds a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Engineering. He has been working on the Sanitation Africa project for the last two years.

Sanitation Africa offers a full suite of sanitation services ranging from innovative toilet construction and upgrade, pit emptying services, transformation of inside bathrooms into toilets for the elderly, processing briquettes from dried faecal sludge, and sanitation consultancy.

Malinga’s Sanitation Africa sells latrines at $450 for one stance and $720 for two stances, with a 30% profit margin. For pit emptying, a customer is charged $9 per 250 liter drum of sludge extracted and most households normally pay for 6 drums comfortably. Some Individuals, schools, NGOs are already paying for these services.

The pumping equipment is locally manufactured. According to Malinga, Briquettes are a substitute for coal imported. Pit emptying prevents overflows of sludge in pits during the rainy season and saves people from faecal sludge related diseases like diarrhea, cholera, among others

The company has five full-time employees and 24 part-time. Pumping teams are equipped with protective equipment and disinfection kits. Recruitment will follow the demand level.

One of the characteristics of sustainable urban centers is that such settlements and development must be ecologically viable, Associate Professor Sabiiti Makara of Makerere University told a public dialogue at Victoria University in Kampala, Uganda on Thursday 7 April.

This means that urban planners and leaders must address ecosystem challenges when planning to develop urban centers like cities, municipals and towns. Sabiiti, a political science lecturer at Uganda’s biggest and leading university said that cities must be clean with no littering, green with open spaces and environmentally conscience.

Sabiiti was speaking at a Public Dialogue on Promoting Good Urban Governance organized by Victoria University in partnership with the Centre for Urban Studies and Research under the theme ‘Promoting Good Urban Governance in Uganda: Challenges and Opportunities’.

A panel of experts discussed challenges and solutions to ensure good governance in urban centers.  Sabiiti revealed that at 5.1 percent annually, Uganda is one of the countries experiencing the world’s fastest urbanization trends.

The professor added in order for good governance to prevail, urban centers like cities must be economically productive, socially just, politically vibrant, culturally diverse and have own development capacity. He warned by that lack of political order causes problems and stalls urban development.

In Uganda urban centers due to poor planning and lack of good governance surfers every time it rains because of poorly built drainage systems. Due to pollution of the environment by unregulated industrialization, many people are getting deadly diseases.

Often times environmental issues are raised when for example city projects including infrastructure developments are being undertaken. The drive to save swamps and wetlands in Kampala has been ongoing but with less success as rich people and government erect structures in swamps. This destroys the ecosystem.

Leaders blamed

In a similar manner, Dr Kiggundu Amin Tamale working with Center for Urban Studies and Research advised that urban center managers should perform because they are hired and paid to think for what is good for towns. “As city managers, you need to think for your people but they are failing.” Tamale noted.

David Kasimbazi, the programs coordinator at Center for Urban Studies and Research said there is a disconnection between policies and what is on ground. Kasimbazi’s opinion is also reflected by calls to bring law and policy reforms to improve service delivery in urban centers across the country.

Fr. Pascal Kabura from the Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC) explained that disagreements between political leaders and technical people hamper implementation of development projects.

“Take an example of Kampala Capital City, the fighting between Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago and the Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi has cost us good service delivery for over four years. It is time we separate politics from City planning; development of towns and cities has been frustrated by politicians who claim to know it all,” Fr Kabura said.

Every smartphone that is put on the market has its own strength. The latest addition in the smartphone market, the Tecno Boom J8, has been dubbed the music smart phone because of it music prowess.

The music smart phone which is an upgrade on predecessor Tecno Boom J7 boasts of a 5.5” HD IPS touch screen, 13MP auto-focus rear/ 5.0MP front camera with Dual LED flash, extra 16GB ROM  expandable to 128GB and powered by 2GB RAM.

Hudah Nakazinga, the senior products consultant at Tecno Mobile, speaking at the launch of the phone at Africell head office said that the selling point for the Tecno Boom J8 was what it can do in terms of music. She said the phone has been made to suit needs of music lovers.

The Tecno Boom J8 comes with free boom headphones, pre-installed boom player app and boom Max app, a music equalisation feature. The sound output of this slick but powerful phone is of quality.

The Tecno Boom J8 which was launched on the market by Africell Uganda and Tecno Mobile Thursday morning is now available in Africell stores. It will cost only Ushs499, 000 and comes with a free 4G LTE simcard plus 3.5GB of data valid for one month.

Tecno is set to unveil its own mobile Operating system, HiOS which comes with launch of new Tecno Boom J8. The new Tecno Boom J8 is Tecno’s first device to host the brand’s signature HiOS operating system.

Hong Ji, the Tecno Mobile Operator Sales Manager in Uganda said at the launch that the mobile giant maker has been working hard to create a signature experience on all its mobile devices that users easily identify and associate with.

“What HiOS has helped us achieve is a unique user experience, one like no other. TECNO users can now tell their favorite brand by merely interacting with its UI. HiOS feels different and acts different; a lot more intuitive than the android OS 5.1 which forms its backbone operating system,” Hong said.

Milad Khairallah, Africell’s Chief Commercial Officer said Africell was committed to giving their customers the best of the telecom service. “We will continue to unveil products, services and innovative give-aways for our subscribers who have made us the number one telecom network in Uganda. The launch of high-end brands like Tecno with our service is part of that belief and commitment.”