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A Ugandan businessman has dragged the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to court for allowing the importation of millions of substandard condoms currently in circulation.

The Government of Uganda is also co-accused.

Mr. Joseph Sseremba served the Ugandan Attorney General and UNFPA with a notice of intention to sue and demanded that condoms manufactured by five Asian companies be recalled within 45 days from the date he filed the notice (August 17).

Sseremba named Indus Medicare from India and Karex Industries from Malaysia to have supplied the condoms. Other companies are Guilin Latex Factory, Qingdao Double Butterfly Group and Tianjin Human care Latex Corporation; all from China.

In the notice, Sseremba said many of the condoms in circulation are substandard and do not meet the acceptable quality level set by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards.

He said the condoms have a bad odour, do not have a manufacturer’s name for traceability, while others are improperly labelled and packaged.

“The consumer packages do not contain information in at least one of the official languages of the country of destination, if possible supplemented by pictorial representations of the major steps involved in proper condom use,” the notice reads.

Sseremba alleges that the inner boxes of the substandard condoms containing 114 pieces were not constructed of board plasticised on their in-surface and are not of sufficient strength and rigidity to retain their shape through every stage of distribution as required.

Heads and teachers of technical and vocational schools in Southern province have been urged to change their strategic plans from one year to five years strategic plans.

The move comes as a result of workshops organized by Workforce Development Authority through IPRC-South (WDA-IPRC-South) and Belgium Development Cooperation (BTC) training them on elaboration of strategic plans for technical and vocational schools

“The program was the formation of elaboration of strategic plans of technical and Vocational schools with the WDA and the program will be implemented in IPRC-South for further pedagogical competencies” Said Xavier Rosy, Technical Assistant in the Belgian Program of Support to Technical and Professional Training.

The principal of the Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre (IPRC-South), Rudahunga Gédéon has said 11 pilot vocational centres were trained and the training will help them to design programmes responding to their needs while at the same time improving the quality of Education in technical and vocational centres.

“The programme will help them identify their needs. With information in place, means in place, there is a half of activities that can be implemented” noted Rudahunga

Speaking on the gaps of pedagogical materials, Mr. Xavier Rosy said that some of the schools are still facing the problem of infrastructure development, facilities to reduce the size of the pupils in a class among others adding that Belgium will fund professional schools in Rwanda using over 6 million Euros in a period of 4 years.

Mpigiye Norbert of Mugusa Vocational Training centres has said most challenging problems are teachers who leave the jobs looking for better payment elsewhere pointing out the low salary for Vocational Trainers.

“Taking example of a student that we have trained, when finished courses in our schools you cannot employ him due to the fact that he cannot agree our salary which is low comparing to what he is going to do outside” Mpigiye said.

“Another problem is that we struggle to teach pupils who have different level of studies; some with primary school level while others are secondary schools” He explained adding that all of these can affect the quality of education.

However, Ndahiro Andre in charge of the quality of Education in WDA said as far as the quality of education is concerned; the government is working closely with WDA to solve those problems.

President Paul Kagame has emerged winner of the African Peace personality of the Year award.

Kagame was short listed with three other African personalities for the Africa Peace personality Award which was by an online voting system via the website of Miss University Africahttp://www.missuniversityafrica.org/).

His Excellency, Ernest Bai Koroma, President of the Republic of
Sierra Leone, for his approach and support to unite his people and
heal the wounds of trauma, displacements, deaths and war in
Sierra Leone.

His Excellency Paul Kagame President of the Republic of Rwanda,
for his ingenuity and style of leadership to unite the people of
Rwanda and seek peaceful means to stabilize his country after the
genocide.

Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf President of the Republic of
Liberia, for encouraging investment and unanimously elected for
the second time as president of Liberia having led her country out
of the ashes of a brutal civil war.

His Excellency, Chief Olesugun Obasanjo Former President,
Federal Republic of Nigeria, for his efforts to restore peace in
Africa most especially the West African Sub region

The vote which lasted 41 days had His Excellency President Paul
Kagame with a total vote of 817,201 (eight hundred and seventeen
thousand two hundred and one) as the highest score of the four
shortlisted.

The countries that voted his Excellency the most were: Rwanda, Ghana,
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Uganda. most of the comments
posted were “the manner in which President Kagame handled the Hutus and Tutsis crisis in Rwanda demands the loudest applause
worldwide”

According to Mr. Taylor who is one of the managers of Miss University
Africa, He personally remember during a visit to Liberia when they met
with president Ellen Johnson of Liberia, after He told her about the
votes and award she said “What President Kagame has done in Rwanda
is very commendable, Rwanda is like a mentor to Liberia as we have a
lot to learn from them especially coming out of a civil war” to him, for
an African leader to speak in such volume about Rwandan President
clearly states why he won this award from the rest of Africa”.

The Organizers of Miss University Africa intend to fly to Rwanda with
this award which will have His Excellency name engraved on crystal.
Congratulations to our President and Congratulations to All Rwandans.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has protested against the election of Rwanda to the Security Council of the UN as non-permanent member.

Ida Sawyer, a researcher with the international NGO, said, October 18, that “Rwanda’s presence in the seat have a negative impact on the Congolese war victims in eastern DRC.”

“We were very disappointed after the election of Rwanda as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Rwanda will now be able to block sanctions involving Rwandan officials and other initiatives in the search for peace in the DRC. We think it will be a serious situation that can have negative consequences on the population in eastern DRC, “she argued.

For Human Rights Watch, “Rwanda is not credible now occupy this seat because of his support for the rebels of the Movement of March 23