President Museveni issues 14 tougher guidelines over COVID-19 Pandemic

By; Jjunju Francis

31st March 2020

President Yoweri Museveni has issued tougher guidelines starting with the ban on the movement of all private vehicles within 30 minutes from his address effective 10pm, March 30^th, 2020 for 14 days in respect to controlling the spread of COVID-19 or Coronavirus.

In a live speech from State house Nakasero Musevni also announced a 14 day curfew starting 7pm effective March 31^st 2020.

He explained that after careful consideration, the government had decided to address the “error on the side of caution” than to repeat the mistakes of the nations that have been greatly affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Uganda, he said had by Monday March 30, 2020 registered 33 infections with 839 individuals under mandatory quarantine and owing to public indiscipline since his pronouncement on March 25^th 2020 when he banned public transport and allowed on two passengers in a private vehicle, some people abused it by turning it into a fortune plying people e.g from Jinja to Kampala at 50,000/= a person, prompting him to take drastic measures he called “bitter medicine of maximum restrictions” to contain possible avenues that would lead to the spread of the disease.

This comes when Uganda has 33 cases of COVID-19 and 2 chinese.

In the 16 new preventive guidelines the President also banned shopping malls, arcades and non-food stores, salons and lodges across the country. However, the supermarkets, permanent markets in Kampala and other parts of the country, Pharmacies for both human and animal medicine will remain open but with clear standard operating procedures that limit the number of people in the area at a given time strictly maintaining a 4 meter distance from each person.

He added that market vendors must arrange to stay near the markets and avoid returning to their homes for 14 days as well as factory workers and those on construction sites.

Due to public indiscipline Gatherings of more than five persons have also been prohibited contrary to the earlier announcement that had put it at not more than 10 people.

Among others on the exempted list are; Banks, Cleaning services, Garbage collectors, Fire Services, Door-to-Door delivery services, Petrol stations, KCCA and Uganda Revenue Authority, which were classified as essential services, will remain operational.

In order to deal with some unavoidable health issues like mothers in child birth or very sick people, permission can be sought from the RDC to use private transport to take such a person to hospital.

He reiterated the point of taking advantage of the Pandemic to concentrate on production of most commodities within, than relying on imports adding that although some sectors like tourism industry, the entertainment and transport a fortune has to be made out of this situation among them the high demand for sanitizers, face masks and bicycles.

Working with the IMF and the World Bank, he said they are to set up a fund in UDB to accelerate industrialization through import-substitution and export promotion.