Uganda Wildlife Authority Commission Chair just cannot shut up

UGANDA (eTN) – In typical style, combative and controversial as ever, retired Supreme Court Justice George Kanyeihamba, only days after it became known that he received directives from the Minister of Tourism to immediately wind up his commission’s work and submit a final report, has taken aim at the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) Acting Executive Director Dr. Andrew Seguya.

Accusing him of having given misleading information to the commission, Kanyeihamba demanded that Seguya be interdicted for allegedly giving false information, which at the time led to demands by the commission to suspend at least four staff. With the minister out of country on official duty at the time of Kanyeihamba’s latest outburst, no one at the ministry would want to go on record.

One regular source, however, on condition of anonymity, had this to say: “The chairman’s style of aggressive actions and controversial decisions and utterances is coming home to roost. First he storms Seguya’s offices and demands the suspension of staff, and now he reverses himself. The chairman should put all his evidence, or whatever he claims to have found in his report, hand it over, and go away and rest in his village.

“What purpose does it serve to publicly demand this and that all the time? We all know he is a former insider who turned disgruntled and bitter, and has his own agenda. When he was part of the induction seminars for new members of parliament a few months ago, he was laughed at by NRM cadres, but this is essentially all the fault of the former minister for appointing him. That one also had his own vendettas and agenda and thought Kanyeihamba would be a willing tool. Then he was summoned himself and confronted with drawing money from UWA for facilitation.”

Other conservation sources claim this latest twist in the long saga of UWA has again undercurrents, maybe paving the way for the minister to finally appoint a new board and let that board then decide on engaging a new executive director while others suspect that this development would only weaken UWA even more, calling the organization “a shadow of its former self” and “crippled to take hard decisions.”

Past chairs of UWA have also taken issue with Kanyeihamba’s style and motives, but unperturbed by all this, the retired Supreme Court Justice, clearly used to gaveling down objections from his former bench, just does not seem to know when the time has come for he, himself, to shut up.