Kampala — TENSIONS have been simmering between Uganda and Kenya over an island on Lake Victoria that the two countries are both claiming. Those tensions erupted recently when Kenyan legislators called for motions to consider Uganda a hostile state and station a portion of the national army on the island.

All this followed remarks that President Yoweri Museveni supposedly made when presenting a paper on the East African federation at the University of Dar-es-salaam. A Tanzanian newspaper, The Citizen, quotes him to have referred to the Jaluo as mad.

Following the incident, Uganda has written to Kenya in a bid to calm the waters.

Regional affairs minister Isaac Musumba says the President's use of the word mad was taken out of context and yet he used it as an expression of friendliness. Sanity will hopefully return after the verification exercise, which, after twice being postponed, was launched in Nairobi and will be completed in two months.

Meanwhile, travelling long distance by road is proving increasingly dangerous going by recent accidents. In just one week, more than two dozen people have died following buses - two of which belong to Gateway Bus Company - colliding with smaller vehicles. Consequently, the Ministry of Works and Transport and the Police carried out a joint inspection of all Gateway buses in which 40 buses were impounded. The company's operations have been suspended, together with three other firms, a move that will see the probable hike in bus fares.

The State has also asked the anti-corruption court to convict two directors of an NGO, Valued Health, for misusing sh18.7m from the Global Fund, diverting government money for personal use.

But for Budadiri West MP Nandala Mafabi, conviction alone is not enough. He argued during the debate on the anti-corruption law, that those guilty of corruption should face the firing squad. His colleague, Abura Pirir instead wondered why corruption is not legalised since it's the norm in every district. Yet another view stated that those charged with corruption should be denied bail in the first 180 days on remand. In the end, a Bill that sentences a suspect to 10 years in prison and a fine of sh100m was passed.

So far, only one government official has been charged with negligence, following the poor road construction in preparation for the Commonwealth summit in November 2007. Engineer Samson Bagonza denied the charges, claiming he was not in on the poor works by himself. Prosecution argued that he neglected his supervisory duties during construction which resulted in shoddy works.

For those who do not provide adequate food for their family, MPs are calling for stricter punishments meted out to them. During a workshop on the Food and Nutrition Bill 2008, they argue that sh240,000 and imprisonment of not more than six months or both is just not enough. Some argued that punishing men alone was not fair but that both parents should be held accountable.

But with a looming food crisis, which weather experts predict, one can't tell if all parents will be able to adequately provide for their families. The shortage would most likely result from inadequate rainfall and problems with cassava mosaic and banana wilt.

After a brief delay, the Public Universities Joint Admissions Board finally released a provisional list of government-sponsored students at public universities. Schools from central region dominated the list.