KAMPALA- President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has granted pardon to 130 convicted minor offenders in accordance with Article 121 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda.
The Uganda Prisons Services Prisons spokesperson, Frank Baine said in a statement that the pardon was granted on public health and humanitarian grounds and all the pardoned prisoners have since been released and a list of those pardoned show that most of them were on petty offences.
It should be remembered that in 2022, the president pardoned 79 prisoners in exercise of the power vest in him under Article 121(1) (a) of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda and on the advice of the Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy, while earlier, in 2020, President Museveni pardoned 833 prisoners countrywide through the Prerogative of Mercy as a measure against the spread of COVID-19 by decongesting the prison facilities.
Article 121 of the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda says there shall be an Advisory Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy and Authorities last year submitted 1800 prisoners for pardon but only 200 were pardon and 1,600 missed out.
Article 121 (4) (b) says the President may, on advice of the Committee of grant a person a respite, either indefinite or for a specified period from the execution of punishment imposed on him or her for an offence.
Meanwhile President Museveni has ordered the dismissal of the orthopaedic consultant at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital Dr Godfrey Bonane Pariyo over complaints that he does not work.
The President wrote to the Ministry for Public Service Wilson Muruli Mukasa that he had received complaints that Dr Pariyo is most of the time absent from duty and used the opportunity to open the question on the practice of doctors in public service moonlighting in private practice.
The President did not indicate the complainants or whether he had investigated the matter and found the complaints added up, however, the issue of moonlighting is a never-ending question with poor pay in public service often cited among other reasons.
In some economies, including in the southwestern neighbouring country of Rwanda, medics in public service are strictly forbidden from engaging in private practice, but in Uganda, the same similar attempts to regulate the medics has always fallen flat, leaving behind constant moans about absentee medics when patients need them.
