Inside Museveni, Japan PM meeting

President Museveni and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday agreed to continue strengthening bilateral ties between the two governments with focus on infrastructure development funding.

According to a State House statement released yesterday, Mr Museveni, who is in Japan for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development Forum (TICAD), held bilateral meeting with Mr Abe.

The Japanese government has put a mark on the infrastructure development by funding the construction of the cable bridge on River Nile in Jinja and also the highly anticipated construction of fly-over roads in Kampala.
Mr Museveni told his host that Uganda will procure five more heavy-duty road units from Japan to improve urban infrastructure and facilitate trade and service delivery.

Currently, majority of the local governments are using road units procured from Japan but all have not yet been received.
“Thank you for the support to infrastructure development including the bridge, roads, electricity and vocational institutions in Uganda. We want to buy five more units for the towns,” he said.

International aid
The President urged the Japanese government to consider committing more funds to enable raising the height of the fly-overs to accommodate the SGR railway project.
The Japanese government is constructing various projects, including the Kibuye-Busega inter-exchange to decongest the city.

Other projects are the proposed new Karuma Bridge, a UNIDO training institute in Luweero to manage road equipment and a universal health coverage project.
President Museveni called on Prime Minister Abe to encourage and support the Japanese private sector players to invest in Uganda and promote trade, saying Japan has already opened its markets to Africa with zero tax and no quota.

Mr Abe informed President Museveni that Japan will extend support worth 2.45 billion yen (Shs84.6b) towards traffic control in the Kampala City fly-over project and another 260 million Yen (Shs8.9b) support to UNIDO and efforts for improved agriculture production for export purposes.

Unity and stability
The two leaders also discussed security in the Great Lakes Region and also the situation in North Korea.
President Museveni also said he was in support of the unity of North and South Korea for stability and more balance in the region.

Mr Abe said the North Korea’s persistence to develop nuclear weapons at the expense of unification efforts is a challenge to the peace in the Korean Peninsula and surrounding countries.

“This challenge must be resolved by implementing the United Nations Security Resolutions. Unification is an ideal for the future,” he said.
The Japanese leader thanked Uganda for playing a key role in peace keeping and security in the region and welcomed the improved relationship between Uganda and Rwanda.

He also commended Uganda’s role in the fight against Ebola and expressed his desire to deepen cooperation between the two countries in the health sector.
Uganda has contained the Ebola outbreak, which killed two people in Kasese in June.
The two leaders also laid strategies for the two countries towards running elections for to the United Nations Security Council, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Japan is pushing for UN Security Council membership at the next election whereas Uganda is fronting Justice Julia Ssebutinde for the ICJ role.
Mr Abe encouraged Uganda to submit details regarding the Karuma Bridge and the Busega Expressway through the Ambassador of Japan to Uganda for consideration.

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