The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) has today agreed to give Umukuuka wa Bugisu office furniture, three desktop computers, and an undisclosed number of computer tablets under a collaboration agreement on the joint collection, analysis, and dissemination of statistics in the Bugisu region.
UBOS has already this year given other cultural institutions tablet computers that were used during the National Population and Housing (NPHC) 2024. The NPHC 2024 was the first ever digital census in Uganda and UBOS procured thousands of tablet computers for the operation. Some of those tablets computers were manufactured by a Chinese company in the Mbale Industrial Park.
In a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between UBOS Executive Director Dr Chris Ndatira Mukiza and Umukuuka wa Bugisu, UBOS agreed to build the capacity of Umukuuka wa Bugisu in collecting, analysing and disseminating statistics.
Dr Mukiza said UBOS is this year establishing a permanent regional office in Mbale City, the cultural capital of Bugisu, to act as building blocks for the capacity building. Previously, Mbale has only had a Consumer Price Index (CPI) centre but it is now going to be upgraded.
“Capacity building means training their statisticians and also attaching UBOS statisticians to work with them so as to avoid duplicating effort,” said Dr Mukiza, soon after he and Umukuuka wa Bugisu Information, Media and Communications Minister Alfred Geresom Musamali signed the MOU.
Musamali said Umukuuka wa Bugisu is setting up a statistics unit to produce its information needs for evidence-based policy and decision-making. He pointed out that among the information they wish to collect is the number of males that undergo circumcision from each clan each season.
Carried out among adolescent males every even year, circumcision is the flagship cultural rite of the Bagisu. At the peak of the season (August to December), the numbers of candidates determine how many surgeons must be availed for the exercise, sometimes forcing parents to import the surgeons from across the border in Kenya where there are culturally related communities.
Musamali said Umukuuka wa Bugisu is also interested in establishing the rate of harvesting and consumption of kamalea (bamboo shoots) so as to work out if their practice is culturally sustainable. Harvested from the forests on Mt Elgon, on whose southwestern slopes lies Bugisu, fresh steamed or smoked and dried bamboo are a delicacy of the mountain dwellers.
UBOS also signed collaboration MoUs with Bunyoro Kingdom and with the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda on the same day.
Dr Mukiza said UBOS is mandated to establish collaborations, including with cultural institutions. But he said UBOS encourages use of environmentally sustainable methods of collaboration, and that is why they are providing computers to reduce the amount of paper consumed. Paper is known to be environmentally unsustainable.
Dr Mukiza tasked the cultural institutions that have signed the MoU to immediately embark on developing their strategic plans for statistics.
