Why Undeployed Omona Should Prepare for Years on Katebe

By Mulengera Reporters

Within 2-3 weeks, it’s expected that President Museveni will be unleashing his new list of Ambassadors and heads of Uganda Missions abroad. Ordinarily, that is when the name of Dr. Kenneth Olusegun Omona should have been unleashed as one of the newly posted ambassadors.

He was one of those who were dropped in the last week Cabinet reshuffle and the President’s message indicated that the former PPS, who had been serving as Minister for Northern Uganda affairs, had been made ambassador awaiting deployment. In otherwords, he was deployed to a role or station that was never disclosed.

Media reports have since speculated that Omona could be headed to New York to replace outgoing Ugandan Permanent Representative accredited to United Nations.

But knowledgeable sources now say that Omona, with whom Gen Salim Saleh remains unhappy over certain Northern Uganda reconstruction interventions, has politely been placed under the permanent Katebe-like predicament. That this is Gen Museveni’s polite way of rendering him redundant.

Sources say that if the President meant well, Dr. Omona would instantly have been named and assigned to a Mission or at best his name preserved to be included on the new list of ambassadorial redeployments, which is expected in a matter of weeks.

“The salary for ambassador, which equals to being a Commissioner in the public service structure, earns him a gross pay of Shs12m per month, which drops to a net pay of about Shs8m after deduction of taxes,” says a source deeply knowledgeable about what awaits Kenneth Omona (but the practice has been for Gen Museveni to direct public service to create person-to-holder salary arrangements for such former Ministers so that a man who has clearly fallen out of favour like is the case for Omona now ends up continuing with what he earned while still in Cabinet).

“He [Omona] might find himself in a predicament similar to what befell Gen Charles Angina or even Gen Ivan Koreta who were named ambassadors but remained on Katebe without any deployment and yet they were earning a monthly salary for one and half years. Depending on whether the new Foreign Affairs Minister [Adonia Ayebare] is enthusiastic towards him or not, Omona might take forever to get deployed to any station.” (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).