KAMPALA —President Yoweri Museveni is expected to address the nation on Friday 1 October 2021, his Press Secretary Lindah Nabusayi Wamboka said in Twitter.
Nabusayi says President will address Ugandans on matters of national importance.
“[President] Kaguta Museveni will address the Nation tomorrow, October 01, 2021, on matters of National importance starting at 8 pm from State Lodge Nakasero,” Nabusayi tweeted on Thursday.
She said the Presidential address will be broadcast live on all Television and Radio Stations.
Mr. Museveni is expected to address the country on a number of issues including the bail application.
Museveni wants people arrested in crimes such as murder and treason to be automatically disqualified from filing for bail.
The President’s proposal has so far enlisted little support, even among his closest allies, and attracted retrieval from the political opposition and outspoken human rights defenders.
During a meeting, earlier this week with members of his NRM Party caucus at Kololo, all 10 MPs who spoke on the matter, reportedly opposed this proposal.
Meanwhile, in the last address, Mr. Museveni eased anti-coronavirus restrictions, including allowing resumption of education for universities and other post-secondary institutions, citing a decline in infections in the country.
Uganda started experiencing a second wave of the pandemic around May, shortly after authorities announced detection of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
In response Museveni put the country of 45 million under a sweeping lockdown that included shuttering of nearly all businesses, closure of schools and halting of traffic.
Some of the restrictions were lifted at the end of July after cases started to drop.
In a televised speech late on last week, Museveni said the outbreak had continued to ebb since.
“The COVID-19 transmission rates in the country have
continued to decline. ..the daily average number of confirmed cases over the last one month has declined and stabilised,” he said.
He said all universities and other post secondary education institutions should now re-open on Nov. 1 and also allowed churches and a range of other sport and social activities such as weddings and funerals to resume.
Bar closures and a range of other restrictions such as a night curfew would be maintained though, to help prevent a third wave of the pandemic, he said.
As of Wednesday, Uganda had registered 122,502 confirmed cases and 3,135 deaths.
A total of 12 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines are expected to have been brought into the country by the end of the year, most of them donations, Museveni said.
He said the government aimed to vaccinate around 4.8 million people by the end of the year, which he said would permit the lifting of nearly all other remaining restrictions, including allowing primary and secondary schools to also re-open.