The government of Uganda has ordered all civil servants working in the country to spend two hours a week doing physical exercise to keep them fit and healthy.
The directive was shared in a letter to government agencies from the head of public service, Lucy Nakyobe, who said the sessions would “help save the lives of staff and reduce the disease burden”.
The Government of Uganda also tweeted that the initiative will “tame the rising burden of lifestyle disease” in the country:
Africa Today News, New York reports that this is coming about two years after a national health survey showed obesity rates in the country had risen from 17% to 26% in the last 17 years.
This is not the first time Uganda’s government has introduced initiatives to encourage exercise. In 2018, Uganda brought in the national day for physical activity which sees sporting activities held across the country.
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Dr Charles Oyoo Akiya, the commissioner for non-communicable diseases prevention, told local media that the health ministry had already been running exercise sessions for their staff, and they wanted to see it adopted across all departments.
In another report, the Mayor of Entebbe in Uganda, Mr. Fabrice Rulinda, has lamented that elections has lost its real effect in Africa because Africans have turned elections into investments which is not supposed to be so.
Rulinda made this assertion in Abuja ahead of this year’s colloquium organised by Haske Satumari Foundation which will open conversation on electoral and Judicial Reforms.
He pointed out that the continent has been copying democracy from the western world but does not adopt a system that will lead to the growth and development of the continent.