OFFICER HIT IN POLICE HEAD OFFICE RAID DIES

Six suspects held for armed attack in northern Uganda Botswana to up power supply

KAMPALA – Ugandan police said yesterday that a senior officer wounded in an attack by gunmen on a police headquarters in the north on Sunday had died of his wounds, and a witness said security had been stepped up in the area.

Northern Uganda is still emerging from a devastating civil war between the military and Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which was driven out of the country about 10 years ago.

The death of the police officer raised the death toll to two in Sunday evening’s attack on a regional police headquarters in Gulu town, 350km north of the capital Kampala.

A soldier was killed during the attack and police spokesman Fred Enanga said Moses Masaba, who was in charge of the station when the gunmen struck – died on Monday evening.

“He was a senior standby officer at the station that night when the attack occurred,” Enanga said.

Ugandan security officials say they believe the gunmen were trying, unsuccessfully, to rescue a man detained at the police station on murder and terrorism charges.

Enanga said six suspects believed to have participated in the attack had been arrested on Monday, including the driver of a pick up truck used in the assault, and two commanders.

A local newspaper journalist in Gulu said sporadic gunfire rang out on Monday evening. Businesses hurried to close earlier than normal while tens of security personnel and heavy military vehicles patrolled the town.

Enanga said the gunfire heard on Monday was from security personnel attempting to arrest suspects. “There was some form of resistance,” he said, adding that the search was continuing.

Sunday’s attack came amid political tensions in Uganda since veteran leader President Yoweri Museveni was declared winner of a February presidential election.

Scores of people have been arrested since then, the opposition says, and protesters have frequently clashed with police.

Museveni’s main opponent, Kizza Besigye, who came second with 35% of the vote, was arrested in May and charged with treason. The opposition says the accusation is trumped up. – Reuters GABORONE – Botswana is looking to add up to 820MW of power into the national grid from both coal and solar powered plants by 2020, leaving it a surplus for exports, Minerals and Energy Minister Kitso Mokaila said yesterday.

Independent power producers were expected to develop two 300MW stations while refurbishment of a 120MW coal-fuelled power plant was expected to be complete by end of 2017, Mokaila told a mining conference.

He said a tender for a 100MW solar power station would also be out in the next two months, with the plant due to be running by 2018.

“In four years time we see ourselves as not only self-sufficient but we hope to have extra capacity to be exporting into the region,” Mokaila said.

Earlier this year, Botswana awarded a tender for a 300MW power plant to a joint venture between South Korea’s Posco and Japan’s Marubeni.

The Southern African country also intends to order a 300MW power plant from a joint venture between South Korea’s Daewoo and Kepco. –