Ex-Political Prisoner Joins Uganda Cabinet

Balaki Kirya, who long opposed former President Milton Obote and spent eight years as a political prisoner, has been named to the new government’s Cabinet, Radio Uganda announced over the weekend.

It said that Kirya will be minister of state in the president’s office. Four other Cabinet posts were also filled.

There are now 29 ministers in the Cabinet of President Yoweri Museveni, whose National Resistance Army guerrillas culminated a five-year insurgency by capturing Kampala in January.

Also named were five deputy ministers, including Gertrude Njuba, the first woman given a ministerial post under Museveni. Her area will be rehabilitation.

Kirya was among 1,200 prisoners freed when Obote was toppled in a military coup last July. He then joined Museveni’s guerrillas, who unseated the military government.