Government has set stringent terms and conditions that will guide the MTN Nyege Nyege festival which is scheduled to take place from Thursday September 6th to Sunday September 9th at the Nile Resort Beach in Jinja.
The conditions were set and agreed on in a memorandum of understanding between Uganda Police and Talent Africa, the organisers of the festival on Wednesday.
A signed MoU seen by this website shows that Ali Allibhai signed on behalf of Talent Africa while Erasmus Twaruhukwa signed on behalf of Uganda Police.
This followed Tuesday evening events where Ethics and Integrity Minister Father Simon Lokodo declared the event cancelled over what he termed as gross misconduct and promotion of homosexuality in the country.
Internal Affairs Minister Gen. Jeje Odong however later clarified that the government would engage with event organisers and find a middle ground for the festival to happen.
The Tower Post understands that the engagement took place on Wednesday at 10:00AM.
Below are the agreed conditions;
1. The organisers shall provide police a detailed program of the event to facilitate deployment of security personnel.
2. There shall be no processions to and from the venue
3. The police shall provide security at the venue, in addition to Tight Security, a private security firm contracted for the purpose by event organisers.
4. The Police will have unfettered access to the venue and all facilities used by the organisers any time of the day or night.
5. The purpose of the event is the promotion of culture, local music and tourism. The event shall be held only in a manner consistent with this purpose.
6. Accreditation at the venue shall be done by Uganda Police Force in liaison with event organisers.
7. The organisers undertake to ensure that the event shall be accessed only by adults and will ensure no person under the age of 18 shall be allowed at the venue after 6PM. In the event of doubt to the age of a person perceived to be a child, production of evidence of age shall be mandatory.
8. The organisers undertake to ensure that sanitation facilities at the venue shall be sufficient for the 5000 participants expected.
9. The organisers shall ensure that first and other necessary medical arrangements shall be put in place with clear areas of exist in case of emergency and fire escape routes.
10. The organisers undertake to provide guidelines at the entrance and in other strategic conspicuous points at the venue, clearly prohibiting use of drugs, acts homosexuality, open sex and any other act considered immoral or unacceptable by the culture of the people of Uganda.
11. The parties agree that security is of paramount importance and should the police consider that the security measures in place are not adequate, the event shall be called off at the expense of the organisers.
Government reserves the right to call off the event at any time in the event of breach of any of the conditions.