Uganda, April 21 -- After a six-hour wait, 61 handpicked traders finally met President Museveni at State House Entebbe on Friday. The meeting did not end until an hour shy of midnight. Most importantly, Mr Museveni deftly played his cards to ensure that the main protagonists in a standoff that paralysed business for days-the traders and the taxman-emerged with a sense of victory.

"We partially won," one trader told Sunday Monitor on Saturday.

Mr Ibrahim Bbosa, the taxman's assistant commissioner in-charge of public and corporate affairs, was quick to clarify that "the President also made it clear that he would not tolerate any form of non-compliance with tax."

We have established that the leadership of different traders associations at...