Why measuring poverty using income is misleading and why we need to switch to using wealth THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | It is seven months since Uganda locked down due to COVID. The lesson I have learnt from the lockdown is not related to health but economics. …
Read More »Uganda’s addiction to borrowing
Why our country continues to take more and more loans and what this means for the economy THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Uganda is at a crossroads. Early this year, government passed a budget of Shs32 trillion for the 2020/2021 Financial Year. It also projected to collect …
Read More »The book you must read this year
A peep into a powerful treatise that people in the free market movement need to ponder over THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Few books have gripped me as did Thomas Piketty’s economics blockbuster, Capital in the Twenty First Century. Published in 2015, I took long to read it …
Read More »Lessons from UPDF’s 50 years
Why it’s important for the army or the government to tell the story of its transformation THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Next year, the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces (UPDF) will mark three major milestone dates. It will be exactly 50 years (Golden Jubilee) since its formation under …
Read More »Sudan, two years after Bashir
Why those who want change in Uganda need to think much more creatively about what it means THE LAST WORD | Andrew Mwenda | Nearly two years since Gen. Omar El Bashir was removed from power through a popular uprising, Sudan is tottering on the edge of collapse. The government …
Read More »The real thieves of teachers’ money
THE LAST WORD: The real story of how teachers’ money was stolen and how the wrong guys were framed and jailed THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | On September 9, all major news outlets in Uganda ran a screaming headline: `Microfinance Support Centre officials charged with embezzlement’. It …
Read More »What to pick and leave, from the NRM party primary elections
COMMENT | Crispin Kaheru | The NRM party primary elections may have come off as vibrant on a positive note, but they also depicted a game of money, power, guns and impunity – in some cases. There were some disturbing scenes of violence in as much as there were portions of …
Read More »Why violence in NRM primaries
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, NRM primaries degenerated into violence. Candidates and their supporters clashed with opponents leading to the shedding of blood. Some people died. The army and police were called in to keep the peace. There was massive rigging. Some people were surprised …
Read More »COMMENT: Rukutana and Uganda’s social media lynch-mob
COMMENT | Andrew M. Mwenda | In the age of social media, with its instantaneous dissemination of news, alongside such technologies as deep fake and photoshop, journalists in mainstream media need to be extremely skeptical and cautious of all information even that on video that seems authentic. Nowhere has journalism …
Read More »Uganda’s elite crisis
Why Dr. Kizza Besigye is right to say elites in Uganda are the most useless class THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye has argued that elites in Uganda are the most useless group in the country. Let us test this thesis and seek …
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