The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Secondly, most people take the idealised version of liberal democracy, which is rarely found in reality. Liberal democracy, like all other human institutions and systems has many flaws. There is indeed a wide gulf between the ideal as written in books and the practice of liberal democracy as lived by people in the West. But let me reserve this debate for another day. For now I want to deal with governance differences between rich and poor nations.
But first a caveat: there are many bad people in governments in poor countries, just like it is in rich ones. I am also inclined to believe that rich countries have better financial and institutional resources to reign in bad public sector behaviour. Equally I think poor nations have weak capacity to restrain bad rulers. So I do (often) get extremely angry at gross corruption, incompetence and lack of the public spirit among many leaders in poor countries. But this exclusive focus on the bad ones ignores the myriad other public-spirited officials who wake up everyday and put in an honest work effort. With that caveat we can now debate the more fundamental issues that shape governance.
The legitimacy of the state in the West, which stems to a large degree from the ability of the state to provide all citizens with a large basket of goods and services through arms-length and impersonal application of rules is underwritten by the availability of huge financial resources. This is the opposite of the situation in poor countries – where governments simply do not have the financial resources to win legitimacy this way. So leaders are literally forced to rely on cheaper and affordable strategies of gaining legitimacy.
It is not possible to govern a country with $200 public spending per person the same way you govern another where public spending per person is $20,000. It is here that patronage and clientelism (or what others may call corruption) gain ascendency. Budgetary constraints limit the governance options for poor countries. Leaders adopt governance strategies that fit their budget and context, cheaper ways to build legitimacy and secure public compliance with their rules. I have grown to believe that what has been criminalised as patronage and corruption are actually the only affordable tools of governance available to leaders in poor nations.
Just because poor governments cannot govern like rich liberal democracies does not mean they cannot govern more justly, humanely, fairly, effectively, and in public interest and also be accountable. So when we as elites in these countries demand to be governed like Belgium because we read about its system from a book at university, we need to be realistic about what is possible within our nation’s financial means. This also means we must think of the moral standards we use to judge our leaders.
The current fad of “good governance” has actually criminalised being poor by labelling governance strategies of poor nations such as patronage and clientelism as corrupt. And once the word corruption is mentioned, then people get into religious mode. To suggest that poor countries should be allowed to govern within the means they have sounds like a suggestion to accommodate evil things that current governance discourse has labelled corrupt and backward. Yet the current obsession of an ideal governance model sets governance standards that poor governments simply cannot afford, however genuine their leaders may be.
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The state in low-income countries, annual income per capita of less than $1,000, historically always extracted and distributed wealth in much more effectively and efficiently than any private entity could at that point of economic development for that country. The ambitious and or through their allies working as state agents used this state power to gain access to wealth.
Unfortunately, according to Mr. Mwenda, this strategy for wealth accumulation is presently criminalized and stigmatized through the nasty name-calling ignoring centuries of this self-evident political-economy Darwinism that is necessary for state economic development and is pushed by moralists that don’t wish poor countries well.
Bwana Mwenda, you have nothing to worry about.
In the case of Uganda, patronage and clientelism are alive and well as tools of administration. The elite cackling of “corrupt and backward” is mere noise which is rightly ignored.
There is of course the slight problem that it’s not just the masses or the elite who want certain things done, the leadership also wants certain services delivered and delivered on time. Officers appointed via patronage have a tendency not to perform.
Uganda’s leadership have a solution for this. It has appeared in various versions over the years but the original by Mobutu (the grandfather of patronage and clientelism) is the best. It went “IBA NA MAYELE” (MUBBE NA MAGEZI)
““IBA NA MAYELE” (MUBBE NA MAGEZI)”
SOKI OYIBATE NA MAYELE, BAKOKANGA YO NA MAKASI”
Democracy ,wealth accumulation and progress are aspects of human existance that can never be put in proper perspective possibly because of our limited tenure on earth our differences inwhere we see the world from. It may be a great idea of its time that ignites debate or some chronicler giving insight at the status quo .Yet human dignity anywhere any time will constantly define how all human endeavour will be ranked as we put it in perspective. Nazism might hve been a great idea at its time but the millions of dead Jews will negate all it aspired to acheive. Apertheid legislation in south Africa might have put the deserving Dutch pioneers at their rightfull position a head of the theiving English colonialists but see where it placed the blacks who reached the center of action late. the Khmer Rouge in Combodia the revolution in Luwero and the Genocide in Rwanda all did little to the diginity of the poor and as far as establishing democracy , that is debate for another. I was suprised when i visted my home in Kasese to find that cow skins and pig offals are the fare at the dinner table of many respectable households . I asked who eats the real meat?
1.There is absolutely every reason why the 1st World Nations should be concerned about the economic,political and social affairs of the poor nations.USA and Europe are right now grappling with refugees and voluntary slaves from the 3rd world.
2. is it by accident that that most citizens from the third world are fleeing their nations for a better social life in the 1st world? the answer is yes meaning that best practices can be copied from the first world nations.
3.Has the first world tried to improve the social welfare of the poor states at times they try for example, World Bank and EU provide loans at no interest to 3rd World Nations to develop social structures;the MDGs set by UN is also another sign that the first world wishes us well.
4. Police just wanted to annoy the person of the President;How could they allow Bobi Wines’ and Kabaka’s followers meet in Wakiso recently well knowing that one group was high on traditional herbs and the other high on weed?