Museveni takes government to the Parish

Worsening poverty

The government’s new development model comes at a time when Ugandans are struggling to recover from the COVID-19 inspired economic downturn. Economic experts say although Uganda has so far been shielded from the worst in terms of health impact, the sharp global downturn in economic activity and containment measures put in place as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have come at an enormous cost to the economy.

Severe limitations on international transport have reduced exports and tourism and have further restricted access to key industrial inputs. At the same time, the collapse in the world economy has lowered remittances from Ugandans living and working abroad.

Further lockdown measures have compounded economic difficulties by preventing people from working, constituting another supply shock and a strain on people’s livelihoods. Projections from the International Growth Centre say the global crisis and lockdown measures pushed 3.3 million Ugandans into poverty while 9.1% of monthly GDP was lost during the lockdown.

According to a World Bank Poverty Assessment Fact Sheet on Uganda which was published in 2016, poverty is defined as the lack or insufficiency of money to meet basic needs, including food, clothing and shelter. But the World Bank noted that poverty is also about deprivation in other important areas of wellbeing such as education, health, water and housing.

The report noted that although the government has reduced monetary poverty at a very rapid rate, Uganda still lags behind in several important non-monetary areas, notably improved sanitation, access to electricity, education (completion and progression), and child malnutrition. The report further noted that millions of households in Uganda remain vulnerable.

According to the World Bank, for every three Ugandans who were lifted out of poverty, two fell back. This, the World Bank said, was because of the limited availability of safety net programmes (total spending on social security was 1% of GDP in 2013, compared to an average of 2.8% for Sub-Saharan Africa).

Many households, the World Bank added, are often left to cope with economic shocks using sub-optimal ways. For instance, while only 5% of households received support from the government, instead 35% relied on savings and 25% on family.

President Museveni reiterated the importance of the Parish Model during his swearing-in at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds on May 12. Museveni noted that unlike in the past where the wealth funds were managed by the central government officials such as the Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs), the funds at the parishes will be member-owned and run.

“In the past, it was the government officials to select beneficiaries. The members will now prioritise the allocations themselves. The wealth funds will be concentrated at the parish while the Emyooga (specialization funds) will remain at the County or Constituency level,” Museveni said.

Just another catch-phrase?

But not everyone is as convinced about the latest development model. Franca Akello, the outgoing chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (Local Government) and the Woman MP for Agago District told The Independent that after scrutinising the latest Auditor General’s report where he underscored several weaknesses of the past wealth creation schemes, she is not sure whether the Parish Development Model will be a better model.

Bernard Sabiti, a researcher and public policy analyst told The Independent on May 14 that the Parish Development Model is actually an old model being presented as something new. Sabiti said he doubts the Parish Development Model is going to revolutionalize service delivery in the country.

“The government is just re-inventing the wheel,” he told The Independent, “It is just another catch-phrase.” Sabiti told The Independent that the bottom-up planning and implementation approach has existed, at least on paper, since the Local Government Act was enacted in 1993.

In this approach, at least going by the original goal, Ugandans, the majority of whom live in rural areas are supposed to meet during the national budget planning process, identify their unique development priorities which they then send to the parish level.

The Parish Chief then sits with the Parish Development Committee comprising about 12 members to debate the priorities. Once they agree, they then send a report to the Sub-County Chief who also convenes their committee, deliberate on the development priorities for the Sub-County before sending a report to the District.

The development priorities of several sub-counties would then be compiled and debated and sent as the district development priorities which ultimately feed into the National Development Plan. But Sabiti told The Independent that even when the structures have always been there, they are not empowered.

“The parish is supposed to have a Parish Chief who is the technical person but many parishes do not have these chiefs. Many of them are not paid or have not been paid for years.”

“Whether the Parish Model will cure all the problems remains to be seen,” he says. “It is difficult to know when the LC II (Parish) or Ward (in urban areas) last met let alone being constituted.”

“The problem of Uganda is not structures, it is corruption. When it comes to administrative units per capita, Uganda is probably the most administered country in the world.”

Ramathan Ggoobi, a lecturer of economics at Makerere University Business School in Kampala told The Independent that the parish development model is about seven things but the politicians are conveniently emphasizing money.

“The politicians know people are money-minded and that is why they are emphasizing money. But this overemphasis on money is a distortion of the model which in essence is supposed to make the parish the focal point of governance in the country.”

“This is not about microfinance alone. The Parish Model is built on seven pillars and intends to actualize local governance. It is meant to take the government closer to the people.”

This model, Ggoobi told The Independent, is about having the Parish Chief and the Parish Government as the main pivot upon which the national government rotates.

Ggoobi says that among the reasons as to why service delivery has failed is because technocrats sit in Kampala and plan for people in parishes in Kyenjojo District even when they have never been there. That is the reason, Ggoobi says, there are many white elephant projects around the country.

Ggoobi told The Independent that the overemphasis on money will make this model fail like the others have over the last three decades. In fact, Ggoobi says, the model’s biggest problem is that the money provided for implementing it is not enough.  He says Shs 39 million per parish is such a paltry figure when you consider the fact that a parish can have over 1000 households.

“Shs 39 million spread over a year would be enough for just two households,” Ggoobi told The Independent.

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