The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Mr. President you and the caucus leadership thought that we who often have a different opinion from yours and have the capacity to challenge your views should not attend the Kyankwanzi parliamentary caucus retreat. Your decision did not surprise us because you also did the same when you wanted to include the two years extension in the constitutional amendment. Thank you because it gave us opportunity to critically follow procedures as outsiders and this comment provides our opinion. The comment is about your opening remarks in Kyankwanzi as reported by the media.
We write our comment at a time when Hon.Kyagulanyi Ssentamu was seriously criticized by people who thought that to run for president you must have enrolled in an economics class to be able to articulate issues like fiscal policy. Your opening remarks just showed that Professor Muhumuza and other economists in the country still have a lot of work to do if you the longest serving president in Africa failed to know how economists determine the monetary poverty line and how eventually a certain group is said to be above or below.
That being said we found it worrying that Mr. President you seem not concerned about the increasing poverty levels from 19% in 2013 to nearing 28% in 2017 according to Uganda Bureau of statistics statistical abstract. In your speech at Kyankwanzi you sounded unaware that poverty is on the increase in the country as you claimed it’s only at 21.4%. If the current trend continues more than 30% of Ugandans will be under the monetary poverty line in 2020 a year when you promised them middle income status where the per capita income was expected to be averaging $1200.
We also believe that after 34 years as the president you should have used the Kyankwanzi retreat to explain why the income inequality in the country is worsening from 32% in 1990 to an estimated 57% in 2018. You should have explained why the gap between the rich and the poor is worsening every year. We expected you to explain why in a country you have led for all these years its only people coming from the same region as you that have higher chances of accessing available opportunities like jobs, contracts, capital, scholarships etc.
You applauded the MPs for having supported you to pass the Lubowa specialised hospital financing deal, but you must have used this opportunity to explain to the country why you opted for this option of $378 million yet the redundant specialised doctors trained with support from World Bank had cheaper options of less than $45million to provide specialised services in all regional referral hospitals in the country instead of building new concrete walls. You should have convinced Ugandans who thought it was a more expensive venture to finance this project using promissory notes and a bad idea to support a private investor.
Mr. President we keep wondering why you always interpret the census figures wrongly. Yes it’s true, in Uganda only 32% of households have income, 68% don’t earn anything. The statics will be worse if you only considered eastern, north eastern, northern and north western regions of the country. What we want you to know is that they did not just refuse to earn or enter the money economy as you seem to claim in your speech. It’s rather because for 34 years your regime has not created opportunities for the masses.
Your government were you’re the only vision bearer has not prioritized development of subsistence agriculture where majority of the 68% earn a leaving. For 34 years you have provided no financing for subsistence farmers, you killed cooperatives that used to provide financing and your government has made substance farmers so vulnerable to money lenders who finance their subsistence agricultural activities charging them immoral interest rates. You have provided no reliable financing for value addition so they are often exploited by traders who purchase their produce very raw.
You killed an education system that ensured equal opportunities even for the children of the poor in rural areas to complete tertiary education and would eventually compete favourably in the job market and created a system where only children of the rich who can go to expensive private schools, access tertiary education and hence the job market.
Your administration killed merit in public service where jobs could also be accessed by children of the rural poor, now jobs can only be acquired through a recommendation yet available jobs in the private sector are also acquired by relatives and friends of those who hold capital. We hope your aware that the 84% unemployed Ugandans are children of the poor yet these households sold off their properties like land, cows etc to educate them hoping that they will get jobs.
You deliberately failed to deal with corruption in the country a vice that continuously puts the country’s resources in the hands of those public servants your relatives and bush war friends have recommended for jobs. We hope you know it’s this nepotism that made it very difficult for your government deal with corruption.
Mr. President you asked a very good question, how much more would we have achieved as a country had you not ignored the majority (the 68%) of Ugandans for 34 years. Yes you indicated that it’s high time you wake up and know they exist. The problem you’re waking at time when these masses are tired, you’re waking at time when they are demanding that you get out that office, you’re waking up when you may not be able to do much. You were wise not to allow us come to Kyankwanzi we would have demanded that you apologise to the people of Uganda for claiming that the 68% just refused to enter the money economy.
Mr. President, look at the solutions you give to the people you want to join the money economy! Do you hear yourself? The 68% are out of the money economy how do you expect them to focus on the four sectors as you prescribe them? Don’t you find it unreasonable that your advising them to; set up industries big and small when your aware they have no money!, You advised them to join mineral exploitation when in 2017 you banned artisanal mining using UPDF to evict those in Mubende and you have just given fresh instructions to stop those of Buhweju! You advised them to join the service sector to set up hotels, banks, business outsourcing really? If these are the solutions you have, they will still benefit the 32% and continue to alienate the 68%.
Mr. President, we know you as a man who has been around for more than 50 years, although most of the time you have spent it in privileged positions that should not be justification enough for you not to know what goes on in the Lives of the ordinary people. These households (the 68%) go without basic needs; they cannot afford two meals a day, their children always fail to access quality education, they rely on traditional medicine for their healthcare, they are so vulnerable to lose their assets to money lenders trying to meet these needs. So it’s a mockery to them when you tell them to join commercial agriculture, set up industries, or join the service sector.
If you had allowed debates in the NRM caucus and avoided dictatorship by expecting MPs always to node their heads in approval of what you said, we think many resourceful NRM MPs would have provided better solutions to you and your government. If you had not expelled us from the caucus retreat as ‘rebel MPs’ we would have advised that to build resilient household your government should come up with better solutions that focus on dealing with vulnerability, support to the informal sector and affordable financing for subsistence farming. The 68% need assurance that they will not be evicted from their land because it’s their source of Livelihoods, so solutions focused at building a reliable land management system would be more welcome.
In 1987-1990 when you were still patriotic, you refused to borrow expensive loans, to build railways, and construct electricity dams. When one reads or watch those famous videos when you preached against heavy borrowing and the need to build local capacity to build own railways and power dams we wonder what happened to that philosophy. What happened to that Patriotism? You instead ended up borrowing all the time and very expensive loans to build power dams forgetting that although the country needed electricity and other infrastructure we needed it affordable. Your badly negotiated Bujagali Project, the most expensive power project in the world will make power unaffordable for more than 35 years in Uganda.
Your government borrowed expensively to build the ICT backbone infrastructure where you convinced the country that 125 million dollars will bring internet costs down and promote ICT growth. Whereas the ICT backbone ended up only benefiting government agencies and not majority of Ugandans because they still rely on expensive telecom companies for their internet services your policy on discouraging internet usage by slapping OTT tax defeated the purpose.
The standard gauge railway could have been a viable project if your government had other efforts to develop the entire railway transport system in the country. You cannot desire to borrow for Standard gauge railway when your doing nothing in maintaining and expanding the meter gauge railways system which your government found functional in 1986. For us we think the standard gauge will be a ‘white elephant’ benefiting only imports to Uganda.
Since 2016 you have claimed that your going to capitalise Uganda Development Bank (UDB), many of us clapped our hands for you, we thought that was a good decision, we indeed thought your government will make it a priority. Whereas UDB needed USh 500 billion for capitalisation the last three budgets you have provided less than 50billions and UDB has resorted to borrowing expensive loans externally to be able to function. So Mr. President stop the Rhetoric, Capitalise UDB it should stop
being a campaign buzzword make it a reality. We have seen so much wasteful allocation over the three budgets. We need a Development Bank and we need it for all Ugandans not just a few.
As far as interest rates are concerned we expected you to explain to MPs in Kyankwanzi when your government will stop competing with the private sector on available money by reducing domestic borrowing because it contributes significantly to higher cost of money. We also wished that you explained to members of parliament what your planning do about commercial banks that continue to charge exorbitant interest rates even when the central bank rate is lowered. We expected policy decisions around what your administration is planning around SACCOs and Money lenders that continue to confiscate peoples’ property everyday even when parliament came up with a law to stop this.
Although we were not in Kyankwanzi, we applaud you for your policy on attracting investors and protecting them, its very good for the growth of the country and with oil in the offing the potential is enormous. 4026 factories/ industries and still counting, this is a very good achievement congratulations. How we wished you broke them down on how many are owned by local people and how many are held by foreigners. The 2017 statistics showed that investors from the Indian origin alone owned 65% of industries/factories in Uganda. It would be paramount to grow the confidence of Ugandans that along foreigners there are local industrialist who are participating in this industrialisation process. Probably this would be an opportunity for you to explain to the country your strategy on ensuring that industrialists that setup in the country give meaningful jobs to Ugandans not merely odd jobs. We also expected that you would use this opportunity to present your strategy on reviewing investor licensing as many local traders are decrying Asian investors who continue to receive protection from your office to do whole sale and retail business in the Country yet they are expected to be in industries and factories.
It would have added value also to explain why National Planning Authority planned industrialisation strategy of building regional industrial parks and promoting equal distribution of industries to different parts of the country have not taken off. You would have used this as an opportunity for you to explain the concentration of factories and industries in the congested Kampala and Wakiso and there is no effort of clustering them at all. Yes they are members of NRM but they too needed to hear you explain why Mbarara and Kiruhura has attracted more than 5 Milk Processing industries yet Karamoja and Teso with serious milk potential has none.
Mr. President we would have loved to extend our support for you and the matter of environment, you were indeed spot on the need to stop encroaching on forests and advise to people to desist from encroaching on wetlands. But you should have gone ahead to explain why your government is busy De-gazetting forests and giving away forest land to people and foreign investors, why your government has allowed most factories to setup in water catchment areas, why your ministry of lands reluctantly titles swampy landscapes and lake shores?
May be you would have ended this discussion by giving Ugandans commitment that your government will ensure that existing forests, swamps and lakes on public land will be protected and that factories will not continue to set up in swamps and water catchment areas.
You fell short of convincing us that there is any momentum, we saw business as usual using the same lazy script writer.
We believe it’s possible to build a resilient, integrated and sustainable economy but with strategies and efforts that are inclusive of majority of the people not just a few.
Mr. President we never expected you to engage MPs on matters of peaceful transfer of Power and strengthening of internal democracy in the party, but at least you should have reluctantly hinted on it when you expect to retire because it’s a question that all those you were facing expects from you. If it means as long as you’re still alive, it does no harm for you to mention it so that many of them burry their hopes of leading the party and the country as long you’re still alive. You should have reminded them that you have been around for 50 years and you still plan to be around forever.
We were surprised that you missed talking about the Rwanda Impasse at a time when your counterpart in Rwanda is Spitting fire and giving deadlines to Rwandans staying in Uganda. At basic minimum you should have advised those MPs on what to communicate to Rwandans you’re your government allowed to become residents in their respective constituencies. Your silence makes us think your preparing for war. As Ugandans we do not want war, we will give you all the support as our president to avoid any form of war with our neighbours.
Good deliberations hope you don’t do the obvious-Paying our colleagues to popularise the Chobe Resolutions where your insisting to be Sole Candidate 2021 and Beyond.
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