Robinah Nabbanja

According to statistics from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), a vulnerable person in Uganda with Shs100,000 will spend on food first, followed by housing, water, electricity, gas, other fuel (charcoal), and three on personal care and social protection.

Of the Shs100, 000, up to Shs50, 000 will go to food, Shs20, 000 will go to housing, electricity, water, and charcoal, and Shs10, 000 will go to personal care items (soap etc).  The remaining shs20, 000 will go to transport, education, health, and recreation (a Kyarenga here and there).

That is why the general assumption that people in rural areas have more food than urbanites is wrong. Statistics show that in rural Uganda, only 46% of residents have three meals a day compared to 70% of urbanites. The same statistics show that with more money in the pocket, rural residents will spend more on food.

Vulnerable people in urban areas meanwhile spend more on housing, electricity, water, and charcoal than those in the rural countryside. That means the urbanites must strike a careful balance between spending on these items and on food.

Given more money, say Shs250, 000 as proposed by some MPs, vulnerable people in towns will pay rent, Yaka, and the water bill. Clearly that is not what the government wants them to do. That is why the mobile money relief cash of Shs100, 000 was spot-on.

And as The Independent reported, using mobile money to transfer cash to the vulnerable is ideal because it’s fast, remote, very auditable, and offers quick feedback from recipients.

“(With lockdowns) you’re basically shutting down economies to try to control the spread of the disease overnight,” he says, “In any type of recession, you want to get cash to people quickly, but I think this situation especially accentuates that,”  said Joe Huston, managing director at GiveDirectly, the largest nonprofit organisation in East Africa focused on cash transfers.

But the experts warned, pushing money to the vulnerable via mobile money would not be a clean job.

“It won’t be pretty; it won’t be an accurate job,” said Alessandro Bini, the director of the Somali Cash Consortium which has for 14 years been one of the biggest providers of humanitarian cash transfers to vulnerable populations in Somalia.

Alessandro Bini had some advice for implementers like Nabbanja and the politicians and bureaucrats at the Ministry of Gender.

“Just keep it simple,” he said, “In case of an emergency — it’s a bit like you have a massive cyclone or earthquake — the priority is to get the cash out there rather than to be very precise.”

He says going through a lengthy process of community-based targeting where you are trying to reach the poorest is complicated and the results will equally not be accurate anyway. But it appears Nabbanja had a hunch of that.

Nabbanja’s speed of engagement, her response, interaction, communication, and determination to deliver was showcased. As a leader, she took a risk and made firm decisions. Many leaders who follow the famous mantra that “a good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow, “would applaud her.

Nabbanja showed that she will not be guided by fear and that she will not hesitate to make tough decisions or take timely action.

She appears to be in the camp of leaders who believe that the best decision is a quick decision, the next best decision is no decision, and the worst decision is a slow decision.

Nabbanja’s leadership

Such has been the power of Nabbanja’s symbolic leadership so far. Just over two weeks after she was sworn-in as Prime Minister on June 21, the former junior minister of Health (General Duties), has used examples to show the kind of leadership she aims to represent.

To make the point that she will serve all equally across the aisle, Nabbanja who is Catholic and wears a brightly coloured rosary, donated her first salary as Prime Minister – Shs50 million- to the Anglican Church to help in paying off a Shs60 billion loan owed over their Church House in Kampala.

Just five days after she was sworn-in, Nabbanja caused a stir with her first act as Prime Minister. She visited Kalerwe Market; a sprawling open-space on the edge of Kampala city to the north where farmers selling cheap fresh cabbage, tomatoes, onions, chickens and goats and sheep haggle over prices with buyers who jump over mud and blocked drains to get there.

Officially, Nabbanja was at Kalerwe to hand out mosquito nets promised to the market women by Museveni. But unofficially, Nabbanja soon revealed she had another motive.

Nabbanja told the market vendors that, although she was the Prime Minister today, she had in the past worked many informal sector jobs; including being a market vendor. She said every life deserves uplifting and, as Prime Minister, she was determined to uplift the lives of informal workers.

She told them that Kalerwe, a market for low income earners, had been her market for years. And she called one of the vendors – Nantongo- by name.

“I’ve been a long time customer of Nantongo,” she told the excited vendors.

Then she handed Nantongo the first mosquito net. And, as Nantongo was still reeling from the excitement of a person in such high office singling her out as a friend, Nabbanja gave her another jolt of pleasure. Nabbanja gave Nantongo a Shs1 million gift.

When she gave a second mosquito net and another Shs1 million gift to another randomly selected vendor, the market roared.

Nabbanja, the former State Minister of Health, told vendors that she is a common person and that has not changed with her new appointment.

She lives in Kawempe division, home of Kalerwe Market and also of one of Kampala’s biggest slums called Katanga. Nabbanja told the vendors that she had been approached with offers to shift to more plush areas, where the rich are known to live but she was not moving. Instead, she said, she would try to improve the living conditions around her.

Then she turned to the Executive director of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Dorothy Kisaka.

“I am requesting… No. I was told now I can make orders,” she said, “I am ordering you to construct a better market at Kalerwe”.

Nabbanja also made a pledge to the vendors.

“I will not be an office leader,” she said, “My week will be divided between desk and field days”.