Tag Archives: Andrew Mwenda

How corruption has disabled mechanisms through which the business community can fight for better tax laws THE LAST WORD: By Andrew M. Mwenda Uganda’s ratio of taxes to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has remained almost stagnant for 19 years. In 1997, it was 11%. Since then it has risen to …

Slavery in America may have ended but the US state has reproduced it through mass incarceration of blacks and police violence in poor black communities due to its hidden economic gains  THE LAST WORD: By Andrew M. Mwenda Recent events in the United States; where police shot and killed two …

Why our country remains poor with high unemployment in spite of 28 years of huge expansion in GDP Last week, I spent an entire day at Uganda Bureau of Statistics crunching numbers with the staff on our GPD growth between 1986 and 2014. There is only one route for nations …

Why the story of Rwanda’s economic success keeps being juxtaposed with human rights abuses Last week I was in Kigali, Rwanda, after only two weeks of absence. Driving from the airport to the city, I found two new roundabouts near the new Convention Center complex. On my right was a …

Why obsession with investment in mass public education and health in poor countries could be less optimal policy Let me articulate a heresy. I am increasingly suspicious of the obsession by governments in poor countries to invest in “education and healthcare for all” as a strategy to combat poverty. This …

Why good leadership at a national level is not enough to make a country successful economically THE LAST WORD: Let us do a thought experiment. It is often said that the problem of Africa is poor leadership: if our continent had leaders dedicated to serving their people rather than lining …

The drivers of cleanliness, order, and the brand of dignity Rwandans are building In mid-May we were in Kigali, Rwanda, attending the World Economic Forum meetings. Across most of Kigali, there was something that has become a signature of everything in this country – order. The streets were clean to …

 Stop faking holiness. You supported and defended a government that banned all activities of political parties THE LAST WORD: Last week, Oxfam Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, accused me of losing my soul by “supporting dictatorship” and “defending gross human rights abuses”. I asked her to name a single incident where …

 Stop faking …. you supported and defended a government that banned all activities of political parties THE LAST WORD by Andrew Mwenda Last week, Oxfam Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, accused me of losing my soul by “supporting dictatorship” and “defending gross human rights abuses”. This was after she said police …

OPINION Why we should downplay anecdotal evidence by looking at scientific data that gives a broader picture So last week the cancer machine at Mulago Hospital collapsed, causing uproar in mainstream and social media. Every newspaper columnist or television/radio pundit of any heft weighed in. Daily Monitor devoted its whole …