The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Let me give another example: the USA has the second highest per capita income of any country with a hinterland – after Norway. Note that I have eliminated city-states like Singapore, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, and mineral rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, Oman, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, etc. from the sample. The USA’s capita income grew at an annual average rate of 2% from 1900 to 2000. So, Uganda’s per capita income growth record is very good.
The per capita income growth rate of fast-growth economies of East Asia averaged 5.6% between 1960 and 1990. That difference of 2.1% between them and Uganda is huge when compounded over three decades. Uganda would have achieved similar if its population grew at 1.2% per annum. Yet I think a high population growth rate is a tactical problem in the short term, but a strategic advantage in the long term. Again, this is a subject we can discuss another day.
The Nobel laureate in economics, Michael Spence, did a study of all economies of the world from 1955 to 2005. He found that only 13 countries sustained an annual average growth rate of GDP at 7% and above over 30 years. He called these the “elite club”. In doing 6.74% between 1986 and 2005, Uganda was the 17th fastest growing economy in the world. If you remove mineral rich countries from the sample, Uganda becomes nine in the world, first in Africa. So our economy under Museveni has done impressively well by historic standards.
So why are many educated/urban Ugandans angry when their country has been doing this well? The paradox of economic development is that as growth picks apace and poverty begins reducing, most people who are affected by this transformation feel poorer and more alienated. Why? Growth begins in cities where a few enterprising individuals create businesses. These attract people, mostly the educated and semi educated, from rural areas to partake in the opportunities. But the number of immigrants into the cities is always higher than available opportunities, leading to destitution and slums.
Yet people who come into cities (even when living in slums) do better than those in villages. UBOS figures prove this point. For example the number of people living in poverty around Kampala is 5.9% and its surrounding Wakiso district is only 7.5%. This is much lower than 11.5% in the richest region of Ankole, 17.6% in Lango, 19.5% in Kigezi, 20.5% in Toro, 27.52% in West Nile, 34.7% in Acholi, 42.1% in Busoga, 47.5% in Bukedi or Karamoja, which is 60% etc.
So why is poverty felt much more deeply in cities where people are better off than in villages where they are worse off? It is because people in cities are more exposed and therefore aspirational. They see extreme wealth, which they compared with their own lives. This makes them feel left behind. When urban people complain about poverty, they are referring to relative poverty, not absolute poverty.
Urban educated people are also more aspirational. Our growing economy is producing their expectations at a faster rate than the creation of opportunities to satisfy them. This is perfectly normal and expected. I do not know of any country that was undergoing capitalist transformation in history that produced opportunities to match growing expectations. But the mismatch between these expectations on the one hand and the opportunities to satisfy them on the other lead to social frustration – hence the anger and vitriol we see online.
Therefore the belief that excellent economic performance will create a happy population is an illusion. History shows that in Europe, this transformation created a lot of social dislocation, frustration and anger. Indeed, it led to the development of radical ideologies and social movements such as communism, fascism, socialism, anarchism and nihilism.
Of course it is not always the case that rapid change can only beget social frustration. Singapore transformed from a poor to a rich country without the kind of divisive bitterness that characterized the process of transformation in all of Western Europe and the US. However, industrialization in South Korea was characterized by massive social frustration leading to strikes and protests. So unmanageable di the country become that in 1972 President Park Hung Hee suspended the constitution and decided to rule by decree until his assassination in 1979.
Since 2000, Ethiopia has been the fastest growing economy in Africa, Rwanda the second (again I have removed mineral rich countries from the sample). While rapid economic change has been accompanied by mass protests on a daily in Ethiopia, leading to the resignation of the prime minister, in Rwanda’s rapid growth has been accompanied by elite buy-in hence social cohesion. This discredits the claim that Rwanda is peaceful because it has an autocratic state. If autocracy were enough to keep a people silent, Ethiopia would be more peaceful.
Therefore, if Ugandans are angry and feeling alienated, it is not evidence that their country is doing badly. Rather it is evidence that it is undergoing rapid social change, only that someone is not managing the politics well in order to facilitate elite buy into this success.
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amwenda@independent.co.ug
The paradox of this article is that it is basing its argument on “feelings” yet ubos findings attest to the fact that there is an actual increase in the levels of poverty amongst Ugandans from 19% to 27%. These are not mental figures, these are actual figures. Feelings or no feelings, these are facts.
You cant avoid “feelings”, i also have a feeling that the ‘i am poor” testimonies were based on feelings or UBOS’s observations were also based on feelings. Otherwise how do you explain the rise from boda bodas to sport cars, mansions, factories, etc
No sir; UBOS analyis of poverty is not based on feelings. It is based on data on ownership of certain items such as cars, bicycles, refrigerators, TV sets etc. A composite index is then generated, with weighting in some cases.
In 1994, at the climax of Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, cattle was slaughtered and eaten like there is no tomorrow. Bearing in mind that the genociders were more than the cattle, it is understandable what fate befell livestock. When they were routed and pushed into DRC (the eastern part of DRC) they continued to eat cattle till they totally annihilated all livestock. Post-genocide Rwanda had no cattle and no milk or any other dairy product. It obliged Uganda to supply the country with milk and butter among the most urgent needs that were to sustain the milk consuming people who had repatriated to their new home. Pick-ups ferried milk in jerry-cans from as far 300 kms inland inside Uganda to Rwanda and back same day giving vendors in Rwanda towns fresh milk on credit; to be repaid after sales continously and the business went well, prospering all parties (cattle-keepers in Ug,transporters from Ug, milk vendors in Rw, restaurant operators in Rw and the hangers-on) until one Minister of Agriculture and livestock in Rwanda (a Makerere trained veterinarian) stopped the business halt. He told parliament that when Ugandans ferry milk to Rwanda, milk becomes less in RWANDA but when they don’t ferry milk to Rwanda , it becomes more. Everyone agreed with him and the milk business halted. Milk price shot up and in some places it became history; then smugglers made a kill. My point is not verbosity but to show that some people think same when they are different. Both M9 and the Minister (milk-stopper alluded to) are very different in age because when M9 was born, the minister was in A’level.
What worries me is M9 saying emphatically that “when development and economic growth comes in, livelihood dips and poverty increases”. What inverted reasoning!! like the minister alluded to above. Like all elite, M9 does not know that people sleep hungry in regions where foodstuffs used to rot in gardens, where bananas used to ripen in the field for lack of labour to harvest and then he dares say mbu “it is growth”
“When urban people complain about poverty, they are referring to relative poverty, not absolute poverty”. M9 uses wrong facts in his deduction as portrayed by the above statement. The fellow is totally divorced from reality (or pretends to) Relative poverty as he says would aim to mean that when he is driving past me in his state-of-the -art Audi when I am on foot or on boda boda, I feel left out or that when he is boasting of how they feasted on caviar and anchovy,Moet Chandon and other opulent eats and drinks consumed amidst classic music in tourist-class hotels, that the common man feels left out and cheated of the goods of the land. In reality, a common Ugandan is comfortable in a malwa den where politics is discussed,jokes exchanged,rumours mushroomed and an egalitarian lifestyle of ease and comfort where all and each contribute equal share and drink from same pot. On the side roast meat,chicken and fish is consumed with the organic palatability that no 5 star hotel can equal, unpretentious and responsive ladies and all the attendant traditional natural amusements that no whiteman-established-entertainment can equal. I know what I am talking about.
Those developments/growths that M9 talks about and the statistics he quotes are as illusionary as a desert mirage.
Does M9 know that 2 plus 2 was 4 long before writing was learned and taught? If he so agrees, what development is it if parents are cleverer than their offspring, where formerly food was plentiful and to spare is now scarce and unaffordable, where hospitals used to treat all freely (including foreigners)but now no drugs,personnel or facilities; where a policeman used to give me money when I lost my fare, now he will extort yet M9 will ‘unblinkingly’ say “that is how development and growth perform…and then go on to quote statistics and ‘knowledgeable white men’. I will ask M9 a few questions for the benefit of readers.
1. We were taught in childhood to fight against ignorance,disease and poverty….but not at the expense of ‘environmental degradation’
2. We were taught that basic needs are: food,clothing and shelter (in that order)….. but at the expense of selling some members of the family or mortgaging ancestral land.
3. Medicare and Security have come in as essential needs too(but are not basic) though they are a ‘protection’ against man-made affliction. Since they are ineradicable expenses we must accommodate them….. Sadly they are ten times more costly than the basic needs which were the essentials in the first place.
4. Referring to 3 above, what expense is incurred(by the common man) to just protect and treat the VVVIPs in the pecking order upwards?
5. M9 has not seen or even heard of real governance in (the) Uganda of the golden days when PWD did maintenance of roads, Public Health assistants toured and inspected homesteads to ensure all household items were clean, when agricultural assistants were deployed per gombolola and supplied all essentials(seeds,nursery beds, advice) to farmers, when magistrates moved to hear and judge cases in gombololas when case backlogs were unheard of, when a stranger who was lost could go to police station for food, accomodation and administration. It can be done as was done and even better NOW.
6. It is said that an average of 200 big businesses change hands,are auctioned or totally collapse or abandoned monthly in Kampala. Is that also development and growth? Desperation is making some people do ‘undoables’. One person pays part for a car promising to pay balance later. The car vendor is also heavily indebted to a bank. The buyer resells the car and eats the money without clearing the balance due to some more pressing immediate needs….then opts to switch off phone and disappears. The dealer is desperate and opts to extract the money by any means; hook or crook. In the ensuing extraction the buyer dies. The law of unintended consequences sets in and everything becomes a murder case. Do you think either of the parties is guilty? ‘causa causam’ in natural law means “He who is the cause of the cause is the cause of the evil caused” I WANT TO IMPLY THAT M9’s growth and development at percentages and figures that rival and outdo other countries is a hoax and is not economics. If businessmen are so desperate that they opt to do murder in order to extract a few millions knowing that it might take all they own is DESPERATION caused by the economic tailspin we are all in. It impacts on thinking and judgement and execution of all other assignments. HOW CAN YOU bluff THIS ESTEEMED READERSHIP WHEN YOU ONLY TOO WELL THAT not only the nation but also many people owe IMPAYABLE debts to institutions and to each other? Revisit your ‘growth and development’ definitions. And watch out before statistics mislead you into a fatal situation.
Mbu “population growth impedes development,service provision and multiplies poverty”. To who is M9 writing surely? Doesn’t he know that this publication is read by high-brow people? When Mwenda was born, his family was 8 people (Mzee,Mama and brothers and sisters). 40 years down the road, his sisters have married and his brothers have married. They have attained more prosperity that their parents never knew needed or thought their offspring would attain. They are so well educated that they quit on their own(not inhibited by mans) and all that is not from inheritance. They just inherited character and guidance from a responsible family that inculcated into them certain values that would(if used as taught) produce these proceeds. Then, why isn’t M9 and his nephews and brothers foraging for ants and poaching in the Rwenzori or doing cross-border smuggling to make ends meet mbu because they have increased in number? .
TRUE, there is a number that can overwhelm Uganda and resources become less than the needs….but it is not 40 million. It is not even 100 million people. When population increases,production increases, schools increase, knowledge increases, resources are discovered, management is sharpened and everything adjusts to the status quo.
When I was young, Kenyans used to come by MIX (train that hauls both passenger and freight wagons)from the stations along the Uganda Railway(Mombasa-Kasese railway is called UR) and disembark at Busembatia station. MIX would proceed to Kasese. then when it returned, they would load sacks of oranges, lemons, mangoes and jackfruits that grew wild which they had picked without anyone bothering to even ask them who they were, take to Kenya (which is mostly semi-arid) and sell. What I want to imply is that there 1 million un-exploited opportunities in the Nile basin that can support 200 million people if governance is good.
Israelis (Solel Boneh) used to load soil excavated in Bombo barracks, Bugolobi flats and Entebbe airport in sacs and take home to Israel by plane (not containers). They also took Mbogoya tubers from ordinary banana plants. Since then,the early 60s, they have produced the best Mbogoya bananas in the world to-date…using
Uganda soil (airlifted) and Uganda tubers. Bishop (rtd) Dr Edward Muhima can give you the story better because he toured the plantations. Suppose we take the excavated soil to Karamoja?
Population increase is no excuse and is no cause for lack of drugs in hospitals, theft and moral decay in governance is.
People please read Nicholas Ssengoba’s article about the dark side of Teddy’ journalism. It seems to be a veiled message for the only living “investigative journalist.”
YES, Ssengoba has said about CHEEYE(rip) almost the same things I have said about M 9 at one point or the other.
YES, Cheeye had an evil and sinister streak to his character(some of which some of us knew too well), but met his match when he stepped on some peoples toes , which ultimately culminated into the several libel cases he had , and most notoriously the rape case that was brought up against him, something that most people knew was a fabrication, in fact one person joked that if CHEEYE was being accused of rape, first they must produce the weapon he used, something he said he was sure he did not carry around with him.
Personally , I will not miss him, and I hope the “accident” was not a hit job.
I hope other people do not end up in similar fashion, just as a footnote in history, as his funeral service is testimony.
You mean during rape one needs a specific “weapon?” Cheeye could have used the same “hand and pen” he fondly wrote with. I am just saying…
RWASUBUTARE , when you cite KARAMOJA and ISRAEL in one sentence, I do not know if you understand the import thereof, but knowing as I do a man who was taught by a person none less than BICHACHI and a person who can quote SOLEL BONE, I have every reason to believe that you do.
After the second WW and following the horrible events visited upon the JEWS, efforts were being made to find a home for the JEWS, who for some reason were not a very loved people in most of EUROPE.This was mostly out of jealousy and their somehow closed society. They had curved out a niche as the money people, the descendants of sorts of Zakayo of the biblical times.
ANYWAY, the BRITISH came up with this idea that the JEWS should be relocated to KARAMOJA. THE idea then was that they would divert some of the water from the NILE and pump it to the top of Mount Moroto, and then gravity would take over and that the Jews, with their genius, would turn the semi arid region into an EDEN of sorts.
I am told, and will try to find out more, how far the plan had gone before they decided on relocating them to the present day ISRAEL.
SO , the whole idea of being able to turn a semi arid region into a food basket is not far fetched, only problem is that it has become a no go area as it holds vast mineral resources which some people are busy exploiting.
MWENDA, MWENDA, what am I going to do with you.
I do not know whether you are hell bent on misleading people deliberately , and as they say ” ofunila wa “, or you too are just an innocent victim of your own ignorance.
I have warned you time and again to keep of STATISTICS, because I have told you and will say it again that statistics do not tell the full story, and sometimes they tell no story at all.
I realised that in one instance you somehow got the message and after I had admonished you over the use of the term AVERAGE and told you the term MEDIAN was more appropriate for whatever you were trying to explain, for the first time you used the term MEDIAN.I thought I had driven the lesson home.
ALAS!!!!!!!!!!
YOU continue to use you flowery ENGLISH laced with the odd figures here and there, whose import you do not seem to understand, or are very determined to use (misuse) to drive you agenda.
I will illustrate.
YOU claim that the economy has been growing at 3/4/5/6 % over the last so many 10/20/30 years, which in reality should translate into a better standard of living, and yet the ungrateful UGANDANS still complain of living in poverty. This as far as you are concerned, can not be possible, and in your words, their poverty or feeling thereof is “relative” rather than “real”.
THE growth in an economy( national earnings) does not always translate into improved livelihoods for its people.And here I will use a few key words/phrases and I know you have come across some or all of them, whether you understood their significance is another matter altogether.
1.”The rich are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer”
2.1% of the richest own more than 50% of the wealth.
Just prior to President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address, media reported that the top wealthiest 1% possess 40% of the nation’s wealth; the bottom 80% own 7%; similarly, but later, the media reported, the “richest 1 percent in the United States now own more additional income than the bottom 90 percent”
So based on just those two factors, I will use you so called growth translates into less poverty.
Let us say total earnings of a set of Ugandans is 1,000,000,000. As per the analysis above 1 person earns 500,000,000 and another 50 people each earn 10m each (total 500 m). The earnings in the following year increase by 10% , meaning an increase of 100 m. As per the previous analysis, the earnings of the 1 person increase by 15% , meaning that out of the 100 m his increase is 75 m and that the increase of 25 m is shared by the 50 meaning an increase ( average) of 500,000, which is an increase of 5%, yet the overall average increase for the 501 people is 10%. Moreover for the 100 people, the 5% is an average, some may have 100%, some 10%, some 5%, some 0%, some may even earn less ( negative) increase. ALL this will not be captured in the “BLANKET” figure of “average” 10% increase.
THUS the term ” MIND THE GAP”.
AS my dear friend WINNIE will attest, this is usually used on the underground train service, where a train platform has a bend, and when the train comes in there is a gap between the train and the platform. If the passenger is not careful on disembarking, there is a danger of falling in the gap with the risk of injury, and death. Passengers are thus warned of the danger.
IN ECONOMICS though, this is used to warn nations of the danger, that while their economies may be growing, but because of the redistribution and other financial policies, some people are actually getting POORER.This the reason you always have demonstrations by rights groups before G7/G20 meetings with the activists asking nations the address the GAP. Because the RICH are getting richer, while the poor are getting poorer, and they cite that in spite of the world getting richer you have pockets of abject poverty.
THE important issue here usually is , how BIG is that pocket. UNFORTUNATELY in UGANDA, that pocket , which the likes of MWENDA are not able or do not want to see, is getting BIGGER.
Sorry, some slight inconsistencies in the figures where I have used 501(51) and 100 to mean 50 ( the number of people), but I am sure the meaning is not lost on account thereof.
FOR every society, government, nation , you have what is called the “trickle down effect”. This is how wealth, which is usually created or tends to concentrate at the top, trickles down to the masses. Some societies have tried , with varying degrees of success to do what the call “inverting the pyramid” , but generally this is what is called the “redistribution” of wealth and this is most times achieved through a taxation system and the provision of social services.
THIS is nature can be compared to the ” permeability” of soil. Some soils are more permeable than others and sometimes the ability or otherwise to grow crops on the said soil depends on that more than the actual amount of rainfall.
SO yes, an economy can grow, GDP figures can increase and yet people are getting poorer in REAL terms, rather than in their imagination, as M 9 have want people to believe.
The trickle-down is possible only if the wealthy have a moral wish to cater for the poor. In the Bible, during the wheat/barley harvest period, the poor were allowed to move behind the harvesters picking what had fallen on the ground. Boaz is reported to have told the gleaners “…pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up…” alluding to Ruth.
These-days wealthy people are so mean that ‘they kill a person for a 30k UGX tip’ a la Panamera. They instal CCTV cameras and post guards everywhere. Their left overs would rather rot than cater for the poor. Even close relatives are excluded from the these-days wealthy people’s bounty. Evry employee seeks an opportunity on how they can steal from their employer because of meanness. The real cause of the widening gap between the rich and the poor is because of selfishness. The rich don’t bother to uplift the poor.
WHAT my brother RWASUBUTARE is advocating is in fact “inverting the pyramid” and in a way this is what CHINA inadvertently did. The theory is that you create economic activities, mainly state driven, in which the masses are involved. This , it is argued , that science( physics) attests to the fact that once the mass is at the top, the pressure it creates , in addition to gravity, is more than enough to distribute the wealth, as opposed to working as opposed to the wealth coming from the rich and permeating down to the poor.
IN CHINA , you had the “rich poor” or the middle class, that had the ability to spend , before you had , or before they created the ALI BABA millionaires.
When all is said and done Ejakait, I cannot believe M9’s growth and ‘development’ narration. Otherwise government would not be living on drip provided by debtors and ‘granters’ and ‘aiders’. M9’s growth therefore is negative because if it were positive, the revenue from taxes would suffice to cater for annual budget. Economic growth is negative and it is apparent.
If my cow is expectant, I can drink beer on credit with pledge to pay with milk proceeds or can get advance money to pay schoolfees and will give the debtor a weaned calf/bullock. Should I enter ‘growth’in my diary? when I eat what is yet to accrue? M9 should go to tamale Mirundi and be grounded in the real ‘cold-hard-facts-of-life’; not Keynesian fake economics that cannot put any food on the mat except for conmen who claim to teach others how to prosper when they are running struggling on-life-support economies. M9 will continue to sing ‘growth’ even when national debts reach impayable levels. It requires a good couched conman to say “there is a reserve of super-crude-sweet the like of which has never been seen since 1900 discovered in Bugungu Crane2 wildcat well between 7 and 7.3 billion barrels extractable”. A team will be dispatched to Beijing to negotiate for $20 billion
immediate debt to finance kingdoms and purchase houses for MPs and councillors and make all secondary schools Universities in a record 5 years. To make it sound very attractive and gain consensual support, the rumour mill will mint the visionary resignation in 18 months. Hired newsmen from Scandinavia will interview the visionary and he will confirm his resignation on medical advice. The new con will bite and then, in just 2 years no oil, no resignation, an impayable debt has been incurred and there is only toys or white elephant to show for it….. like a billionaire ski resort and airport atop Mt Ruwenzori…. without snow. CAN A BY-PERCENTAGE GROWING ECONOMY BE ON DEBTS-LIFE-SUPPORT-DEBTS?
I have this gentleman with whom we have become very good friends, and he used to work for the World Bank, and also had a stint with the IMF in relatively senior positions.WE were having a conversation after we had a discussion with Prof CHANG ( yes the of Cambridge University). Unlike our SEEYA who studied in Cambridge, yes , at a college in Cambridge. Strangely he used to live right opposite to me, while he was staying with his Nigerian son in law, ROLAND.
Anyway , this gentleman told us that no country had had money “thrown” at it like UGANDA had , with the exception maybe of GERMANY ( under the Marshall plan) and JAPAN , both after the world war, BUT, he said, with nothing to show for it.HE told us that contrary to popular belief, there are quite some outright idiots in some of these organisations, whom he said would not even be able to run a market stall.
HE told us that some character, for whatever reasons, and these are still the subject of debate, came up with the so called “structural adjustments”. He made us laugh that he wondered what structures and what adjustments and he could not see any. UGANDA was one of the first, naively , to accept these killer plans, and the honchos were eager to make others accept the same, and since in M 7 they had found an “impressionable” and willing ally, he too probably with his own agenda, they had to make it appear to work at all costs.
HE said to us , that the situation was made worse when our visionary was flattered by being called ” a new breed” of what , goodness knew then.
HE says that after some time, the reality sunk in , not only that things were not working, but that they would never work. SOLUTION – He says , their bosses who had come out with the idea in the first place, did not want to hear any of. The directive was,” if it is not working, make it look like it is”- his exact words. HE says that those who were lower down the field, also wondering what was in it for their bosses, also wanted their own “pound of flesh”. And in his own words, some of the guys were smart guys, guys who had expensive tastes, and guys who saw their pals in investment banks and other institutions, driving Ferraris and owning yatchs, and they too wanted to match them.
SOLUTION – they went to the bosses and told them the idea was brilliant, it could be made to work, only it needed more money – BIG MONEY
AND the figure people went to work and produced figures to show things were working FAR beyond expectations.
The bosses were happy, the boys were even HAPPIER.
1. Every government employee (or even pensioner) who owns 1bn UGX and above,be it in property or liquid, should have his/her property seized and auctioned and the proceeds kept in treasury.
2. Any partner of the said government employee should likewise have their property seized and auctioned and proceeds kept in the said treasury.
3.Thereafter all who were tax-exempted or given hand-outs from treasury at any given time in the past should too have their property seized and proceeds kept in the said treasury until a substantial amount will be raised, foreign debts paid off and then Independence reclaimed.
4. All foreigners,including refugees (except members of the diplomatic corps) to pay rent (enforceable by invoicing their countries of origin). The rent can be regulated in categories with say East Africans paying a token fee, but the rest to pay 20% of their country-of-origin per capita cash annually or just go back peacefully. Those invited for special services may be exempt.
It requires a strong leader, who is personally not greedy,who fears only God and hunger.There was one once. Else it will be a cycle of vicious poverty till the second coming…… not even if it rains dollars.
1.@ Rwasubutare and Ejakaait it would help alot if you spared us your ignorance on how to eradicate poverty.so when govt sells the property of the the so called thieves and banks the money in treasury then what next?most government workers survive on loans and can easily make those billions you r scared of.
2.Ugandans are very innovative people except that they lack capital to carry out sensible businesses actually we are like a person stuck in mud who thinks he is moving yet he is in the same place.
3.Some Ugandans have embraced the Asia business model where the family manages businesses; i strongly believe its the way to go;i know of a family that owns a tour company both mum,dad and children are managing the business in a day they earn not less than 5 million shillings,they have just a few company posters at the airport to advertise the lodge but at times they get overbooked and request tourists to reschedule their travel how did they get this far?most of their children are qualified engineers and accountants but to broaden their knowledge on the tourism business,they studied short courses online on hotel and tourism .
4.@ Rajab; Andrew did not design the formula for measuring poverty levels.If the formula indicates that combine the earning of Rajab and that of Sudhir what do you do?
The problem of this kind of analysis is that concentrates on looking exclusively at the aggregated economic growth while missing the other point: the distribution of the benefits. It is possible to have an economy in sum going gang busters and yet have a lot of pockets of poverty. Most economic analysis is just abstraction, but life is not an abstraction. GDP (growth) is a bogus economic yardstick, providing only a convenient cursory, insufficient view. By the way it is not true that Ugandan economy is that differentiated between the rural and urban. Most Ugandans live double lives. They invest both in the cities and the rural areas. They have plots in the cities and municipalities, and land in the villages. Any analysis that just only aggregates without differentiations is too partial. It is both integration (of data) and differentiation.
The problem of this kind of analysis is that concentrates on looking exclusively at the aggregated economic growth while missing the other point: the distribution of the benefits. It is possible to have an economy in sum going gang busters and yet have a lot of pockets of poverty. Most economic analysis is just abstraction, but life is not an abstraction. GDP (growth) is a bogus economic yardstick, providing only a convenient cursory, insufficient view. By the way it is not true that Ugandan economy is that differentiated between the rural and urban. Most Ugandans live double lives. They invest both in the cities and the rural areas. They have plots in the cities and municipalities, and land in the villages. Any analysis that just only aggregates without differentiation is too partial. It is both integration (of data) and differentiation.