UGANDA CAN NOT REST ON ITS LAURELS

In last year’s NRM day message President Yoweri Museveni reported that the economy had grown to sh39 trillion from the measly sh3.4 trillion in 1986. This was nearly a 12-fold increase in 26 years.

This means that on average the economy grew by about 9.8% annually, a prodigious figure by any measure.

But the truth is we have only just dug ourselves out of the hole we put ourselves in with the economy’s mismanagement starting in the 1970s.

We have restored peace and security, rehabilitated our infrastructure and added some new capacity, we have educated more and more people and created new industries to absorb some of them.

Anyone who was around in 1986 knows we have come a long way. But there is still a long way to go.

Per capita GDP now stands at about $350, which is far below the $1000 required to be qualified as a lower middle income country. To qualify we have to at least triple the economy’s size.

But given that our population growth stands at 3.6% it would take another 16 years to triple the economy. But that is premised on an annual economic growth of 9.8% a rate we have not achieved in the last ten years.

Forget the mathematics. The point is whereas we are grateful to the NRM – at least the urban elite, for facilitating the improvements our standard of leaving this is not time to rest on our laurels.

I have various officials lament that we are not as grateful as we should be to the NRM for lifting us out of our morass but they should know that to him who much is given much is expected.

And similarly when you give a man an inch he wants a mile. That is the reality of the human condition, if they cannot face it they can pack up and go.

Looking forward the government is already on the right track. They have embarked on the most ambitious infrastructure development in more than road rehabilitation works of the 1980s. Plans are there to lay out thousands of kilometers of road, boost power generation fivefold, reactivate the railway and water transport on lake Victoria.

Infrastructure is the lifeblood of any economy and cannot be underestimated. American investor Jim Rogers toured the world on his motor bike in 1980 and saw first hand the huge investments in infrastructure China was making at the time in roads, rail, sea ports and predicted at the time that the world’s most populous nation was gearing up to become a major player in the world.

Since the Chinese economy has grown more than twenty fold and is snapping at the heels of the US economy, which it is projected to overtake in size by 2030.

But to borrow from China’s meteoric rise, the country invested heavily in human capital. It is graduating as many if not more PhDs in science as the US – they stopped talking about literacy levels as a measure of education there, and there health systems while challenged by the scale of the population, many of the western economies in the procedures they can carryout and in research and innovation. You can have all the infrastructure in the world but if you do not have the manpower to exploit it they may as well be white elephants.

The liberalization of the economy has unlocked private initiative. But the market place while it’s the most effective mechanism for wealth creation is not the best placed to distribute the booty.

If wealth disparities are beginning to widen unsustainably blame it on the government whose role it is to distribute the economic gains of the last three decades. And we are not talking about handouts to Ugandans but the effective and efficient delivery of public goods – security, social services and national strategy, which would give every Ugandan a chance to climb the social ladder.

At the heart of this inefficiency is corruption, which further concentrates finite government resources in a few pudgy hands. Corruption has to be rooted out, least of all because its networks are capable of  hijacking state institutions and even overthrowing governments.

Development is a function of politics. And political borders are important. That is why the people in Kisoro may have a better standard of living than their cousins in eastern Congo but may not live as well as their counterparts across the border in Rwanda.

Going into the next 50 years a certain consensus has to be reached within the political class to a bare minimum agenda. So that even if parties seat across the floor there should be an understanding that with issues like the economy we have to pull together. The constant bickering and heckling serves no purpose other than to embarrass the honourable ladies and gentlemen.

Past results do not guarantee future performance, they counsel but given our recent past there is probably less cause for despondence as there was on 27^th January 1986.

UGANDA HEADING DOWN A SLIPPERY SLOPE WITH COUP TALK

Last week Defence minister Dr Crispus Kiyonga sounded a warning to the NRM legislators at their retreat in Kyankwanzi.

Kiyonga warned that MPs should guard against actions that undermine the public’s confidence in parliament as such actions can make the army intervene and take over the government.

“Even soldiers, just like all Ugandans, are watching. We should not take their discipline for granted. If the military feels the country is in the hands of wrong politicians, some officers might be forced to intervene in the name of refocusing the country’s future,” Kiyonga said.

Kiyonga’s comments seems were said in the specific context of events at the end of last year in parliament when MPs shouted down the speaker and caused an adjournment during debate on the oil bill.

Days later commenting on the defence minister’s comments the General Aronda Nyakairima, the chief of defence forces while agreeing with his bosses was reported to have said,

“Stand advised that should you not change course, other things will take place.”

The remarks by the gentlemen were startling in themselves but what was even more remarkable was the deafening silence from the public.

Maybe we were befuddled, “How can they overthrow themselves?” For the vast majority of us the line between the NRM and the UPDF is only on paper.

Once we had got over that initial confusion, we probably then asked, “Are these people allowed to say such things?” a hangover from an era when for contemplating let alone voicing such mental meanderings, one would be slapped with a charge of treason. Clearly things have changed or have they?

And then we went on and wondered, “But would it be so wrong if they took over and set this whole place straight?”, these thought of course informed by the log jams we see created by our political processes contrasted with how things can work once we have sidelined the politicians – read the recent improvements in Kampala city.

Politicians should be under no illusions. As citizens and consumers of the government services we really don’t care who is in charge as long as service delivery is effective. We hold no allegiance to any one person or group of people for any other reason than they can properly answer the question “What have you done for me lately?”

Truth be told

"we do not hold our MPs in high esteem, we think they are overpaid, self-aggrandizing, hecklers only good for milking during the campaign period and always eager to increase their already heavy paychecks...

An Afrobarometer survey of almost a decade ago put MPs at the bottom of a list of our leaders ranked in terms of respectability. Our honourable members have done little since then to improve our perception of them.

See how the public did not bat an eyelid when the President called them fools and idiots.

That being said, parliament – warts and all, is an important institution of the democracy we want to build. If it is not working well the solution is not to abolish it but to find a way to make it work better.

As it is now the house with nearly 300 members is too unwieldly to do much good.

A house a third that size will not only be significantly cheaper but also easier to manage. But to reduce the house number would require a vote by the same house and it is unrealistic to expect the monkeys to vote objectively on the fate of the forest.

The next best thing is for the house whips to be more forceful in keeping party members in line. A lot of the chaos in the house is largely because of uncoordinated troop movements with in parties and particularly the ruling NRM, slowing down progress and the bogging down proceedings.

The many corruption scandals within the civil service do not endear the government to the people.

Bottom line is the government and all its arms has to work for the benefit of the tax payer or its relevance will be in doubt.

"That the defence minister and then the army commander can voice such opinion in public should be worrying, never mind how unlikely it seems. Giving the army ideas is rarely a good idea...

Frustration at the way our political class is conducting its affairs is palpable. With our representatives complicit in the mismanaging of the country’s affairs how ironic it is that it is the army that has come to voice our disgust.