UGANDA MAKING PROGRESS ON NUTRITION BUT A LOT REMAINS TO BE DONE

All the economic growth in world will count for nothng if the man on the street does not get to eat in his diet and feel it in his health.

In Uganda with nearly three decades of economic growth, albeit from a low base, there has been some progress made on the wellbeing of the country's citizens. A lot remains to be done but at least the trajectory is upwards and foward accourding to the Global Nutrion Report.

IMF: LIES, LIES AND STATISTICS

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently concluded their latest country assessment of Uganda in which they concluded that Uganda continues on a growth path and despite concerns about external factors and inflation that the trend will continue.

They reported that “economic growth is projected to expand by a robust 5.3 percent in the current fiscal year and 5.8 percent in FY2015/16 (compared to 4.5 percent in FY2013/14), led by scaled-up public investment and a recovery of private consumption supported by stronger credit growth.”

The IMF also opined that “Strong growth and subdued inflation, alongside high international reserves (about 4 months of imports), a sound financial system, and relatively low government debt (currently at 30 percent of GDP) continue to provide buffers to shield the Ugandan economy against shocks.”

But they warned that “Nonetheless, there are risks to the outlook posed by domestic and regional uncertainties.”

"In a nutshell, that the ship is holding steady, an opinion the finance ministry was content to interpret as a clean bill of health.

That was the big picture, down on the ground a different story is unfolding.

Business is slow. Shops are shutting down. Property prices are sliding.

This should not come as a surprise. Two events in particular have conspired to generate the current situation.

After 2011 election related inflation shot up, peaking at 30 percent in October of that a year. In a bid to rein inflation the central bank signalled an increase in lending rates, issued more government paper and sold more foreign exchange. The aim to suck out any excess cash in the economy not backed by production. After all inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods.

Just when the Bank of Uganda was coming to grips with inflation, at the end of 2013 South Sudan imploded into civil war. This was bad because not only was South Sudan our biggest export market up to that  point but it was also a source of tens of millions of dollars, dollars  that were artificially holding up our local real estate market and retail consumption.

The double whammy of central bank anti-inflation policies and the drying up of Sudanese dollars are what is causing he pain at the micro level.

But also at that time the bursting of corruption scams in the public service ministry and prime minister’s office dealt a further blow to the easy money that used to keep our business afloat and water Kampala’s night life.

As if that was not enough the donors in reaction to these scandals, in righteous indigination closed the taps sucking out more easy money from the general economy.

But we are not done yet. The progress on the oil production slowed as government and the exploration companies negotiated themselves to a near standstill on the issue of production licenses.

So how then does the IMF give Uganda the nod on its future prospects?

According to classical economics growth comes from the sum total of consumption, investment, government expenditure and the net of exports and imports.

"Given the government’s massive outlays in roads and ongoing investments in energy and other infrastructure it is safe to say the overall picture could show that these are more than adequate to account for the dips in consumption in the general economy...

The investments in infrastructure are not expected to have an immediate impact but their returns will come much sooner than the returns from the UPE and USE investments that started a decade and a half or so ago.

We have been here before. In the early 1990s when government first determined to take a grip of inflation, the drop in economic activity with the wholesale wiping out of industries like the kibanda market, the air suppliers was just if not more staggering than what we were experiencing now.

But those were hard decisions that had to be made then so that we could enjoy the subsequent good times that followed.

With rehabilitation of the economy complete these new investments again are what are needed to take us to the next level of growth and development.

It serves as little consolation when making ends meet today is getting harder and harder but that is what it is.

Consider it a case of taking one step back to jump three steps forward.

"Seen in that context the IMF report is a good thing. It means that we are at least moving forward on a macro level. The hope is that sentiment on the micro-level catches up too....

However it is no reason to rest on our laurels. The feedback loop can be from the micro to the macro level – that the local depression can filter up rather than the macro growth trickle down, if for example these huge investments don’t come through on time or at all.

KCCA TRAIL BLAZING AGAIN

Last week it was announced that Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) had been given a clean bill of health to start issuing bonds to finance some of its projects.

The South African based Global Credit Ratings (GCR) has certified KCCA’s credit worthiness following a World Bank funded audit of KCCA.

At the bare minimum it means that KCCA has access to one other means of financing its operations, beyond government contributions, its own revenues, donor loans and grants.

"But beyond that, it means that KCCA’s management practices have met the bare minimum required for money managers to take an interest in it. To be cleared to issue bonds, which is borrow from the public, it means you have verifiable sources of income and a management that can put whatever monies lent to good use. That’s the bare minimum investors want...

This development may have passed unnoticed by the general public but it is a heartening vote of confidence in the three-year old authority.

It means that they have been vetted on an international standard the big money men know and appreciate. This means that KCCA now has access to massive pools of money, that if captured and used judiciously can transform the city beyond recognition.

Of course there is still a lot of work to do. KCCA needs to streamline its operations even further, collect all the money due to it and resolve the niggling political question surrounding the mayor’s seat.

No country ever developed without the prudent use of debt.

One of the reasons our countries, and individually, we fail to develop, is because of an uninformed fear of debt and the unempowering overreliance on cash. That being said it takes a superior financial intelligence to make debt work.

The best use of debt is to increase your capacity to earn and not your capacity to spend. So for instance the investment in markets may provide additional income for KCCA or the building of roads in the suburbs will increase property rates and therefore the ground rates the authority can charge on properties as would the building of schools, hospitals and other amenities that make it pleasant to live in the city.

However, splurging on a new fleet of 4WDs or on raising allowances for councilors  may show no return but would just ensure higher expenditures.

Essentially you want the activity for which the debt is committed to pay its own way.

"KCCA would do well to take a leaf from the Bank of Uganda issued treasury bills and bonds. What started off tentatively, in the late 1980s, as a mechanism to damp down inflation by mopping up excess cash from the economy, is now viewed with more confidence by local and international investors.  Beyond its anti-inflationary role, has in recent years helped finance the budget, especially when the donors threw a fit a few years ago about our corrupt practices and pulled the plug on their aid....

The government paper issues came under a lot of criticism initially when they were exclusively for managing money supply and at the cost of hundreds of billions of shillings to the tax payer, but its proponents argued that was the cost of maintaining macro-economic stability. Without that stability, the economy as we know it today – with all its limitations would not exist today.

One can expect that KCCA will start slowly one, because they need to build confidence in the markets and because their absorptive capacity of these funds may still be limited. But if their bond program is run well in a decade in two KCCA will be a power onto itself and hopefully will pull the rest of the country along with itself.

Other towns could follow suit.

One of the challenges of our societies is our low saving culture. This is a problem because it means compared to the money in circulation, we have not enough of it aggregated into meaningful sums for use by the productive sectors of society.

In the western economies for instance as little as ten percent of all money in circulation is physical cash or just hanging around in the pillows, pocket or under their mattresses. The largest percentage of the money is held in financial institutions.

In Uganda according to Bank of Uganda figures this was as high as 24 percent at the end of December 2013 is not in the formal financial system.

And finally KCCA is proving a truism in finance, that money follows good organisation or management. We do not have access on favourable terms to the large pools of cash sloshing around the world because we do not manage our affairs in such a way as to instill confidence in possible lenders or investors.

BARYAMUREEBA’S CANDIDATURE OWES A LOT TO NRM

This week Professor Venansius Baryamureeba threw his hat into the presidential race.

For those who know him, this has not come as a surprise. While on the face of it Baryamureeba is not a front runner, his action is an interesting one given our country’s political history.

This running on individual merit is a “creation” of this administration.

"When the NRM took power in 1986, while they were militarily credible they were politically thin on the ground. This is not to say that they did not have a lot of good will.

In order to redress this imbalance NRM suspended political party activity and introduced the individual merit phenomenon – where people need not be sponsored by a party to run for any political office...

This decision had two major effects.

One, it made it possible for thousands of people who were previously locked out of the existing party structures, to vie for office loosening their allegiance to existing parties.

Secondly and related to the above, it allowed the NRM to build up its political base with the new comers to politics and by coopting some of the existing political operators. The strategy was so successful, so much so that the NRM has been in power longer than all the previous governments before it combined.

A return to multi-partyism in 2006 however failed to make the break from this concept of individual merit causing much headache in the political parties and even the NRM.

In a multi-party set up the party’s agenda overshadows individual ambition. If one falls out of line, disciplinary measures by the party can be brought to bear on the culprit, which may very well lead to an end of a political career at worst or a stint in the political wilderness.

What this has done in more established democracies is to restrict political contest to a handful of parties, with independent candidates being an aberration.

Which brings us back nicely to Baryamureeba.

At the moment Baryamureeba’s candidature can best be seen as an announcement of his arrival on the political scene rather a credible challenge of President Yoweri Museveni’s three decade long tenure as the country’s CEO. Baryamureeba could only do that in a system like Uganda’s where independent candidature is common enough that it is not an anomaly.

Independent candidates are important in any political system because they are not burdened by the baggage of incumbency or the reputation as barefaced opportunists that opposition parties are often saddled with.

That being said the independents lack the networks that established parties have, making their chances not unlike casting ones bread upon the waters and hoping it comes back buttered.

In the last election Norbert Mao and Olara Otunu the flag bearers for the Democratic Party (DP) and the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) between them failed to muster five percent of the vote in the presidential elections. Their party’s showing in the parliamentary polls was just as dismal.

The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), managed 26 percent of the presidential vote and have the most seats in parliament of any opposition party. The FDC have grown due to the charisma of their flag bearer Kiiza Besigye in the last two elections and as seen as the home of the former NRM who see it as comfortable landing ground between the NRM and the traditional opposition parties.

"In the less than 12 months within which Baryamureeba has to muster a realistic challenge against Museveni, he needs to build a nationwide network and ratchet up his charisma quotient...

The latter is easier to do than the former, but heck! This Uganda give it a shot prof.

IVAN KYAYONKA, FIRST ABOVE EQUALS

Sport serves as useful analogy for life, more so in how it draws out the character of a man.

"Ivan Kyayonka’s cricketing contemporaries remember him as a solid, stabilising presence for team and country, steady under pressure and unwavering in his concentration on the issue at hand. His only claim to flashiness was that he batted with his right- and bowled with his left hand...

He never captained his beloved Wanderers Cricket Club but he was recognised as having that rare attribute of leading from behind.

The same could be said by his professional colleagues at Shell Uganda and at the end of his career at Vivo Energy, where he worked straight after university until his retirement as CEO and country Chairman at the end of 2013.

Born in December 4, 1958 in Igyeyero in present day Mayuge district, Kyaonka was the last of 11 children born to Ezekiel Kayabya Wambuzi and Faisi Omulokole Wambuzi. He attended Kisoko Primary School in Tororo district before joining King’s College, Budo.

He then studied Mechanical Engineering at Makerere University graduating in 1982. He joined Shell Uganda the same year after a short stint as consulting engineer with M/s Techno Consult Limited.

His three decades of service in Shell Uganda is testament to his steadiness and professionalism. 

During the time Shell Uganda, now Vivo Energy, has grown its market share to stamp its authority on a market that has been increasingly liberalised and where the Shell brand stood for quality and reliability.

In the decade that he led the oil giant’s Uganda unit, Kyayonka was a leading voice in the business community, serving in his later years as chairman of the Uganda Revenue Authority and the National Social Security Fund as well.

While not a reluctant leader, Kyayonka did not go out to seek the limelight, content to be known by his fruits.

Asked once what he attributed his success in management to, Kyayonka replied, “If you sum it all, you could say my strength is being able to work through people.”

His proteges are numerous influenced by the man at school, in cricket and as a manager. At 56 and retired, the boardrooms of corporate Uganda beckoned.

Uganda has lost a valuable business resource.

Three decades of apprenticeship at one of the world’s premier companies, in a highly competitive industry, would have been lent out to many companies in search of board good oversight.

Uganda’s problem do not stem from lack of resources but from a lack of management at every level of society. As a country we are testament to the fact that you can be the best endowed country in the world but still fail to work to the satisfaction of your citizens.

"It is men like Kyayonka, sadly in short supply, who are badly needed to populate, our management suites, our public service and even lead our schools so that we generate more of his kind to unlock the vast potential of our country. Because people are what make things happen and not the other way around....

As a country we will miss this accumulated knowledge and experience that he would have brought to bear on his next assignments, we will miss him as an example of what diligence and consistency to one’s career can result in and we will miss him as an example to our children, of how a hero should live -- with quiet confidence and constancy of purpose.

While he trode softly through life his footprints are bound to endure for generations.

They say those who the God’s love die young. Given the breadth and depth of what Kyayonka still had to offer, he died young but we are grateful for having known him and his contribution to our lives.

Rest in Peace Ivan Kyayonka

IF BUSINESS WORKS, WE WILL BE FINE

Last week Kampala hosted the fifth edition of the Ease of Doing Business Initiative (EADBI), a peer-to-peer review by sub Saharan countries on their progress in facilitating private sector led growth.

The initiative comes out of the World Bank’s annual Ease of Doing Business report, which judges countries public policies and implementation on the subject.

Uganda has lagged in the lower quartile of the 190 or so countries polled coming in at rank 150 last year compared to 152 the previous year.

"The Ease of Doing Business Index which was started in 2001 came after years of development aid history pointed to the fact that for economies to grow sustainably they have to be private sector driven....

But how to facilitate the private sector to drive the economy was the question.

It is all very nice to build transport, energy and communication networks; to improve literacy and health levels; it’s even nice to engineer the breakup of state monopolies and liberalise the markets. This are all necessary, even crucial for economic growth but even more critical is to reduce the red tape that many governments have tied their businessmen up in.

And it makes sense.

According to the latest EDB report Uganda ranks 166 for starting up business – it takes 15 procedures to register a business compared to the sub-saharan average of about eight. IN addition it takes 32 days to start a business compared to the sub-Saharan average of 27 days or the even lower figure of nine days in the western economies.

Uganda does relatively well in enforcing contracts and winding up insolvent companies.

It does not take an advanced science degree to recognise that being 150 out of 189 economies in making life easy for our businessmen means we have a lot of work to do.

But their countries around us who have excelled with some of our most pressing issues. Across the border from us in Rwanda it takes eight procedures and about six days to register a business.

Think about the savings in money and time this comes with, allowing businessmen to do what they are supposed to do, not chasing and buttering up public officials.

During the conference Rwanda also announced that it was coming close to full registration of its lands and by the same time next year they will have streamlined their processes to allow for online transfers of property.

In Uganda where it takes 11 procedures and 43 days to register property would do well to learn from Rwanda, which was the reason for the conference – a sharing of challenges and experiences.

Uganda has made some significant steps in the last decade and a half that the EDB index has been coming out but more has to be done. Peer learning is a good an avenue for this as any.

"Regulating business is necessary even important but with changes in technology and the urgency of having an efficient business sector, we need to constantly re-evaluate whether our regulations are hampering or enabling business. Some regulations are obsolete while others just serve as opportunities for public servants to pad their nests...

Making things easy for business also comes from the realisation that governments are not the major drivers of job or wealth creation. It is the private sector. So government should really confine itself to creating a conducive environment for business to thrive but not at the expense of the general population.

If Uganda for instance can reduce the burdensome regulation around business they may solve another issue.

Uganda has been recognised as one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world. The rate of opening businesses is here in phenomenal unfortunately very few of these businesses grow to be giant enterprises with a regional or even national presence.

Part of the reason for this is the high cost in time and money it takes to move from informal to formal businesses. What this means is that many of our businesses remain subsistence operations, serving only to sustain its owners lifestyles, with no ambition beyond that.

The loss to the general economy in terms of lost jobs and economic activity is obvious.

So yes, putting easing doing business top of our agenda makes not only economic but political sense as well...

THE SHE CRANES WORLD CUP HANGS IN THE BALANCE UNLESS …

Last year like a bolt of lightning from the blue the She Cranes qualified for the Netball World Cup.

This achievement was noteworthy on many fronts, not least of all that they qualified in the face of insurmountable odds – lack of cash, equipment or even drinking water during their qualifying matches in Botswana.

Even more commendable is that they went about their business without complaining about their circumstance.

But if we thought that the floodgates of national goodwill and government support would burst open with this once-in-a-lifetime event we were sorely mistaken.

As it is now, it is as if there is an official conspiracy to fail our daughters.

At the beginning of this month the team’s captain Peace Proscovia, was shocked to discover that her colleagues had not only been deprived of the court on which they had honed their skills at Nakivubo – it was sold under mysterious circumstance to a developer, but that the makeshift court they were using in Namboole stadium was so bad that it had already accounted for four of the national team players, injured and unlikely to participate in the World Cup in August.

And as if that was not enough, the only other playing surface that would have afforded them some good practice time, the MTN Arena at Lugogo, was otherwise engaged and the engagements could not be suspended to allow the She Cranes a few days practice on it.

It gets worse.

According to reports, money for their training for the World Cup had been released by government but had somehow been frittered away before it go to the netball association. So the girls are having to scrounge around for playing kit and other logistics to keep on training.

This is important because this budget among other things was supposed to cater for advance payments for the World Cup. As it is now the girls She Cranes have not confirmed their flight arrangements or accommodation or secured their meals (which are supposed to be paid for in advance) nor have their kits been approved by the games organisers – the samples they have sent were dismissed as substandard.

And amid all this hardship – avoidable hardship, for the She Cranes we hear that plans are afoot to have a 20-man delegation of officials accompany the team to Australia! Per diems all around!

It is enough to break your heart.

And when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.

Many of our local companies and “well-wishers” who were falling all over themselves to contribute funds towards the She Cranes’ training, have not fulfilled their pledges. In some instances brushing off the team as being in too much of a hurry to get the money when the tournament is months away.

Some “well-wishers” have had the audacity to query why the girls have started their training too 

early, “Can’t you start three weeks to the games?”

The reactions to the She Cranes from a country starved of sporting success is mind boggling.

There have been horror stories in the past of how the Uganda Cranes on the verge of qualifying, needing as little as draw, have gone on to inexplicably, fluff the opportunity. Rumours have circulated about how officials have contrived to throw the match for big payouts, having drummed up the boys’ chances to a gullible public before running off with the record gate collections.

The same scenario is being played out all over again.

Some people are more than pleased to take advantage of the girls’ new found fame to make as much personal gain as they can – never mind that they were not there during their years wandering in the wilderness.

It wouldn’t be bad if they were basking in the girls’ glory but made life easier for the She Cranes to prepare for the World Cup.

No!

Not only are they determined to bask in the girls’ glory, but they want to bleed them dry as well. And when the girls are picking up the pieces for their broken dream from a scandalously disastrous campaign in Australia, these same officials will have moved their vampiric attention to the next team.

These are our sisters and cousins who have done us proud and can still make us proud.

"Just because the rest of us are content to wallow in our mediocrity does not mean we should frustrate these young ladies who, in pushing the limits of their potential threaten to lift us out of our collective self-hate and make us proud to be Ugandan....

Their journey to his point, dismissed as futile many times, is the stuff of which Hollywood movies are made.

As a nation we must put aside our envy, step out of their way, help them if we can and allow these fine ladies to show the world that something good can come out of Uganda.

Over to you government of Uganda.

BURUNDI: SAD BUT INEVITABLE

In events in Burundi of the last few weeks have seemed for onlookers like watching a train crash in progress.

President Pierre Nkurunziza was nominated by his party to run for what was essentially a third term in government. He and his supporters argued that the constitution said two elections by adult sufferage would demarcate the terms, but that his first term in office was made possible by a vote in the national assembly, so it did not count.

His detractors have argued though that a third term would not be in the spirit of the constitution which limits president to only two five year terms.

The constitutional court in Bujumbura agreed with Nkurunziza’s interpretation but this did not pacify the mobs in the street, who have been fighting running battles with the security agencies for at least a fortnight now.

The army eventually stepped in on Wednesday while Nkurunzinza was in Dar es Salaam attending a regional effort to resolve the fracas.

"It is sad what is happening in Burundi – more than 20 people have been killed and scores injured during the unrest, but these are the birthing pains of democracy...

Europe and North America the forerunners of democracy, have histories scarred with bitter war,  bloody revolutions and genocide to show for their journey to democracy.

England as an example did not become a full democracy until 1918. Before then only 60 percent of the men could vote. Women were not allowed to vote until after the Representation of the People Act in 1918 was passed.

To get to that point, the people had first to wrestle power from the monarchs, which incidentally was facilitated by a conquest of England by the Normans who set up the first parliament in 1066.

But as the people tried to wrestle more power from the monarchy and gentry there were coups, parliament even ordered the beheading of Charles I (His crime? Dissolving parliament, causing civil war and raising taxes), a trial abolition of the monarchy only to discover the new leader Oliver Cromwell was a worse tyrant than those who had gone before, a return to a much weakened monarchy, whose executive powers were transferred to parliament before we came to 1918.

These changes happened over a millennium, never in a straight line and not as neatly as narrated above.

There was bloodshed at every turn as the monarchs sort to hang on to their privilege and the people tried to wrestle more say over the management of their society for themselves. And every so often their elected leaders forgot themselves, crossed the line into tyranny before society called them to order and put a hold to their pretensions.

The French have a bloodier history as did the Germans and even the US.

"The point is that one cannot write democratic practice into existence. Assuming that democracy, described as the right of every one to have say in the management of their affairs, is the ideal, no two countries can tread the same path nor can the end product of what democracy means to them be identical....

The peculiarities of Burundi’s history have led it up to this point, as can be said about the individual paths of the other East African Community countries.

Violence and bloodletting are not desirable in any context but unfortunately when the aspirations of the leaders and the people diverge, when compromise is forgone for strong arm tactics, something has to give.

Burundi like Kenya more recently and Rwanda before it are going to have to go back to the drawing board, learn from this experience, forge a new compromise and get back on the democratic path.

Whether that takes a week or a month or a year it will happen.

GOING ABROAD FOR KYEYO? THINK AGAIN!

Recent events showing desperate immigrants drowning as they tried to cross the Mediterranean into Europe were heart rending because of the obvious loss of life but also because the streets of Europe are not paved with gold.

There are two major developments happening in the western economies which make thinking of going abroad to work less and less palatable.

On the one hand is the growing liberalisation of world trade. A trend that begun tentatively before, and gathered momentum after, the end of the cold war in 1989. The signing of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), the European Union, the beleaguered World Trade Organisation (WTO) and any number of trade agreements running now around the world are in response to this new momentum.

The increasing ease with which products can move across borders means that businesses are now free to set up factories anywhere in the world and transport their goods to their chosen markets.

By accident of history (Or Deng Xiaoping forsaw all this in the 1970s) China was maturing into the factory of the world, offering capitalists cheap labour and mass production. So especially in the US, the western economies have shipped much of their production to China, retaining the higher end innovation and conceptualisation work.

"It is estimated that the US lost more than three million jobs in the manufacturing sector since China joined the WTO at the end of 2001. The global financial crisis caused further stress and even though they say President Barack Obama’s administration has added at least 4.5 million jobs back into the economy, the reality is the majority are the lowest of low end jobs and the really high end jobs, very little in the middle...

While its true low end jobs have always been there for the picking, the greater number of immigrants – Mexicans and South Americans in the US and Eastern Europeans in Europe now means African immigrants are not the lowest earning labour anymore.

In addition the low end labour is now highly automated with the innovations in computer technology meaning it’s not enough just to be literate to work in the west.

That second point – increasing innovation, is also driving another trend – greater automation in the work place and therefore few and fewer workers are required for the same job with every passing day.

Banks are cutting staff because most transactions can now be done online; restaurants the same as waiters are becoming redundant replaced by automated ordering and paying systems; a handful of cleaners of commercial properties with hoovers and increasing discipline with regard to waste disposal are cleaning whole buildings.

If you really want to work abroad make sure you have a unique skill or are highly educated in a field that is in demand – more and more this is in IT and its related fields. And highly educated means PhD level not just your basic degree.

Of course this will not dissuade thousands of immigrants from making the trip in rickety canoes or marinating in sweltering shipping containers or once there on bona fide business, disappearing into the concrete jungles of their cities.

It is a brutal existence.

Our cousins are not telling us the half of it, for fear of besmearing the fairy tale existence they or you have convinced yourself they enjoy or because it’s just too grim to even begin to narrate.

But there is a cynical, more self-serving reason why once you are in any of those western economies and “get lost” they won’t put in as much effort ferreting you out as they would keeping you out in the first place.

"You the immigrant are useful for pushing down the labour cost for everybody and yourself. Because in your desperation you will do anything and for any amount of money to survive. Because unlike your home country everything is monetised and, far away from friends and family, charity is hard to come by...

It is no surprise that the labour unions are on the back foot everywhere you look. Previously unionised workers had a lot of leverage over their employers through their collective bargaining power.

So yes, life can be hard here but it can be harder elsewhere and it is only getting harder, forget the rosy picture Hollywood paints for you.

ALLEN KAGINA AND THE RISE OF THE UGANDAN EXECUTIVE

Last week Allen Kagina formally took over the reins at the Uganda National Road Authority (UNRA). She fired her first shots across the bows of the administration there, by pledging to sort out the bottle necks preventing full utilisation of road funds and banish the authority’s reputation as the paragon of corruption.

Both are tall orders. But unlike her elevation to the helm of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), a decade ago, the scepticism surrounding her ability to perform is decidedly less.

During a press conference, she announced her plans going forward, which would include a re-evaluation of the staff component and an assessment of the authority’s processes. Like at URA, KCCA and National Water & Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) before them, a rebranding of the place – a symbolic break with its shady past, would come in handy.

The majority wish her well in her latest assignment especially since if executed well it can have a transformative effect on the entire economy and therefore a direct impact on all our lives.

"But beyond her potential impact at UNRA and her well-worn record at URA, Kagina is a front runner in a new crop of parastatal manager that is debunking the notion that we lack effective managers among our number to run our most prized assets...

During the privatisation drive of the 1990s one of the reasons put forward for selling off our public enterprises was that we did not have the managerial capacity to make them work profitably. Of course, the care taker managers did not take kindly to this description. In their defence the political situation was such that they were unable to work effectively with incessant interference from politicians.

The interference continues, what has changed though is that there are fewer public enterprises around.

While we now have a healthy crop of managers coming through the ranks in the private sector, a much leaner public sector has not been left behind. 

This is a numbers game.

For every Kagina or Dr William Muhairwe there are a few dozen managers who have fallen by the wayside for incompetence or outright theft. The trick is to generate a big enough number of potential managers to provide for the inevitable attrition.

You can have all the resources in the world, but without proper management or leadership those same resources can go begging. Good managers are not born or educated in the classroom, but need good mentoring and praiseworthy predecessors to look up to and learn from. If you don’t have them at home you import them and allow them to be understudied. Kagina is part of that front runner group.  

Also with a trend that begun with Muhairwe at NWSC and continued with Kagina at URA, it has been shown that a manager need not be a water engineer or a tax expert to manage their respective organisations. Charles Chapman, who was not an electrical engineer, at Umeme cemented the trend.

In fact it’s the specialists who have sunk these very organisations.

Not to discount the specialised knowledge that comes with being familiar with the core activities of an organisation, what is really needed at the top is the ability to manipulate the human and capital resources available to achieve the organisation’s goals.

The specialists have recognised this, with many of them going out to earn MBAs to back up their technical credentials.

"And finally Kagina’s recognition as a top manager but just as importantly, as a woman manager, signals the acceptance of women as managers capable of taking on the “tough” assignments society had decided belonged to men...

Previously women were confined to administration and personnel management, the supposed softer parts of organisations. Now there are hundreds of women waiting in the wings, straining at their reins to take over in finance, operations, legal and engineering departments all over the country.

It starts with society recognising (however grudgingly), that women can contribute effectively beyond the home. This coupled with prioritising girl education means it is only a matter of time that women are not only given the “tough” assignments but that they are actually in place to be considered on pure merit.

In Uganda it started with politics and now it is moving into the board rooms.

The girl child of today and tomorrow will have role models other than their mothers,  to look up to in aspiring to greatness. And that is as it should be.

American billionaire Warren Buffett once said, “When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”

We have our fingers crossed that Kagina can debunk yet another male created truism.

KAMPALA “LAND GRABS” A SYMPTOM OF POOR PLANNING

This week city businessman Sudhir Ruparelia appeared before a parliamentary committee probing the loss of land belonging to public schools to public developers.

Ruparelia was answering allegations that he had grabbed the playing fields of Kololo SS. He argued that he had got a lease for the said land to develop it in to a better sport facility for the benefit of everybody not only for his Kampala Parents School.

There have been other instances of public lands beig taken over,  not only from schools but from police stations, hospitals and stadiums.

To begin with if anyone is to acquire public lands this should be done in a transparent and legal way with all the right permits signed off and fees paid.

That being said, it makes sense that land wherever it is should be used optimally, that is to its full potential for the economic and social gain of the society...

This clamour for land by developers is actually a response to the growing needs of the city for office, residential and even manufacturing space. The city’s plans and zoning laws have clearly not kept up with developments.

For instance the major police stations marked the outer boundaries of the city before independence. 

So Jinja road police station marked the eastern boundary, Wandegeya Police station the northern boundary, Katwe Police station on the southern boundary and Natete Police station on the western side .

However the city has overrun these boundaries. Not a problem in itself, but it means that these police stations are occupying valuable real estate and while not discounting the importance of security, this real estate can be better utilised by the private sector for economic gain.

The same can be said for many other public institutions, which have vast expanses of land in and around the city center.

A rezoning of the city land use and insistence that land is used or surrendered, would do a lot to minimise or even stop the instances of land grabbing.

And it is not that there are no private land owners that developers can go to for their needs.

Private land owners their appetites whetted by the jump in property prices a few years ago, but unable to muster the resources to develop their properties are keeping their lands idle or underutilised, holding out for a better price.

This is not only a waste of finite resources, a distortion of the market dynamics, but is also unfair to the general society, which is deprived of the economic activity that may come with developing the land.

It is clear what the leaders of Kampala need to do. Rezone the city. Provide for the relocation of schools, police stations and other public utilities further outside the city....

So for example if someone wanted Kololo SS lands for development of office space or residential apartments they should be able to approach the ministry or school pledge to relocate the school at their cost and take over the land. Of course there would be clearly defined rules for how this is done so that no one is short changed.

Of course, there are sentimental reasons why Kololo SS or even Kampala Parents Primary School should remain where they are, but from an economic point of view, it’s probably better that they move to more marginal land so that the full value of the underlying land is extracted.

Besides it would not be the healthiest environment for young people to spend three quarters of their year amidst the urban pollution from rising traffic and industrial fumes.

MAYWEATHER’S FINANCIAL TRANSITION A USEFUL LESSON

By the time you read this it will have been decided who is the greatest boxer of his generation, Floyd Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao.

The two boxers faced off yesterday morning in the most lucrative fight in boxing history. With Mayweather, win or lose, set to walk away with $120m (sh360b) and make him the world’s highest paid athlete for the second year in a row. Last year he took home at least $100m from a single fight.

Mayweather at 38, is making more money in one night than previous big money draws like Mike Tyson made in their entire careers.

How he does this is a story of understanding one’s own value and believing in it. In the process he might have changed the way boxing is organised especially with the best fighters.

But is particularly interesting when viewed against the changing role of labour globally. Labour is on the back foot. With changes in the global trading system and increased automation in the workplace the situation is not improving for workers anywhere in the world...

Back to Mayweather. Generally professional boxers are employees, their promoters set up fights, organise their schedules, negotiate endorsement, licensing and image rights. After a fight they pay off everyone – including the boxer and keep the profit – many times over what they paid the boxer, to themselves.

In 2006 Mayweather went out to change this. He forwent a $8m fight, bought out his contract for $750,000 and went off on his own to manage his own career.

By this time he was the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world but he was forgoing a guaranteed pay out up front for an uncertain income from the fights he fought, a risk previously born by his promoters. The reason more fighters have not gone the same route.

It has turned out very well for him. He has made about $400m in his career with most of it coming after 2006.

"In 2006 Mayweather stopped being a worker, leasing his labour to the highest bidder and became an owner of his own value. That is a bigger transition than we give him credit for...

No employer will pay you your true value however much you earn. It would not make sense. The businessman needs to make a profit – earn more than he spends, so why would he pay you your true value?

This is an important question for all workers because in the changing global environment, it is becoming increasingly clear that we have to stop thinking about jobs.

With tariff barriers around the world falling it is cheaper to move goods around, so a lot of manufacturing capacity has moved to China and Asia, where anything can be made cheaper than anywhere else in the world.

The west has suffered the brunt of this move with hollowing out of US industry as a prime example. But the developing world has not avoided it since their own attempts at industrialisation have stalled or collapsed altogether because no one can compete with China.

Economic history shows that industrialisation is what drove high employment in the western economies, so it’s worrying when we cannot jumpstart our own industrialisation.

Beyond that the speed of innovation means that more work process are becoming automated. This means on one hand, that the worker is becoming more productive than his predecessors but by logical extension also means fewer workers are needed to do a similar job.

Faced with this reality being able to leverage your own talents and skills, create a system around them and sell them, essentially become self-employed while evolving into a feasible company, is becoming the “workers” reality. This will become the default mode just as “looking for job” has been during our life time.

It’s inevitable.

"The trick is to ask yourself what is that you do that makes money for your company and look to monetise it for yourself. Worst case scenario a better appreciation of yourself will highlight what you need to improve in yourself and best case scenario will allow you crystallise a business model that you can exploit in the future.....

For Mayweather it was his skill as a fighter, that he has been honing since he was two, as the best fighter in his division he was not making a shabby living but by going out on his own he has unlocked more of his value for himself.

It’s hard to begrudge a man honest pay for honest work.

BURUNDI’S TURN FOR THIRD TERM ACTION

Last week Burundi took off where South Africa left off with street protests against plans by incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza to run for another term in office.

The protestors insist his running would a breach of the constitution, which provides for a two-term presidential limit. But Nkurunziza’s supporters say the constitution was enacted during his first term, he has run for one general election since and is therefore entitled to run at least one more time.

The opposition know this.

"They in effect, are trying to deprive Nkurunziza the element of surprise if he is to attempt to amend the constitution to allow for a third term, they are trying to create a public momentum against such plans and make it a campaign issue for Nkurunziza to pronounce on during the campaigns. The presidential elections are for June 26.

Why all this hoolah balooh about term limits?

Presidential term limits as we know them have their origins in the US. In writing their constitution in the 18^th century the issue came up and the advocates for term limits argued that the notion of a republic would not stand if the president’s term limits were not predetermined.

However they did not write it into the constitution immediately, but an informal two term limit was established when the first US president George Washington stepped down after he had served two terms.

Term limits were finally written into the constitution in 1951 after Franklin D Roosevelt became the longest serving incumbent, dying during in his fourth term.

In Africa our motives for writing the presidential term limits, beyond wanting to ape the US, comes from our post-colonial history, which shows that once a leader was in place you would have to throw everything including the kitchen sink to dislodge him.

"Caught up in the dynamic of hanging on to power, governments tend to forsake a long term national vision for short term pragmatism aimed at holding on to power, which really shouldn’t come as a surprise...

Politics is about vying for power and once obtained, it’s a bout retaining power. Power, the ability to influence things, starts out not as an end in itself but as an instrument in the service of the people. Somewhere along the way the seduction of power is too much and it becomes an end in itself.

This is not unique to the African situation.

In 1972 agents broke into the Watergate office complex in Washington. This was the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Various sources have it that proof of a deal made by Richard Nixon to stall the Vietnam negotiations, which if successful would have seen Lyndon Johnson back in the White House were supposed to be in that building.

Nixon or his cronies scared the Democrats would hold this over their heads through his first term and also at the next election were keen to get their hands on the nefarious dossier.

But they went too far and the exposure of the plot and the Nixon’s denial it was involved in the break in eventually cost him his presidency.

"Term limits are a mechanical solution to the threat of a return to monarchies...

What Africa really needs is institutions that can hold everybody to accountable, unfortunately for us impatient Africans these cannot reach full maturity in a day or a decade or even a century.

The question is how do you go about building such institutions?

Writing them into law is useful but not sufficient to make them credible and effective. For us who are always lamenting Gavumenti etuyambe. I am sorry to say it starts with us.

My fellow columnist Simon Kaheru last week reported that he went to a place where lining up happens. But beyond the physical presence of a line there is the intuitive, habitual even spiritual sense that there is a line --- even if it is not physically visible.

The institutions we yearn from start at the spiritual level, at the level of our individual consciousness. How can we demand that our leaders be held accountable for their public behaviour, for monies going missing under the watch and for the careless utterances they make that make us reduce our estimation as a nation in the eyes of the world when we in pour personal fiefdoms – be they at home or in the office, behave as if we are above the law?

So back to Burundi. Nkurunzinza should stand despite misplaced call for him to disqualify himself. 

He should stand if only to ingrain the tradition of voting into the people’s psyches. People who say in the context of our countries it is useless to vote because our leaders are prone to steal the polls anyway, are the real enemies of democracy.

In fact if the anti-Nkurunzinza people are convinced he is overstepping his mandate, sue him! Exercise the judiciary!

MUKULU ‘S CAPTURE SIGN OF THE CHANGING TIMES

The capture of Jamil Mukulu signals the demise of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels, currently holed up somewhere in eastern Congo and hopefully brings to a close a sad chapter in our country’s history.

When President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986 at the head of the rebel National Resistance Army (NRA) neighbouring states were understandably jittery.

"Regional leaders warned that the NRA would export its peculiar brand of revolution --- it was up to that point the only rebel army that had taken power on the continent through a protracted struggle...

In hindsight their fears seem to have come true with rebel movements in Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan taking power. But the unintended consequence was also that the NRA came up against its own rebellions arguably spurred by their own success.

People in the NRA would take exception to these rebel movements – LRA and ADF being seen as their proteges, arguing that they have no popular ideology and have resorted to terror.

The LRA and ADF at their best have been hired guns, fighting proxy wars for Uganda’s enemies and at worst have been terror machines that have no attempt to win the people’s favour and cause disaffection towards government. This has lead people to dismiss their claims to be fighting Kampala.

Sympathisers of these two groups argue that they each have political programs, but it is hard to imagine that these can have been missed by the general public.

The LRA and ADF are an offshoot of the end of the cold war, when east-west ideological difference have given way to religious fundamentalism and the outright commercialisation of war.

For both parties 9/11 meant the world changed for them with terror being identified as a global phenomenon and triggering an international response against it.

"The greater international cooperation in intelligence, data collection and processing, as well as new legislation that has given governments all around the world greater leeway to pry into the private lives of their citizens  and the massive investments in the defence industry means such freelance movements would find their operations increasingly constricted....

The ultimate prize would be Jospeh Kony but Mukulu’s arrest in Tanzania, is a sign of how the world is changing for outlaws, especially those who do not provide any geo-political advantage to major players.

No longer will they be able to oppose one government while seek succour with another, their movement in and out of their theatre of operation, unfettered and unhampered.

With a joint UN force – including Tanzanian troops, siding with Uganda and ganging up against the ADF in eastern Congo it was only a matter of time before Mukulu was isolated, exposed and arrested.

With this increasing attention the only hope for the leaders of these outfits is surrender or fall off the radar and wait out the decade-long war on terror. Mukulu run out of time.

It is likely that others will rise to take over from Mukulu, but one can expect that their tenures will be short lived and end very badly.

However Mukulu’s capture and the imminent collapse of the group he has led for two decades does not take away from the underlying grievances that were used to justify and recruit for the ADF.

Youth unemployment and general poverty are the breeding ground for much civil unrest – see South Africa and Burundi. These disgruntled youth are easy to mobilise – even if they do not believe in the cause, with promises of wealth.

After more than a decade of the war against terror we are learning that it is all very well to depose the leaders we do not like and dismantle their apparatus of tyranny, but it is another thing to then generate economic growth for the benefit of the “liberated” people.

Failure here means we may continue in a perpetual vicious cycle of violence.