THE CHAOS THEORY AND HOW WE GOT TO WHERE WE ARE

I happened upon “Chaos Theory” not in a classroom –Thank God! But in the pages of Michael Crichton’s “Jurassic Park”. It is basically that small changes can lead to large unintended consequences. That a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan can cause a storm across the world in New York.

This was the week to examine the chaos theory as it applies to Uganda’s economy specifically.

Former Democratic Party Chairman Boniface Byanyima passed on last week and at a vigil for the pioneering politician, President Yoweri Museveni revealed that Byanyima worried that Museveni was tending towards communism and tried to dissuade him.

It was fashionable for any young political firebrand of the time to flirt with communism, the theory that all property should be publicly owned and everyone paid according to their ability and needs.

"It is doubtful whether Museveni, if he  had hang on to his communist credentials would still be in power today or whether the economy would have been resuscitated after 1986....

On the other hand his knowledge of dialectical materialism, which is the Marxist theory that provides that changes in political and historical events come as result of a struggle between social forces based on material needs may have helped his analysis of the situation and ditched any past romance with communism.

In 1986 the country’s coffers were empty after almost two decades of misrule. However there was an urgent need to get the economy ticking again if only to sustain the regime in power. The critics of capitalism or the free market economy are numerous, but there has been no other system in human history able to create economic growth at the rate at which it has happened since the Second World War.

By adopting a series of IMF and World Bank prescriptions – privatisation of state enterprises, liberalisation of markets and emphasis on a stable macro-economic environment two things were achieved. First, that the aid taps started flowing helping rehabilitate the infrastructure and give confidence to private investors to follow suit. Secondly by breaking up the state monopolies and opening up the economic space, private initiative long suppressed by inefficient government entities, was unleashed.

But also communism was crumbling at the time, whereas the collapse of the Berlin Wall was still three years away the signs were already evident in the USSR and behind the iron curtain in Eastern Europe. The USSR could scarcely bankroll the communist experiment when bread lines were forming at home.

The economy only recovered to its 1970 levels just before 2000.

Prior to that butterflies flapping wings had brought forth the Euro in January 1999; in Afghanistan had led to attack on the Twin Towers in New York on 9^th September 2001; which accelerated the dotcom bubble burst and which led to the global financial crisis in 2008.

These event far from our shores have led to a build-up of the military industrial complex and a more inward looking population in the donor nations, leading to a turning off, or at least, reduced aid.

Increased revenue collections – thanks to our commitment to macroeconomic stability, meant that as the aid taps run dry we could at least tread water as we re-calibrate how development will be achieved in the brave new world.

Also the rise of China, which in the late 1970s begun to look for other ways to catch the mouse beyond a dogmatic adherence to communism, meant that there more alternatives for aid and foreign direct investment.

And the last week the IMF said they had downgrade their growth forecasts for Uganda this year to 3.5 percent from five percent on account of the poor harvests and less than planned roll out of key infrastructure investments. They added though that they see growth returning to the six percent level within the next two years.

We are at cross roads. Our emphasis on infrastructure development while long overdue are now happening and the benefits will begin to show themselves shortly.

Urgently we need to improve the environment for businesses to thrive and create the much needed jobs for the hundreds of thousands of new entrants to the job market annually.

"I sense a tendency to think the government will create the jobs, which goes against hundreds of years of economic history and good development sense...

Governments do not create jobs and by extension wealth, the civil service should not be the biggest employer in an economy. But rather governments should create the environment that allows businesses to create the jobs.

Let us not look to exceptions to the rule to justify our planned economic adventurism, stick to the time tested road  -- maintain macroeconomic stability and remove the barriers to business,  and it is almost a mathematical certainty that we will pull out of our current economic malaise.

That and the hope that the right butterflies have already flapped their wings.

UGANDA SHOULD NOT SWEEP TORTURE UNDER THE CARPET

Almost 20 years ago a Kampala magazine published the picture of a young female model on their cover.

That would not have been a big deal as models can be found around every corner in our capital. What made this one so memorable was that the picture showed a hint of her underwear peeking through.

Ugandans went ballistic. The uproar was such that the promoters of the offending magazine had to make a public apology for fear of their license suspension.

Far from bringing a close to any such repeat publication this actually served as the opening of the door to even bolder pictures taken from every imaginable angle, to the point now that it seems like the ethics minister is the lone crusader against such salaciousness.

We are now desensitised to such images. Who would have thought it in 1999.

Last weekend we were assaulted by images of the Mayor Kamwenge, Godfrey Byamukama, lying comatose in his bed at Nakasero hospital, the flesh of his knees and ankles exposed, apparently 

evidence of torture he had suffered at the hands of our security agents.

The police say Byamukama is a suspect in the March murder of Assistant Inspector General of Police, Felix Kaweesi.

The revulsion was palpable everywhere you looked in social media or the traditional press. It was bad enough that President Yoweri Museveni came out to criticise torture as a tool of investigation and ordered the security agencies to stop it, if it was found to be going on.

But the public reaction was interesting for very disturbing reasons.

A few days prior other suspects in the same case were brought to court bearing wounds and injuries from their time in police custody and the public reaction was not as dramatic.

Maybe we need to define the public. The social media public.

"It can be argued that Byamukama’s wounds were more graphic than those of his fellow suspects. But most probably the reaction was more dramatic because the chattering masses of social media came to their senses that if Byamukama, educated, urbane and middle class could find himself in such circumstances….? Suddenly this was too close to home and we had to rise up in righteous indignation...

That is disturbing for the same reason that we are now desensitised to the sight of naked people being paraded in publications on sale on the streets and in broad daylight.

Blame it on our disturbed history. During the 1970s and 1980s it was not out of the very ordinary to be hop-stepping over dead victims of extra-judicial killings. But the vast majority of Ugandans cannot relate to that time as they were not yet born.

But maybe it is a throwback to that time when it was everyone for themselves, God for us all and let the devil take the hindmost.

Despite our deeply Christian roots it seems the lesson whatever happens to the least of our brothers happens to us, has gone begging.

It would be good for us to remember the poem “First they came….” Written at the height of the holocaust in Nazi Germany by Lutheran pastor Martin Niemollor.

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”...

Granted. There are very bad men – and women, who walk among us and the security agencies are trying their best to apprehend them or keep them from doing their worst. Us the chattering masses have little to no clue about what this involves. But surely there has to be a line where as a society we do not cross (And please don’t compare us to the US and their Guantanamo Bay).

It has taken the plight of Byamukama to awaken our moral sensibilities, but the thought has to arise that if they had the audacity to mete such horrors on a “VIP”, how man lesser mortals have been brutalised to get to this point?

And by logical extension you have to ask yourself how far up the “VIP” ladder are you before they get to you?

NO CAR, NO PROBLEM

This last week I have been without my car, so Uber, described as transportation network company, became my friend.

Uber, the largest taxi company in the world but does not own any cabs, runs a network of private car owners who allow their cars to be hired out as taxis. By use of an app on their smart phone, users can summon a car to wherever they are to ferry them to wherever they wish. Fares are often time as little as a third of what the old special hire drivers (where are they these days?) were charging for comparable routes.

Uber earns 25 percent of the driver’s fare, leaving fuelling and servicing to the drivers. The drivers complain the Uber fees are too steep but for those who were previously special hire drivers acknowledge that they have so much more work to do than they used to previously.

For the car owners the trick is obviously to use the most fuel efficient car possible – the Platz, Bitz, Spacio and Raum are the best they say. For the drivers too it’s a game of strategy – what time to operate and where to be, to maximise work and benefit from company incentives. I learnt that after doing 40 rides a week they are entitled to incentive fees over and above what they earn from their passengers.

"How is the company able to keep fares so low? Obviously it helps that it does not have to manage a huge fleet – easily dozens of uber cars are criss crossing the city at any time of the day or night, drivers are paid according to how much they work so there are no wasted labour costs and their office an unassuming space in industrial area means those fixed costs are minimised. I imagine the major expense would be the software that bring sit all together...

Interestingly drivers are rated by their passengers and this could mean the difference between staying on as an Uber driver or not. On a scale of one-to-five if the driver falls below 4.4 average he can find himself locked out of the system, his service terminated.

The drivers too rate their passengers. The better your rating the more likely you will have little trouble drivers responding to your requests for a ride.

"On the one hand Uber allows drivers to link into a huge network of clients they would never have been able to build as independent operators. Foreign visitors to Uganda can use their Uber app to hail cabs here, so to speak...

The service has been in Kampala for about a year and it maybe early days to tell whether it is a viable model for this market. But it has worked in about 400 cities all over the world there should not be a reason why it cannot work here.

It is a harbinger of things to come not only for the transport industry but for business generally in Uganda, linked to the proliferation of ICT and more crucially the growing significance of data.

The Economist last week made the point that, “Data are to this century what oil was to the last one: a driver of growth and change. Flows of data have created new infrastructure, new businesses, new monopolies, new politics and—crucially—new economics. Digital information is unlike any previous resource; it is extracted, refined, valued, bought and sold in different ways.”

The World Economic Forum (WEF) in projecting into the future of shopping, reported that  your regular supermarket will know your common purchases and have them delivered to your door step on a regular basis, its shelves will be stacked automatically, you will need not pay at the counter but an automatic debit to your account will be effected as you leave the store and for some items £D printers will generate them as soon as you order.

This is without factoring in that in the next decade or so more than half our shopping will be done online.

"If you are a businessman looking to the future these and many other trends surrounding data mean that one, your major expense will no longer be payroll but ICT; secondly that the sooner you adopt these new technologies either through your own resources but most likely by partnering with the generators of the technology is the longer you will remain relevant rather than be shunted to the side as the competition passes you by...

To compete maybe futile. It’s already happening. We are bypassing older supply chains and ordering our books, clothes, electronics, cars and even food online.

This will invariably increase economic activity because making purchases will be so much more convenient. The missing link in Uganda so far is to bring the credit market to interact with these new possibilities in commerce.

Last year it was reported that all mobile money platforms had a turnover of sh44trillion shillings or about half the GDP of Uganda and more than the national budget. A lot of this money was store away under our mattresses, in our socks or in our bras, now finds its way into the formal financial sector, and will have far reaching effects for the economy.

But if the local businessman is having to face existential questions spare a thought for the worker of future.

"The rule of the thumb seems to be on a scale where manual labour is on one side and knowledge work on the other, the more your work is manual than knowledge based is the extent to which that role will soon be extinct....

A few weeks ago Jack Ma, Founder of Ali Baba, one of the world’s largest online stores, said Artificial Intelligence (AI) – where computers use data to make human like decisions, will be disruptive and cause a lot of pain but the general economy, hopefully our general standard of living will be better for it.

Who knows I may not even need to own my own car in the future and be better off anyway!

TRUMP AND THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOCRACY

US President Donald Trump dominated headlines this week with the sacking of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) director James Comey.

The sacking raised more than a few eyebrows since traditionally the FBI director normally see his ten year term through -- Comey was appointed in 2013. The move was widely viewed as suspicious, bordering on ridiculous given that the FBI was investigating alleged ties between Trump’s associates and Russia. A tricky investigation since there are suggestions that Russian backed hackers interfered with Hillary Clinton’s campaign and may very well have handed Trump the White House.

This latest move makes it look like Trump has something to hide.

Watching this whole saga and its run up from afar, it was interesting to see how commentators were struggling not to bite their tongues. Were similar events happening in Uganda, they would be quick to call Trump’s electoral victory rigged, the word dictator would be used liberally in describing the 45^th president of the USA, there would be hysterical calls for a national dialogue to heal a deeply divided nation and they would be calling for sanctions, suspension of aid and even regime change...

But It is as if the cat has got their tongues. They have refused to call a spade a spade or at least use the same standards to judge their own as they judge Africa’s leaders. The moral high ground has been lost – at least for now.

But more importantly the events in America show that democracy is an evolutionary process. And that the progress of that process is dependant more on the goodwill of the people and their leaders than the laws and legislation in place.

And secondly and relatedly it, democracy, is in a constant state of ebb and flow depending on the circumstances and players on the scene. As a result it cannot be one size fits all. That the basic tenets that support a democratic society emerge as people and societies interact and because of differences in time and place will develop differently.

So it makes little sense to insist that this country or that live up to a standard evolved in another land or hold up any one country as a paragon of democratic virtue.

Trump has shown that an individual can bully – or attempt to bully, the establishment in total disregard of the law or tradition, but the ability of the judiciary and legislature to hold Trump in check is something to watch.

Indications are that the Trump administration will test the paraphrased wisdom that it takes 200 years to build a democracy and five minutes to destroy.

The Americans and understandably so, will argue that their democracy has withstood much greater pressures and will do so again, and even come out stronger than ever.

But one has got to wonder whether with a process that delivered an outsider to the White House, foreign interests keen to subvert the same process and an electorate determined and willing to hold the Washington establishment to account, one has to believe that Trump heralds a shift in the country’s politics for better or for worse.

"For the rest of us looking on the knee jerk reaction maybe to dig in. To roll back democratic gains and try and put the brakes on the momentum towards further democratisation. That wold be ill advised even stupid...

A global momentum towards devolution and away from centralisation of power is underway. This is aided by improvements and accessibility to better communication technology.

This means the traditional power centres in government, media and other places are coming increasingly under siege and are falling before a determined but diffused attack from all angles.

The smart thing to do is to recognise that the good old days are dead and buried and embrace a new reality where there is a very really possibility for the first time in history of government of the people, by the people and for the people.

THE TALE OF THE BUSINESSMAN AND THE BUSINESSWOMAN

I had not seen him in close to a year. It turned out his business – a printery, was being adversely affected by the economy, just like any other business in town. It was his first beer in months and it was nothing to do with Lenten period.

He reported he was coming out of a very difficult restructuring of his business, which on several occasions during eth last year had been on the verge of going under. He had terminated staff, improved his costing procedures, renegotiated his rent, shed marginal clients and got an equity partner. He could now see light at the end of the tunnel but only just.

We remembered a time when Mr J, was flying high, when his business was throwing off cash like it was going out of fashion, as contracts flowed into the business effortlessly. He could do no wrong in the business.

"Mr J remembered those days fondly. Money had seemed like an infinite resource. He shuddered to think of all the money he took out of the business to holiday around the country, buy new shoes (his major indulgence), phones and cars. He even sheepishly admitted that some of the loans he contracted from the bank he diverted to his high living, after all he used to argue, “You can eat the profit before or after the project”....

In hindsight he recognises that his cost discipline was non-existent. That he was not building the company for the hard times that inevitably come along. He was operating as if the good times would always be around.

In sharp contrast to our friend was Ms D. She started a catering service in her early job life almost two decades ago. Initially it catered to parties and special occasions on weekends. She soon built her capacity to serve five days a week. She now owns a restaurant in an addition to an ever growing outdoor catering service.

We see her around. She has never fallen off the radar. Partly because of the nature of her business but also because she has not been going through a restructuring her business like Mr J.

She has always run a tight ship. Keeping costs to a bare minimum. Only until recently the car that ferried food around to her clients also served as her personal car. Whenever the needs of the business and her own needs clashed the business always won. She refuses to say, but going by her income tax bill for last year she is easily turning over a few hundreds of millions of shillings.

Ms D has a healthy paranoia. She knows that the bad times will always come so she is making hay while the sun shines.

It helps that she is in an industry that will always be in demand – people have to eat. But it is also testament to prudent management style and her respect for the money she makes. She has a saver mentality and is clearly a business builder – taking every opportunity to build her business rather than have a blast.

"She acknowledges too that the economy has thrown speed bumps in the way of her progress, estimating she would probably have had a second restaurant by now had it not been for the slowdown. But despite that the business is growing, she is meeting her obligations and she is free of panic....

My friend with an MBA who has business theory flowing out his every orifice, says the difference is that Ms D thinks more strategically than Mr J.

In practical terms this means that Ms J focuses on building her balance sheet, which has ensured her durability but Mr J is forever seduced by his Profit & Loss statement, where in the good days he would appropriate more and more of his business income to his personal use, retaining little money in the business.

All businessmen know that they are supposed to operate like Ms D rather than Mr D, but heir baser instincts take over, making us put more priority in the present than the future.

In between sips of his black label Mr MBA said that Mr J’s lack of strategic thinking has cost him a share and full control of his business, while Ms D still has free rein to build the business of her dreams.

Mr MBA postulates that assuming all things remaining constant Ms J will be a lot wealthier in the medium to long term even if the asset base of Mr D’s business is currently much larger than the restaurateur.

"As a final note of their differing fortunes, as Mr J has had to downgrade from his Mercedes G-Wagon, Ms D is signing off on the architectural plans for her new restaurant, which will be the fulfillment of her dream to own her own place...

“You will know who was swimming naked when the tide goes out,” Warren Buffett.

THE MINIMUM WAGE AND THE JUMP IN UGANDA MPS PAY

Last weekend the Saturday Vision reported allowances to parliamentarians would rise to sh330b next with the reintroduction of the constituency development allowance.

Going by budget estimates this is more than the money ear marked for all the 14 referral hospitals in the country.

This comparison is important in discussing why the economy is stuttering along.

"There only two ways to utilise money, either for consumption or for investment. If you consume all your money you are doomed to poverty but if you invest some of it chances are you will be wealthy in future or at least attain financial independence...

Investment is committing money with the hope of a return in the future. Financial freedom occurs when the returns from your investments are enough to cover your expenses, as opposed to financial independence when you work for a living and your earnings cover your expenses.

This can be extrapolated from the personal to the national level.

You can tell which countries have a bright future by looking at their budgets, judging each expense on whether it is an investment or consumption.

Expenditure on health is an investment. By keeping populations healthy you ensure reduced down time in the workforce due to illness – personal or family. One way of ensuring productivity, output per worker is optimised.

The same cannot be said for parliaments wherever they are. In our case our parliament is too big for our own needs, exacerbating the inefficiency of funnelling money to it. MPs argue that their value is in keeping government in check but we don’t need 446 MPs to do that, a quarter the number would do just fine. The payments to MPs can be counted as consumption and even if they actually invested much of their income the effect on the general economy cannot be compared to the benefit of keeping the hundreds of thousands of Ugandans who use our referral hospitals alive and well.

The difference between the wealthy man and the rest is that he invests an increasing proportion of his income. It is really that simple. It is not easy because investment presupposes delaying one’s gratification to a later date.

"In effect what our MPs are doing is refusing to delay their gratification. Because if we had a more productive population the economy would grow and the MPs pay would rise as well. Of course most of them will not be in the house in ten years to come, when investments made today may begin to bear fruit, so one sees why they are clamouring at the trough. What happened to “For God and my country”?...

But again to expect them to think long term, even despite the more likely short tenure in the house, is to ask too much. As a nation we have a saving rate of just about 13 percent compared to a sub-Saharan average of 20 percent and a world average of about 25 percent.

So it’s a bit much to expect that our MPs as soon as they take the vow will suddenly be transfigured from consumers they are to investment machines. Which goes to show that it is not money that makes you rich – they are among the highest paid “workers” in the country, but how one thinks.

By extension the development trajectory of a country is reflected in the mentality of the nation as represented by our political elite and how they budget for us.

But also this week the labour unions announced that a minimum wage is soon to be announced by government. There was no official communication to that effect. The remnants of our trade unions have been crying out for a minimum wage, interchangeably referred to as a living wage, for the last three decades. These calls have been thwarted by a combined effort of the employers – for obvious reasons and government, which has argued that setting a floor on wages would discourage investors.

"This is scary because it means that the unproductive sectors of our economy, read the MPs, have a stronger bargaining power with the government than the workers....

We need to think about that.

AFRICA'S INDUSTRIALISATION & PROSPERITY

BOOK: AFRICA’S INDUSTRIALISATION & PROSPERITY

AUTHOR: DAVID SSEPPUUYA

PP: 386 PAGES

AVAILABLE AT ALL MAJOR BOOKSHOPS

A few years ago people begun to seat up and take notice of Africa. Previously seen as a basket case bedevilled by poverty, disease and war, the coincidence of improving economic management, high commodity prices and the and a promised demographic dividend as the continent’s young population come of age, led to the birth of the tag line “Africa rising”.

The initial optimism has died down as deeper issues surrounding the continent’s politics and structural deficiencies in the economy, have shown that while there is still cause for optimism, the initial positivity may have been overdone.

It is against this background that journalist David Sseppuuya wrote this book, a credible attempt to see the continent for what it is, how it got here and what its future prospects are.

"The constant theme throughout the book is the huge deficiencies the continent suffers, be it from capital mobilisation or human resource capacity or even in land issues, be it convoluted tenure systems or the declining fertility or the general inefficiency of its use....

Sseppuuya, while referring to an admirable bibliography as wide in scope as it is deep, draws parallels and divergencies with other development models, coming quickly to the conclusion that industrialisation – the adding of value to our natural endowments, is  the future.

For students of development this is an obvious conclusion and while the continent’s leaders have talked about it, there seems to have been a disconnect between the appreciation and the implementation of industrialisation.

Sseppuuya has some suggestions of why this is so, not least because politicians since independence have placed too much emphasis – in his view, on promoting agriculture.

The author suggests that this focus has seen the continent, stuck in recurring loop as supplier of raw materials to more advanced economies, led to deteriorating terms of trade and a perpetuation of rural poverty.

While in other parts he acknowledges the south East Asian nations’ evolution from agriculture to light industry to heavy industry and now to services, and how by raising agricultural productivity they became food self-sufficient but also saved critical hard currency, that would have gone to food importation, for Africa he argues that we need not follow the same cycle.

He argues that returns from agriculture are not enough to lift the millions of Africans out of poverty nor vault the continent into a 21^st century economy. Focussing on agriculture will only serve to maintain the continent’s rural texture, counterproductive because urbanisation has been a major driver of development wherever it has happened.

He points to the fact that while up to 70 percent of people derive a livelihood from the land but only account for only 30 percent of economic output, as an indication that it is an “economic dead end”.

Students of development will most likely disagree with Sseppuuya’s views on agriculture and may even see this as the major shortcoming of the book, but it is only a chapter in the book and there is much else to commend about the book.

His expose of what ails our neighbour the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), examination of the short coming of the Structural Adjustment Programs of the 1980s and the inadequacies of our education system alone are worth the books steep cover price of sh70,000.

He draws important linkages between the major era’s of Africa’s existence—the slave trade, colonialism and post-independence. This back and forth treatment of the subject, with easy to read anecdotal evidence to support his findings makes the book an enjoyable read by anyone with half an interest in understanding the continent.

Sseppuuya, who has consulted with the World Bank in Tanzania and Uganda and done work with Bank of Uganda, has been privy to how the people at the center of driving the continent’s agenda think and work, liberally peppering the text with some of these insights.

"As a citizen of the continent, having lived through Uganda’s most harrowing times and using the testimony of the everyday man, he then draws a bridge between the theory and its very real implications. The conclusion oftentimes is that the prescriptions have delivered results so wide off the mark as to wonder about the real motives of development set....

Many people have tackled this very subject and Sseppuuya’s extensive reference to studies from as far back as the 19^th century to the present lends the book a gravitas that is hard to ignore. It is a useful addition to the discussion on development and will serve as useful rallying call for us to at least learn from our history.

THE UGANDA CRIME WAVE.... IT'S THE ECONOMY

This week a group of suspects were paraded by the police as responsible for the wave of the wave of violent robberies that have plagued Kampala suburbs and parts of the Masaka area.

The suspects’ testimonials suggested that they did what they did to earn a living. Hired by organised groups, housed in the city and unleashed on an unsuspecting population to wreak havoc and sow terror.

Police boss General Kale Kayihura said while he was aware that parading them was stretching the law he needed to assure the victims and potential targets of these crimes that the police force is working to resolve the issue.

You may frown at Kayihura’s methods, even throw the book at him, but looking at it from his point of view, an erosion of confidence will make the police work that more difficult. It was a confidence building exercise.

But it served too, to send shivers down our spines. That there is even the existence of thugs-for-hire rings, with suggested connivance of the police and even city businessmen, is enough to ensure you sleep with one eye open...

Below the surface though is the reality that the economy has not be creating enough jobs to absorb the hundreds of thousands of youth coming into the job market annually. As if that is not enough the current hard economic times means that their benefactors are finding it hard to make ends meet leave alone feed and clothe these able bodied men and women.

Jobless, without income and with the low self-esteem that comes with that it should come as no surprise that for a few shillings they would be game for anything, even a little smash-and-grab on the odd night.

That coupled with a society which condones corruption at every level, means that the moral judgements that may have overrode their baser instincts are non-existent. Not very jobless, hungry youth takes up the bait to join a criminal gang. But for how long will be it until the hunger in their bellies revolts against moral sense and they join a growing bandwagon?

The truth is that in the last three decades or so while infant mortality has dropped, life expectancy has risen, we are increasingly younger population on average. Because job creation is not keeping pace with the new entrants into the work place we have a situation where more and more people are dependent on fewer people for a livelihood.

"There is a vicious cycle at play here. We cannot create jobs because companies are not growing. Companies are not growing because there is no market for increased production. There is no market because on average our incomes are not rising. They are not rising because more and more of us are finding ourselves out of work...

We need some quick gains in the short term and more sustainable long term solutions.

Current programs like the Social Assistance Grants for Empowerment (SAGE) program, where the elderly in some parts are getting some monthly stipend, could be a useful stop gap measure. Whereas government doling out monies to any group of people has its critics, if done properly as a stop gap measure to get those who can get back on their feet, it can be useful in creating some demand and even jumpstarting some small enterprises.

Whichever way you look at it this a much better use of government resources than the current plunder by a select few who squander it on foreign holidays and ostentatious living. Which is why corruption is at the center of our problems.

The youth livelihood initiatives too, if shepherded well can in the short to medium term, help create an army of job creators rather than job seekers.

"On a macro level government needs to focus all its energies on creating jobs. For starters they should start monitoring statistics on the net jobs being created in the economy on a monthly basis like more developed economies...

This is important because what one focuses on expands. And we are not talking about government creating jobs, but creating the enabling environment to allow businesses to start and thrive by removing the red tape in registration and licensing processes, enhancing infrastructure – both soft and physical and fighting corruption more determinedly.

The solution to youth unemployment is simple but it is not easy to execute. Some hard decisions will have to be made in coming weeks, months and years if we are to combat unemployment and maintain national stability.