IS UGANDA BECOMING A GANGSTER NATION?

There is a lot to worry about our beloved country not least of all the proliferation of “tycoons”. No sooner has one passed on or been jailed, than three others pop out of the woodwork to take their place.

This week a video went viral of one of these “tycoons” stacking up wads of notes in his bedroom. No sooner had we caught our breath, another one was being plucked out of the ceiling of his unfinished mansion. The police has put out multiple summons for him, which he had flippantly ignored (Who does that?). We have one languishing in jail in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and another in a South African prison. Another disappeared into thin air, the last we knew he was a “guest” of the Kenyan state, a status which probably still persists...

And these “tycoons” are not hard to spot. They have two defining characteristics – among others, they burn through money like they have fire in their pockets and no one knows the source of their billions.

They are good entertainment while they last but they mask an insidious trend creeping up on us, that if it plays to its logical conclusion could have far reaching and dire repercussions not only for the economy but for national stability.

In western economies, in the UK for instance, if you whipped out a $100 bill to do your shopping the shop attendant would do a double take. In economies where most of their money in circulation is in the formal financial sector, where everything can be paid for using plastic, only criminals walk around with such large denomination notes.

In Uganda our largest denomination note is the sh50,000 note, and nearly all our transactions are in cash, we will be forgiven for waving these large notes around willy nilly. But when a group of people of no known occupation start using wads of notes for construction and are blasé enough to show it off on social media, the conclusion can only be one.

On a moral level these ostentatious shows of wealth are misleading and demoralising. Misleading because impressionable minds, especially the youth, looking on think this is the way one should spend money and that such money is only made by “shrewd” people.

It is demoralising because honest workers, exercising brain or brawn, begin to think they must have missed a memo. They may even get distracted from their diligent work to look for the one deal that will set them on easy street like these “tycoons”. What happens when the real producers in the economy stop producing?

"Drawing from that there is a real danger that these “tycoons” are serving as the backdoor for criminal gangs to come and entrench themselves in this country. It is not by mistake that enough of them are cooling their heels in jails from China to Dubai and from Kenya to South Africa...

The nature of organised crime is that it is not content to go about its business quietly. It is keen to co-opt influencers, government officials and security agents into its nefarious ways and if given half a chance to take over whole governments in order to facilitate its nefarious ways.

In South America governments are diverting massive resources in their war against drug cartels, who have, in many instances superseded their respective governments as the law in the areas over which they lord. And from these bases they have extended their influence across borders and oceans, extending their networks and financing other networks – smuggling, human trafficking, gun running and money laundering rings, that facilitate their work.

In the 1990s Montenegro in order to circumvent EU sanctions and raise revenues, leased outs port and airstrips to smugglers. The better intentioned fashioners of this policy probably thought that when the country was back on its feet they would kick out the criminal rackets and normal service would be restored.

But no, the criminals inserted themselves in every aspect of Montenegrin life to the point that a few years ago Italy put out an arrest warrant for the then Prime minster Milo Djukanovic for his role in a cigarette smuggling ring.

The state had been hijacked by the thugs and pimps.

Uganda’s central location in the world makes it a strategic node in a potential criminal network.

In the US the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) comes knocking if you start living beyond your means. Our own URA and the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) should take more than a passing interest in these “tycoons” when they pop up.

It may be the difference between becoming a gangster nation or not, somewhere down the line.