On Monday it went out that Kampala Capital City Authority
(KCCA) boss Jennifer Musisi had thrown in the towel.
The news was received with muted shock because it is safe to
say, that we generally knew her days were numbered from the time when it was
reported she had cost the NRM victory in Kampala in the last election. Never
mind that we would be hard pressed to remember the last time the NRM won in the
capital city.
So despite the visible improvements done on the city during
her seven year tenure and the future plans lined up, there were few if any
people publically begging Musisi to reconsider her position.
"At the bar, weddings and funerals, we nod our heads knowingly and mutter to ourselves how she was wise to leave as the forces lined up against her … Eh! Eh!
The conversation always ends in unfinished sentences.
It is very possible Musisi jumped before she was pushed for
any number of reasons. She is not an angel.
But the feeling cannot be helped that competence cannot be
tolerated wherever it raises it head in this country. And that when it does and
refuses to succumb to compromise, more drastic measures come in to play.
There are people uncomfortable with systematic ways of doing
things and would rather allow the chaos or at least ambivalence in government
processes, because they benefit from it, because they cannot operate in an
orderly environment. Probably the irritating guys who create 7 lanes in
traffic.
"This is worrying because while on a material level it means we will never get things done in this country, on a perception level, an emotional level, it creates despondency, hopelessness, a feeling that the good things are for other people and not for us...
It also perpetuates the feeling that hard work – especially
in government, is for the losers and that the way to get ahead is to dip your
fingers in the till. And when you have access turn up with a spade not a tea
spoon.
A senior official lamented recently that the younger
generations are in too much of a hurry.
They see more established people driving European luxury
vehicles and they want to have them by their second pay check. They have
developed a taste for fine wines and spirits before drinking the baser alcohols,
an important rite of passage in days gone by. They want to party abroad in the
celebrity haunts they have seen on TV, before they have toured our country.
It probably explains why we think that for Musisi seven
years at the top of the capital city is enough, never mind that she was working
to reverse decades of rot.
It is clear that though we speak passable English, wear
cheap suits and fly every so often to far off countries, we still come from a
third world country, not only in our physical environment, but in the way we do
things and in our mindsets.
The city’s comical mayor Erias Lukwago broke into song on
the news, as if to accentuate this point.
But one can see the logic.
The islands of competence make the rest of us look bad and
therefore we need to cut them down to size, so that we can all continue to
wallow in mediocrity or worse. These islands of competence raise the
expectations of all of us, in the public and private sectors.
Musisi never saw a camera she did not like and in the heat
of the moment she did not suffer fools gladly, but one cannot help feeling that
her major shortfall is that she thought she would be allowed to get the job
done.
A sad commentary on us rather than on the good lady from
Mukono.
