IT STARTS WITH THE ECONOMY

Last week riots broke out in several towns around the country in reaction to the arrest of presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine.

The security forces’ response was quick and decisive. At the time of writing this the death toll was placed at, at least 30 people. This action came up against a lot of criticism and hair pulling.

Why do the police use live ammunition against civilians? I have my thoughts on that but that is not the subject of today.

What interests me is, who are these people – almost always young and male, who are ready to risk life and limb against armed security agents?

In 2009, a decade ago, Wakiso district chairman Ian Kyeyune came against these same kind of people.

Disgruntled at the state of the Busabala road, by then a murram track that was responsible for the red hue of the houses, cars and clothes on the washing line in the area, they summoned the good man to come explain.

His smooth tongue counted for nothing, as an angry mob forced him to seat in the middle of the road and proceeded to cover him in murram from the same road.

I commented at the time that a revolution was afoot.

"Revolutions are not sparked by lack, but more by failed expectations.

People can remain in poverty for a long time as long as they see they have enough company in their misery. Things go south when people can’t work out why they are wallowing in poverty while others are wheezing around in fuel guzzlers, living five figure tabs at the bar (even if there is a curfew) and holidaying like Corona is a myth.

We are talking about income and wealth disparities.

The widening of these is what triggers the violence, wherever you look in the world.

"Economic disparities within a country are an indictment on the ruling class, especially in a situation where the economy is growing....

It means the politicians have failed to convert the growing economy into equitable distribution of the ensuing wealth that was created.

Distributing the growth is simple, but not easy. That is assuming you have mustered how to grow the economy, which our planners seem to be able to do even in their sleep, going by the record of the last three decades.

This is what we know about growing the economy. 

You shift production of goods and services into private hands. And work to create an enabling environment for businessmen to thrive – provide security, lower inflation, stabilise the currency and build infrastructure to facilitate business.

What we have struggled with, is  distributing this economic growth. As it is now it is concentrated among the urban elite, who went to school to a high level and have ingratiated themselves with the ruling class – directly or indirectly.

We have done it before. The ruling class climbed from rural poor backgrounds or are one generation removed from rural poverty.

They managed to ascend to their exalted positions by sticking it out, braving the ten kilometer-plus walk to school – unlike their contemporaries and not succumbing to debilitating disease – mostly by the grace of God. These two alone set them up to take advantage of post independence opportunities that their rural cousins couldn’t.

Understandably, the first post-independence government was dealing with much fewer people or educating fewer students – there were 300 students in A-level at independence.

"We have committed ourselves to mass education and health service provision. What that means is that our little resources are being spread very thin – doing a little of every thing and not much of anything....

In this context two things have to happen, simultaneously, we have to increase our revenues and plug the leaks – stop corruption.

In the last decade or so the government has gone on a massive infrastructure building spree and this is beginning to pay off. But given the existing infrastructural deficiencies it is too soon for government to rest on its laurels. In road construction, power infrastructure and rail transport, we have to invest at least twice as much as we have over the last three decades to stimulate private enterprise to a point where revenues to finance social services can begin to make sense.

There has to be a major commitnent to fight corruption. Not only by government – stop giving pride of place to thieves in church, at weddings and at your babies’ baptism.

Because with corruption continuing to run rampant the infrastructure projects wouldn’t be done, but more importantly in the context of recent events, will concentrate wealth in fewer hands to the detriment of the millions.

Which brings us back to our rioters. Assuming he has a subpar education and work hard as he might on odd jobs and hawking, is barely putting a shirt on his back or roofing, leave alone feeding himself and cannot see any hope at the end of the tunnel and yet he lives in the same town as the more affluent. It will not take long before he makes a connection, however tenuous, between his afflictions and the “unexplained” wealth of the middle class...

And so when some unrest – choreographed or otherwise, erupts it will find in our disaffected youth, a useful fuse for the time bomb.

When Lee Kuan Yew and his contemporaries took power in Singapore after independence, they made the analysis that ruling parties tend to lose in the capitals. For them to hang on to power they needed to deliver services effectively and efficiently as a way to ingratiate themselves with the population. And ensure their stay in power.

They embraced the private sector and used the taxes to improve security, infrastructure and social services.

"They also embarked on a plan to enable widespread home ownership.

One of the spinoffs of this latter initiative is that protests against the government became more benign...

You are not going to go around wrecking property when you know you have a house of your own.

RADIOS FOR EDUCATION – HERE WE GO AGAIN

Last week the parliamentary budget committee visited one of the bidders for the sh336.8b contract to supply nine million radios to school going children.

Government has decided, because of the uncertainity surrounding Covid-19 and when schools will resume normal operations, to procure radios so children can keep up with their classes at home.

School children have been out of school since the end of March. Candidate classes returned to school last month. Government has not said when the other children will return to class.

Under the plan government will source five million sets locally and four million will be imported in equal lots in December and January.

 It was reported that the visiting parliamentary committee found that Orion Transformers & Electronics did not have the capacity to produce the radios locally, and that the sample radios they had used to bid for the tender were imported from China.

"The usual suspects jumped on the story as an indicator that Orion was not fit for the job....

It is at times like this that one doesn’t know whether to cry or laugh.

To begin with there are 15 bidders for the contract, so it is curious why the parliamentary committee visited Orion.

Especially since the bid has not been awarded yet.

It is true that government has applied for a sh336.8b supplementary allocation to finance the deal so the MPs are within their rights to scrutinise the deal. It is already bad enough that the MPs are inserting themselves in the process, be that as it is, wouldn’t the prudent thing then be to visit all 15 bidding companies and then come out with a report? Why single out one company?

"I know the ways of parliament are not the ways of us mere mortals, but one has got to wonder what this is about....

To simplify, imagine your local district has called for bids to supply  maize flour to the local schools. You hand in your bid along with 14 other bidders, but before the bid has been awarded the district council comes to inspect your mill and whether you meet the requirements. Note that they are not part of the procurement process. Secondly they are visiting only your mill. What are you supposed to think of that? Especially after that casual inspection they announce to the press you are not competent to fulfill the contract.

According to reports the contract stipulates that the radios are supposed to be delivered within 60 – 90 days of the contracts signing. The locally procured radios are supposed to be procured at just over sh37,000 a unit.

But who are Orion Transformers & Electronics anyway?

A cursory look over the net will show that Orion Transformers & Electronics has been in operation in Uganda for eight years. It has been supplying transformers and maintaining electrical installations for such companies as Uganda Electricity Distribution Company (UEDCL), Umeme, Electromaxx Ug Ltd and Kalangala Infrastructure Services.

As to their capacity to build the required radios the company has issued a statement in which they have said they have the capacity in place to produce 200,000 radios a day with production lines at Namanve and Nyanama. And this is ahead of further scaling up of their operation if the deal comes through.

Besides, were they in danger of failing to come good on the contract then they will lose the sh3b bid bond they have put in as well a sh30b performance bond they have to provide on execution of the contract.

But that is neither here nor there and immaterial to the argument here.

We need to aim at being a rule and law based country. We can not advertise one set of rules and then run rough shod of them at a whim. That is the easiest way to scare away investors – both local and foreign. Capital is a coward. It will settle for lower returns in a predictable environment than higher returns in a riskier environment. It owes us no favours.

While parliament is supposed to provide oversight of government, there is a time and place to do that and it is not in the middle of a bid process whatever their feelings maybe about a deal.

As stated earlier government has put in a request for additional funding to finance the radio deal.

"It has been reported that the MPs think the deal is flawed in conception and execution, and it is therefore their right to investigate the process, but common sense should suggest that they can not go and start knocking out bidders selectively.... 

By doing this they have appropriated the role of the relevant procurement department contrary to the law, a law they wrote into effect.

Looking from the outside you have to wonder what is going on and hence be at a loss of whether to laugh or cry, at this state of affairs.

VICTORY MEANS DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE

Contestants John Katumba and Willy Mayambala provided some comic relief to a presidential campaign that so far flatters to deceive. 

The Covid-19 overhang means crowds can’t or won’t turn up to support their candidates stealing the thunder from what was potentially going to be an explosive contest.

The two afore mentioned candidates, the youngest in the 11 person field, discovered to their shock that the car provided by the Electoral Commission is only for the security details – each candidate is supposed to sort out their own transport needs. One of them, not two days into the campaign couldn’t feed his security detail. While another was feted when he walked into a Kampal arcade to have his mobile phone screen fixed.

While funny these events bring into sharp relief the issues of political victory. 

"For the guerilla fighter if you survive to see the next day, that is victory....

Handicapping the field we can say, this is President Yoweri Museveni’s race to lose. Robert Kyagulanyi will provide a few flashes of brilliance and while he is  firing up his base with hope of eventual victory, the more realistic goal is that his National Unity Platform (NUP) gets the most MPs in parliament of any opposition party to lead the opposition. 

For more established campaigners like Mugisha Muntu, Norbert Mao, Henry Tumukunde and Patrick Oboi Amuriat the best they can hope for is increasing their name recognition, to set them up for future campaigns and to increase the visibility of their parties, again ahead of future elections.

Going by past performance and name recognition --- or lack of thereof, the rest are really just making up the numbers.

None of this is a bad thing.

There can only be one winner and all 11 contestants know it. For the sake of their sanity the rest have to recalibrate  what victory means to them.

Beyond gunning for absolute victory, increasing influence in the house, setting up for future elections, there maybe a case for a candidate or candidates who run to highlight a particular issue. The benefit of the presidential campaigns is that over the 65 days of the campaign one can criss cross the length and breadth of this nation and talk to anyone willing to listen about their pet subject.

The front runners on their part will be trying to be all things to all men, but a fringe candidate can focus on a  topic or handful of topics diverting little from their central theme for the next two months.

In a democratic society this is a good thing. In the US we had for along time Ralf Nader, turning up every four years to bat for environmental issues. In the UK there are parties pushing the self rule of the regions cause – their finest hour came with Brexit. And in any number of established democracies their small parties throwing their hats in to the race to front one  peripheral issue or the other. And some are rewarded for their doggedness and persistence, albeit after years of straining at the bit.

"While people may not waste their votes on these outliers, a message is often wedged in our subconcious and can end up ricochetting around our heads, eventually gaining traction – and who knows, in a few years or decades become a mainstream issue....

And why not? When democracies took their first tentative steps decades ago the main parties were the conservative ones, often fronting the interests of the landed gentry. The industrial revolution came along and labour issues came to the fore, it too was a fringe issue at one time.

What is needed, and it will take time, is for  the candidates fronting these seemingly sideline issues, to  cobble a coherent message, articulate it better and maintain consistency over the long haul.

So

"While Katumba and Mayambala may seem  like the  trick ponies of this race, spare an ear for their message, however outlandish it may seem now....

Who knows, one day in the future we will nod knowingly when we remember that this is what Katumba/Mayambala was talking about in 2020.

pbusharizi@newvision.co.ug 

Twitter @pbusharizi

THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IS HERE

A fortnight ago the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) National Taskforce presented to the public a draft strategy, the broad strokes of how Uganda is going to situate itself in this new phenomenon.

The first industrial revolution saw the shift away from animal and manual power to the use of fossil fuels for energy and mechanical power. Electricity heralded the second industrial revolution. We are easing out of the third revolution where digitisation and internet connectivity have been its main features. The fourth industrial revolution is seeing the combination of virtual, physical and biology interactions facilitated by technology.

Looking down the ages  we can see that the duration between industrial revolutions are becoming much shorter, with each revolution increasing human productivity dramatically.

The difference between how far one can go on bicycle as compared to riding in a car not only  compressed distances but time itself. Or the difference in output between having a computer connected to the net and juggling a typewriter, calculator and making regular runs to a physical library.

The fourth industrial revolution, with its advances in cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence, blockchain technologies, 3D printing, autonomous vehicles   and biotechnologies is going to dramatically – is already, changing the way we produce, distribute and consume goods and services.

"The wide application of these technologies, as will inevitably happen is set to increase our productivity exponentially to the point that futurists envisage a time when machines will do all the work and we will be paid to just seat around....

As incredible as that sounds, as recently as the 1980s the idea of wireless telephony, driverless cars and 3D printing were the stuff of sci-fi novels and movies.

But just as the potential of this new revolution is hard to wrap ones mind around its also true that the early adopters will have a head start on everybody else, with real ramifications for global and local wealth distribution, security and natural resource usage and regeneration.

It was therefore inspired thinking when Uganda launched its 4IR taskforce to look into how Uganda can proactively take advantage of this new revolution.

Over about a year the taskforce chaired by John Nasasira, himself a former ICT minster and peopled by members from government, academia and the private sector have turned the subject upside down and come up with a strategy which will help Uganda get ahead on the subject.

"The opportunities identified include increasing agricultural productivity, boosting human capital development, supporting urbanisation and governance and bridging other development deficiencies...

Its an elegant document that spells what and where the opportunities are, how we can set up to take advantage and the agencies that will lead the charge into the brave new world.

Its value will be in how much the government will adopt and operationalise the strategy.

To illustrate, if we had comparable document going into the ICT era the government would not have stumbled over issues of taxing computers and mobile phones, would have been better prepared to create an enabling environment which allows us to take maximum advantage of ICT and even prepared us better for 4IR.

We are not the worst –

we have a liberalised telecommunications sector, which has seen our phone penetration increase by leaps and bounds, introduced financial services that exploded the stuffiness of the banks and increased the general productivity of the economy in the face of donor moodiness, a global financial crisis and several natural disasters.

Imagine if we had been more deliberate and systematic in appreciating and taking advantage of the digitial age? It is not a stretch to imagine we would be much better off as a country today.

To take advantage of this new era certain enablers have to be put in place – greater 4IRconnectivity, greater regulatory agility, upskilling of Ugandans, deeper eGovernment, resource mobilisation and investment promotion to attract new players.

"Contrary to popular opinion government has a good record of following through on reports it generates, only that it s does not accompany the execution with as much fanfare as they do when releasing the report....

Given the speed with which things are changing this new strategy has a short shelf life than say the report on URA or the police, so speed is of the essence in operationalising the strategy.

Nevertheless its a document that can be referred to and upgraded in coming years.

I remember more than two decades ago to get my stories to Nairobi where the Reuters office was, i had to type the stories out, slide down to the post office to send the fax and stand by the fax machine to ensure the whole story was transmitted. The process took at least an hour.

"Today not only are fax machines obsolete but off my phone I can write a story, while in motion and email, whatsapp or text it down the line, the whole process taking little more than 30 minute  or not much more than it takes to write the story...

.

In theory I can now generate at least twice as much as I used to then and for much cheaper.

I think that’s amazing. But I have to pose when I think that with proper utilisation of 4IR technologies the same story may take even a third as much time to execute.

Comparable gains can be seen in any industry. Hang on to your seats we are in for an exciting ride.

RAISE NOMINATION FEES FOR A BETTER DEMOCRACY

The week begun with the presidential nominations, the culmination of a process that begun with nominations for local governments and special interest groups.

The substance of the event was overshadowed by the manhandling of opposition leaders Robert Kyagulanyi, the National Unity Platform (NUP) candidate  and Forum for Democratic (FDC)’s Patrick Oboi Amuriat. 

Another sub plot transpired with two aspirants – Nancy Kalembe and John Katumba, failing to pay the sh20m nomination fee on their allotted day.

"They say all publicity is good publicity, hard to argue against that given the media space given to Kyagulanyi, Amuriat, Kalembe and Katumba compared to that availed more established politicians as Mugisha Muntu, Henry Tumukunde and Norbert Mao...

The nomination fees, which were raised recently, for both presidential and parliamentary aspirants has been a source of much debate.

Critics of the higher fees have argued that it was locking out the poor, who may nevertheless have good leadership potential.

More than higher education qualifications, we need to further raise the bar on presidential nomination fees to say, sh100m or even a billions shillings if we are to help our democracy along.

Nomination fees are a serious declaration of intent. They indicate that the intending candidate is not some clown off the street. That he has the capacity to mobilise funds. And yes it should serve as major criterea to weed the chaffe from the wheat. 

Ideally the fees should not be put up by the intending candidate, but by his supporters and interest groups that believe he or she  best represents their interests.

So the issue of poverty of the candidate should not arise. If the intending candidate has a serious cause to put forward, even if not a serious chance of assuming the highest office in the land, he will be able to mobilise backers who will foot the bill.

It is the reason that Donald Trump will have fundraisers for his campaigns despite his claims to being a billionaire.

So if you raise the nomination fees, while you will have a smaller pool of intending candidates, you will have more credible backers for our candidates. Backers who are not looking to throw their money away but hoping to make an impression in the campaigns. That their agenda will get enough airplay to be taken seriously  by whoever is the winner, if it is not their own candidate.

And what kind of backers will these be? Major players in the economy – farmers, industrialists, traders and real estate moguls. They will be sponsoring candidates to front their issues, which issues will benefit the larger community as well. 

"We keep complaining that we want an issue based campaign but since almost any Tom, Dick and Harry can be a candidate, in a country where the biggest issue is development, its only personalities that  will distinguish candidates....

One of the reasons our democracy is limping along, is because we don’t have parties, strong institutions with distinctive agendas, whose issues distinguish them from each other and are identifiable by the voters for the issues they espouse.

Raising nomination fees will force parties to be more coherent in their agendas, which when they present to financial backers will give them cause to open the purse strings.

"With one fell swoop we will have eliminated adventurers looking to catch the eye of the president, careerists looking to pad their CVs or good for nothing chartalans....

While politics is too important to be left to politicians, their should be a process of graduation up the ranks. You have to wonder about someone who has not even been on the village LC vaulting to contest for the presidency.

We have come to this situation thanks to the NRM decades long project to dominate the political space.

When they rolled into Kampala in 1986, while a formidable fighting force they were thin on the ground politically. By suspending party activity and promoting politics by individual merit, they tore up the vetting mechanisms that come with a multi party system.

"Allowing independent candidates, while a human right, serves to  short circuit the building of political institutions by frustrating party discipline....

Raising a billion shillings for your party flag bearer for the presidency or sh100m for parliamentary aspirants will force parties to focus on building their structures and whip their members into line.

There will be some grumbling – we are now too wed to individual merit system, but in the long term it will be good for democracy – and spare us the circus on nomination day, which may even be shortened to a few hours event, that wont disrupt hard working members of society ability to go about their business too long.

UGANDA HOTELS NEED HELP!

Last week on a whirlwind trip around Uganda, I had the pleasure – and sometimes the displeasure, to test the best and worst of Uganda’s hospitality industry.

It was sad to see investments worth billions failing to live up to their  full potential just because the bathrooms are designed badly or the receptionist is working like they are doing patrons a favour or you can not locate an establishment on google maps. That last one may sound funny, but the promoters of establishments need to realise we are past stopping on the road to ask a random bicyclist, laden with sugar cane, the way to such-and-such place. Guys?!

There was a lot of good to report from Jinja to Lira and from Mbale to Fort Portal but I think the industry will be better served by a how-not-to list, so here goes.

1. Get your google location, right

It is not funny when at the tail end of your journey the google maps sends you  10 km out of town and then announces in that tinlike voice “You have arrived. Your destination is on the right” where there is only a grass field and brick kiln.

The days of making the best mouse trap and people will make a beaten path to your door are gone. You have committed millions shillings on an investment, it is the height of negligence not to have information – accurate and attractive, out there so that people can find you where you say you are.

In relation with that what is it with pictures of shower faucets, tiled floors and light bulbs on your websites?

The way the trip was designed given the covid depression in the industry, there was no real need to book ahead, just outside every town we checked to see what was available. Believe it or not that is the way people travel these days,  referencing online sources, believing client appraisals and judging by the nature of material you are putting out whether to patronise you or not.

So if you invested a billion on your facility the least you can do is invest a few thousands to get some well done pictures and a half decent web presence.

2. Staple a smile on the receptionist

When you have been on the road for a few hours you just want to get to your destination, clear the preliminaries, get to your room and put your feet up. In this context it does not help if the front of your operation is a grumpy receptionist, who meets every enquiry with a sneer and everything else with a resigned shrug of their shoulders.

These are hard times. Hotels have cut back on staff, rolled back the perks and are counting all the pieces of meat. We understand how there could be some hard feeling all around. But even more so now than ever, our hotels need to invest in amiable individuals to serve as the front of the operation not only at the reception but also on the phone. Our smaller, local establishments need to be making hay while the sun shines.

3. The bathroom is not a by the way

You like the room, they have a flat screen and AC, but the bathroom! It is not ok to have a shower in the same pace as the toilet in a way that you will be splashing all over the toilet seat when you are showering. It will not do that to use the sink you have to contort yourself into shapes because they just slapped the sink behind the door as an after thought.

These should be obvious but these faux pas happened enough times to realise that they may not be that obvious to our local investors.

Design aside, on a good day a normal bathroom habours millions, if not billions of germs invisible to the eye. It is not on, that you have not changed the towels, it is not on, that water does not drain properly out of the shower and it is an absolute deal breaker that you still have condoms in the waste bin!!!

4. Food! Food! Glorious Food!

In these hard times virtually no one was laying a buffet spread. It was all a la carte menus. In several places it seems they sacrificed quality in the kitchen to save a few shillings. Bad idea. We are away from home, we have to trust what you are serving – stay away from white meat if you don’t trust the cooking. I had to spit my meat out because it tasted like offals, awful. I had ordered chicken wings!! 

The kitchen will make or make your establishment, again we thought these were standard requirements but we have been disabused severally on the journey.

There are hundreds,  even thousands of small establishments dotted around the country – hotels, motels, restaurants, I am convinced you can’t lack for accommodation or a good meal anywhere in Uganda. But our poor proprietors are treating their establishments like they do their farms – a source of sustenance and not interested in maximising its full potential.

In the hospitality business all the advertising in the world counts little compared to word of mouth referrals, because eating or going to sleep in an establishment is a personal thing. For the few hours I am there i am entrusting you with my safety and good health.

The hotel proprietors of Uganda lets get the basics right – location, hospitality and food right and then we can add all the other bells and whistles later. Please!

FARE THEE WELL, COL SHABAN BANTARIZA

It has always seemed redundant to me to eulogise the dead. First of all they can’t hear all the good – never bad, things you say about them, so who are you trying to impress? Why didn’t you say those things when he/she was alive. Secondly, especially for those of high achievement,  the words rarely match up.

It is an ego trip, to let people around you know you knew the deceased – they never eulogise the lowly in society.

With that out of the way, I first met Col Shaban Bantariza in the late nineties, when I was beginning to report on the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. I called him seeking comment and he said since he had never met me it was only fair that we meet to size each other up.

He had an office in Mbuya barracks or at least that is where he asked me to meet him. I found him in a bare room except for a wooden table, two chairs and a bench. The table was bare except for a pistol that lay nonchalantly on his right. I never thought of it then until much later, I wondered “What was a pistol doing on the table?”

This was the beginning of a fruitful relationship, I would like to think for the both of us. He was always ready with a quote and I guess as the Reuters correspondent in Uganda I was useful to him in getting the perspective of the UPDF out into the world.

"He was not only always good for a quote, he understood – that’s the impression he gave me, at deeper level why the army did what it did and understood those actions in a larger political context....

One incident that I look back on with fondness and a degree of guilt, must have happened around the entrance of Zimbabwe into the DRC war, on the side of then president Laurent Kabila against Rwanda and Uganda.

Ugandan and Rwandan backed rebels in 1997 had swept across eastern Congo and overthrown Mobutu Sese Seko. However, Kabila’s attempts to wean himself off his allies caused some hard feelings and a second war begun between the erstwhile allies – Uganda and Rwanda versus Kabila.

However in September 1998 Zimbabwe threw its hat into the melee, siding with Kabila. I remember vividly the announcement that Harare was throwing its lot behind Kinshasa came on a Friday.

I called Banatriza to ask what this meant and he said something to the effect that Zimbabwe would leave its shirt and shoes in the jungles of Congo

The next day New Vision picked up the story and run it as a second lead in the Saturday Vision.

I got a call from Bantariza early that morning, “Busharizi, you have killed me,” were the first words out his mouth. He never really explained what he meant and did not claim I had misquoted or misrepresented him. After the call another call came in asking me whether Bantariza had really said those words, that’s when I thought he was in deep s**t.

Almost 20 years after the event I met  him in his new capacity as deputy chief at the Uganda Media Center. I thought enough water had gone under the bridge to ask him about that Saturday morning those many years ago. He remembered it very vividly. He laughed his hearty laugh, “You leave that one alone.”

It was testament to the man’s character that he took responsibility for what he had done and did not try to pass the buck on the subject.

On a later occasion he made me look good in the eyes of my editors.

We had shut down the Nairobi bureau for the day and decided to go and catch a beer on our way home. Several beers later a call from London came in reporting that “the competition” – Reuterspeak for other newswire services, was reporting that the UPDF had “abducted” Fr Carlos, a Spanish priest operating in northern Uganda at the h eight of the northern insurgency.  

The bureau chief said we could match the story, so we returned to the office, a few beers weighing on our heads, to try to salvage the situation. Time check 11 pm. I called Bantariza who didn’t pick the call the first time because he was nursing an injured finger. He came good on the second call and without grumbling about the time of the night, gave us the UPDF version of events. For a few days after that people at the office were in awe of me, that I could get the army’s spokesperson out of bed to comment on a story. All my attempts to give context to how that happened were waived away with the comment, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story”. 

"He gave me and several other young journalists a chance. Wet around the ears, but convinced that we knew the truth, he humoured our youthful exuberance and patiently spelt out the army version of events whenever we asked. We didn’t always agree but his accessibility and coherence ensured that the UPDF voice was always heard....

My last tale about this man who has gone too soon. On the day the results of the 2001 presidential election results were announced I called Bantariza to ask his comment. He was on the way from the airport, having just landed from Liberia where he was part of a peace keeping mission.

I started our converstion with something like, “Congratulations, your candidate has won, give me a comment?” There was a pause at the other end of the line then, “Who is my candidate?”

Rest in peace Colonel Shaban Bantariza!