It may be hard for one to wrap ones mind around the full extent of Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile’s contribution to the resuscitation of the Uganda economy. We may not even know the half of it.
In 1986 when the National Resistance Movement (NRM) took
over power, the economy was on its knees, it had regressed into subsistence, it
was half the size it was in 1970 in real terms and the national coffers were
empty.
"The NRM’s celebration were short lived when the reality hit
them of the enormity of the task ahead of them...
Convinced they could do it alone without help from the usual
suspects – The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in typical
guerilla fashion, they decided to make do with what they had. They centralized the
distribution of essential commodities like fuel, soap, paraffin and sugar, they
made a go of jump starting some industries and battering coffee and grain for critical
imports.
However, the laws of economics cannot be denied, as shortages
persisted and inflation shot through the roof, peaking at 240 percent, before
NRM realised their revolution was in danger of dying a still birth.
It took a night time meeting at Entebbe state house in which
Mutebile, the chief economist in the economic planning ministry and then Bank
of Uganda governor Leo Kibirango made the case for tighter government spending
to curb inflation and a liberlised economy to jump start production, for the
government to do an about face.
Following the meeting the ministries of finance and planning
were merged and Mutebile assumed the position of Permanent Secretary and
Secretary to the Treasury.
"Mutebile and his allies came out on top of an ideological battle, which on one side, argued that unlocking the individual capacities of business and Ugandans would reinvigorate the economy better than government alone could, the pragmatists, while on the other hand the idealists maintained that government should control the economy to ensure the economic independence of the country....
The idealists of course did not have Mutebile’s inside
appreciation of the state of the economy and can be forgiven for their naiveté.
As the chief technocrat in the ministry, Mutebile over saw
the liberalization of the foreign exchange market, the privatization of
parastatals, the curbing of inflation from three to single digits and helped
lay the foundation for the longest period of economic growth in the history of
Uganda.
While also at the ministry he was instrumental in seeing
millions of dollars of debt written off under the High Indebted Poor Countries
(HIPC) initiative, at the end of the last century.
While these reforms were all conditionalities for the aid
taps to flow, they made good economic sense and Mutebile’s conviction and
steady hand often made the difference between policy reversals and staying the
path of economic reform.
"His detractors were legion, but the gruff speaking economist took them all on, winning them over with the strength of his argument or leaving them in his wake to gnash their teeth in exasperation as the economy powered on from strength to strength....
In 2001 he was appointed governor of the Bank of Uganda,
already a pillar of the economic reforms but which was further galvanized to
better oversee the country’s monetary policy, by the entrance of Mutebile.
The central bank has been recognized regionally and
internationally for its stewardship of the country’s monetary policy and
banking sector and has managed to ride out several crisis of confidence. He is
the longest serving governor of the Bank of Uganda.
If there was a blindspot in his stewardship of the economy
it was the shortfall in strategic planning, that would have allowed the government
to direct the private sector to ensure more equitable growth. The private
sector is the best mechanism for creating wealth but simultaneously the worst
distributor of that same wealth. Left to its own devices the rich get richer
and the poor get poorer, widening the divide between them to unsustainable
levels.
Mutebile and his allies have argued severally that you need to
first have economic growth – wealth creation, before you can distribute it.
Be that as it may, his contribution to the economic growth of the last three or so decades is undeniable. It is inconceivable that without a turnaround of the economy, we would now be debating the nuances of development theory...
By his example and influence Mutebile mentored several
economists inside and outside government and one can expect his legacy is in
safe hands.
Mutebile was born in 1949 in the then Kigezi district. He
joined Makerere University to study politics and economics, which he failed to
complete because he dared to question the rationale of Idi Amin’s economic war.
He completed his degree at Oxford University and added to it
a Masters before returning to Uganda in the early 1980s.
Mutebile passed on in a Nairobi hospital on Sunday morning,
his health had been failing for some time.
