DRC STABILITY SHOULD NOT BE A PASSING INTEREST

Last week we were reminded, by the attack on Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School in which at least 40 people were killed, that instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) will have to be dealt with one way or another, it will not go away by itself.

For us mere mortals we wonder about the Allied Democratic forces (ADF). How do they continue to terrorise our people? Why can’t we just go into the Congo and fish them out? What is the ir problem with us?

"To answer these questions with any seriousness we probably have to go all the way back to the 19^th century, when Belgium’s King Leopold carved out the vast mass of land at the center of the continent for his personal enrichment. DRC is bigger than the European Union by land mass. DRC is almost eighty times the size of Belgium...

In the years when it was he is personal fiefdom, between 1885 and 1908, he put the natives to work in building arguably the biggest rubber planation in the world. Leopold terrorized the Congolese to ensure they met rubber production quotas including conscripting whole villages to work for him, wiping them out if they did not, mutilation, child slavery, rape and any number of depravities humans are capable of. It is estimated that up to 15 million Congolese died during the period.

Leopold did not coat his intentions with high sounding motivations like bringing civilisation to Africa. He did not think the African deserved any courtesy.

International pressure – maybe by those missing out on the Congo’s huge bounty, was used to pry the Congo from King Leopold greedy fingers and hand it over to Belgium.

It goes without saying Congo’s modernisation project got off to a less than enviable start. The Belgians like other colonialists did the bare minimum for the Congolese, focusing more on extraction of its natural endowments.

When they left in 1960, they ensured this extraction continues by putting in place lackey’s like Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu famously chided Emperor Bokassa of neighboring Central Africa Republic for building good roads in his country.

“These same roads will be used to kick you out,” Mobutu told him. Mobutu’s philosophy means that today most of DRC is unreachable by land and to get around you have to fly. DRC is easily the most connected country on the continent by air.

The net effect of this thinking is that public goods like security, justice and social services can not be delivered to the people. As a result poverty is endemic, poverty like we have no conception of in Uganda. Invariably this leads to lawlessness and insecurity...

So, its not hard to understand why Eastern DRC, more than 2000km from Kinshasa – about twice the distance from Kampala to Mombasa, is the way it is. There are dozens of militia groups running around, set up to protect areas from other militias but they in turn terrorise others for survival.

The UN have had a mission in the area for the last 20 years, which has failed spectacularly in pacifying the area. An impossible task for a handful of foreigners to do in an area the size of Buganda region.

It is useful that DRC has joined the East African Community (EAC). This could attract more investment to eastern Congo. At the bare minimum if we could open up the road infrastructure and trade can flow more seamlessly, wealth can be created for more people in that region and then we will have a real chance of stamping out lawlessness in eastern DRC.

As it is now if we were to do it by force, we would need to raise a full army or two in the area to have half a chance.

That is how history goes. In more “developed” countries they battled lawlessness and terror for centuries before a critical mass of people were created for whom peace and stability was critical. These people – middle and upper classes, had the reins of power and the ability and will to enforce the law.

Sadly, history suggests that it will get worse before it gets better. History also shows that the thing with history is that we do not learn from history.

WALKING THE TALK ON DRIVING EXPORTS

A few weeks ago our officials and businessmen trooped to the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) to announce Uganda to the newest member of the East African Community (EAC), in a series of meeting held in Goma, eastern DRC and in the capital, Kinshasa.

We would be amiss if we did not look covetously at our only western neighbour’s vast bounty of natural resources, 90 million population and $60b economy and want to position for the opportunity.

"The way we have seen opportunities go begging in Southern Sudan and even Somalia, where we have contributed in their stabilization with blood, sweat and tears, can very well be replicated in DRC. It is not automatic that because we are their neighbours and that we have historical trade links we will be the biggest beneficiaries of the entry of DRC into the EAC.

Previously government has been content to let our businessmen sink or swim in foreign lands. If there are businessmen who have made an impression abroad it has been largely due to their won effort. Hopefully with last week’s meeting in DRC government is beginning to understand what its role has to be in supporting its businessmen to make inroads in foreign markets.

This is an important discussion. With a population of under 50 million, we do not have a big enough market to support a credible industrial base that can employ our people and raise living standards all around. We need to reach beyond our markets to support our planned industries.

The EAC is a good start. But government needs to be more deliberate in helping our businessmen penetrate even our neighbour’s markets. To feed those markets our businessmen will have to expand their production capacities, which will create more jobs not only in the factories but along the whole value chain.

We need not reinvent the wheel. The South East Asians did it in the second half of the last century and are now the world’s biggest exporters, all this on a natural endowment base that does not hold a candle to our own natural endowments.

It did not happen by mistake. At the time their planners determined that they must export to survive they were plagued with the same issues are we are now poor, unskilled, fast growing populations that were a ticking political time bomb if not put to good use.

They too started by aggregating their markets, using that as a launch pad for their products into the world.

"But the more successful countries went a step further. In negotiating market access, providing transport and communication infrastructure, concessional funding to business targeting foreign market among other things....

Bringing those learning here, how would we help our businessmen penetrate the DRC market?

As part of a national strategy to promote exports first to our neighbours and then beyond, we need to look at our current capacities and target markets where our products – food, cooking oil, cement, soft drinks, beer and plastics, can find virgin markets, in our case South Sudan and Eastern DRC and facilitate trade at a policy level, which policies will inform the nature of interventions to make in the targeted markets.

 

"Government’s plan to partner with DRC in building more than 200km of road network in the east of giant central African neighbour is a good start. But it is only a start...

Eastern Congo alone is more than twice the size of Uganda. In Uganda we have about 6000 km of paved road and we are not doing well. That’s just to show how 223 km in eastern DRC is a molecule in the ocean.

They have an extensive network of airfields however, so the two governments may consider how to upgrade these for interregional travel.

What businessmen have said is key too is some sort of export guarantee scheme. The way it works is based on the reality that to promote international trade, credit has to be allowed, an export guarantee scheme would allow our exporters some relief incase their deal goes south.

The trouble our traders have suffered in South Sudan should be a lesson. This is important because once credit is allowed a lot more business can be done and our businessmen can quickly expand their market share.

In addition, we need to facilitate the collaboration with financial institutions. Carrying wads of cash around only puts our businessmen at risk and increases the chances of fraud. What is taken for granted now in travelling to better countries is that you can deposit your money in Kampala and still go and transact in Europe or Asia. We should move quickly to make this possible in eastern Congo.  Maybe we can facilitate the mobile companies to do this for starters.

Many years ago I remember enjoying a Nile Special beer in Bunia, Eastern Congo. It was a sight for sore eyes. The only problem was there wasn’t much to go around before the bar run out and the entire had run out. New supply was not expecting more stock for a week.

There probably hundreds of opportunities going begging like that today.

BOMBS ON ADF AND THE LARGER QUESTION OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION

Two weeks ago our own Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) attacked Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) bases in eastern Congo.

Reports had it that the artillery and airstrikes were concentrated on an area of about 150 square kilometers. The ADF cannot have enjoyed the experience and while news is scanty, given the area that was flattened fatalities must have run in dozens never mind casualties.

Unfortunately, the operation is open ended with no time frame set to pacify an area, mostly dense tropical forest, bigger than the whole of Uganda.

The repercussions on our budget will be negative but we have to trust that this is a sacrifice we have to make with the long term in mind.

"For starters the security threat that the ADF pose cannot be overemphasized, but even more important is the security threat of having huge lawless, ungovernable areas bordering us. If it is not the ADF it will be someone else who has evil intentions on us using the Congolese jungles as his launch pad...

It does not help that there are more than 1 hundred armed militia’s roaming the area praying on the population and one would imagine happy to sell their “expertise” to the highest bidder. The emergence of these militias is not all down to criminal intent. In an area where the state has been absent for coming to half a century people have to protect themselves and sometimes in so doing they may just decide to prey on weaker neighbours and soon there is a full scale arms race in the area. And what is to stop them one day cross our imaginary borders and attacking on Ugandans?

The sustainable thing to do is to bring the area under some kind of central control by force initially, which should have been the job of Kinshasa but more importantly by creating an environment in which economic activity can flourish.

Sustainable peace comes from interdependence. Trade is right up there as one of the best ways to create interdependence. When we have no mutual benefit to ourselves war and predation become a real possibility.

So the collaboration with the Kinshasa to improve the road network in eastern Congo is actually what we should be focused on. Any military victories will be temporary but making movement in the area easier is not only useful from a security perspective but will automatically encourage the movement of people, goods and services.

An interesting story from the Mobutu Ssese Seko era explains why DRC – larger than western Europe, has less tarmaced roads than Uganda. During a state visit to neighbouring Central African Republic, then president Jean Bedel Bokassa drove Mobutu through wide, tree lined streets to his palace. At some point Mobutu, who was supposed to be impressed by this show of development, couldn’t hold it any longer, “My friend these goods roads of yours are how you will be overthrown!” he said.

This egocentric thinking has doomed the DRC to confusion and poverty.

"As it is now DRC and mostly the eastern expanse is fast becoming Uganda’s largest trading partner accounting for up to $400 million in exports. We have seen in our own lifetimes how little tarmac can totally change the economy of neighbourhoods and regions....

The 200 km of paved road that we shall help build in the region are just a tip of what is necessary to unlock the vast potential of that region and may very well serve as a useful stimulus for our economy to rebound in coming years.

If in these times when roads are not usable year around we are doing almost half a billion dollars in trade it is conceivable that we can more than double that with the most basic of road infrastructure in place.

Improved economic activity in the area will make joining up in militias less attractive and once the communities have tasted peace and stability will be loath to support any militias.

"Of course for the DRC they have to step up. Uganda’s presence is at best temporary, we would rather have our sons and daughters back home than roaming the jungles of Congo with a target on their backs....

Which brings us to the wider question of regional integration. It starts with recognizing that our borders, really only lines on paper, do not insulate us from the poverty and underdevelopment on the other side. That shared prosperity of first border communities and then whole regions is how will keep our worst excesses from consuming us all.

If it takes a handful of disheveled types running around playing war, to quicken the cause for integration so be it.

 

 

OUR SECURITY IS TOO IMPORTANT TO BE LEFT TO THE POLICE

On the night of July 11, 2010 two bombs were set off at Kyadondo Rugby grounds and the Ethiopian Village in Kabalagala, leading to the death of 76 and injuring dozens more, in the worst terror attack in Kampala.

Six years later, then high court Judge Owiny Dollo convicted 13 people for the attacks. During the trial a conspiracy that stretched from Ahghanistan to Somalia, that roped in Kenyan and Tanzanian accomplices was uncovered.

Three bombs were meant to go off that night, but one in Makindye malfunctioned and was discovered in an abandoned bag by staff the next day. The two that went off were detonated by suspected Somali suicide bombers.

That was the last we heard about suicide bombers in Uganda, until three weeks ago when one Matovu Muzafari blew himself up and killed one other passenger, travelling in bus heading west on the Kampala-Masaka road.

"At the risk of understating the obvious, signing up to be a suicide bomber is not for the faint hearted...

. From what is known suicide bombers are often young, and their trainers have exploited some past injustice against them or their families to brainwash them into giving up their lives for a cause. So the Muzarafi incident threw up some interesting questions. Had we started breeding our own suicide bombers?

The Tuesday attacks seemed to confirm that. Seen on CCTV camera one bomber, with a backpack was seen walking past the entrance to the Central Police Station (CPS) before he is engulfed in a orange ball of flame and smoke. The second bomber was seen riding up parliament avenue towards parliament before he and his boda rider exploded.

"By definition, no one knows how a suicide bomber behaves before he presses the button. But security minster Major General Jim Muhwezi suggested the bombers may have been unknowing accomplices to the crime. Using the CPS bomber as an example Muhwezi said he was on the phone when the blast went off, his body language suggesting he was still moving on to another destination. 

In the earlier case on the bus it was reported that Muzarafi’s accomplice Nsubuga Muhammad, alighted from the bus minutes before the bomb blast. In hindsight Muzarafi may have been oblivious to his eventual mission and that Nsubuga may have detonated his bomb remotely. We will not know for sure as Nsubuga was killed soon after by security agents.

Given our experience, where suicide bombers have been the most lethal, it should bring some relief that we may not have suicide bomber cells in Uganda.

That being said, if we needed any confirmation that security issues cannot be left to the security agents, this week was it.

The attackers live among us and they can attack at any time of the day or night. It may be added that previous bob attacks were during the night but possibly because the curfew restrictions the bombers have decided there are not enough targets at night.

Now not only should be on the lookout for luggage left unattended but also for unusual behavior from our neighbours and desist from helping carrying unknown luggage around.

The village councils need to be reactivated. They need know who all the residents in their areas are, where there have come from and other relevant details.

"The point is personal vigilance is more important than ever. The war is being brought to our doorsteps...

The police are pointing at the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and this too is interesting. In the 1999 spate of bombings in Kampala the story was that the ADF, under pressure in their bases in the Rwenzori mountains were hoping to divert security attention from operations in western Uganda.

These attacks may suggest the ADF are suffering unwanted pressure in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) bases and these attacks it is hoped can ease their pain.

Stay safe!

TO BELIEVE OR NOT BELIEVE THE BUDGET

In last week’s budget we heard that the economy grew by 3.3 percent in this financial year compared to last year when the economy grew by 3.0 percent.

This is pitiful given that, prior to the covid-19 pandemic it was projected that this year the economy would grow by more than 6.0 percent.

During the Absa Bank Uganda post budget forum held on Friday it was interesting to hear various experts note that while the economy had been badly hit it was still showing growth, which has a lot to do with the way our economy is structured.

"It helps of course that we can feed ourselves as a nation. Despite the restrictions on movement and congregation the agriculture sector kept us afloat in this important aspect...

But beyond feeding us our farms also produce our biggest tradables among ourselves and in the region.

Commissioner General John Musinguzi who was a panelist at the Absa Bank forum, which was themed “Implications of the budget proposals on trade and manufacturing” said the two sectors accounted for just over half of the revenue collections.

While both sectors took a hit in the last year they still dominate the revenue collections, which suggests that it was wise for government not to restict the movement of cargo, never mind that truck drivers caused us a lot of grief in hte first pandemic wave.

While Absa mananging director Mumba Kalifungwa along with others were glad to hear governmnet maintained its commitment on the infrastructure development, Damalie Ssali, coutry director at Trademark East Africa however, pointed out that we also need to improve the roads within the country.

She reported that

Uganda loses $1.5m (Sh5.2b) daily from cars idling in Kampala traffic...

They are all connected – agriculture, higher trade volumes and manufacturing revenues and the traffic jams of Kampala.

The losses due to traffic are not just numbers, somebody has to pay for them. Beyond the increase in hypertension among drivers,  its the poorest who bear the burden of these losses in terms of poor service delivery. Because that is money that is disposable income that would have gone into buying goods and services, increasing demand for our products, keeping people in jobs or creating more altogether.

I suspect even the $1.5m daily loss is understated.

The finance ministry’s director of budget Ken Mugambe in speaking about the parish development model said at least sh5trillion has been earmarked for the programs, flowing down to the 10,000-plus parishes. While there are seven pillars of the model, government will focus on three – financial inclusion, beefing up the parish administration structures and data collection.

On one hand people see this as an attempt o byass the middlemen and get resources nearer the household, the critics however, point to the inadequate administration structures as the loophole, which will not only frustrate the program’s inception but also provide an avenue to enrich a few bureaucrats who take advantage of the confusion.

Other critics wonder whether the same work can not be executed through existing government structures and that the parish development model may be a duplication of functions.

"The intention is good, it may be failed by the implementation...

In the parish development model among other things they have provided for extension services, irrigation and bulking of products, which are useful if we are to bring agroindustrialisation into reality.

The truth is

while we can feed ourselves as a country, we do not produce enough surpluses to sustain a robust agro-industrial complex....

Production in the agricultural sector has to make quantum leaps before agorindustrialisation and its benefits of improved farmgate prices, higher export receipts and job creation can be a reality.

Increased agricultural production can increase jobs by more than the million jobs government looks to create by building industrial parks and free trade zones.

Increased production requires a market to absorb it. The East African Community now account for about a quarter of all our trade and the promise of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area look set to snap our increased production. But Uganda Manafacturer’s Association (UMA)  executive director Daniel Birungi, worried that if we do not have robust trade dispute resolution mechanisms as we have seen wth our dealings with Rwanda, where our common border has b een closed for two years, what hope is there for trading efficiently with countries far afield on the continent?

"So while we are feeling the pain of the covid pandemic in our pockets, continued macro economic stability, the improved business environment due to infrastructural improvements and the promise of increased agricultural productivity give us hope for the future....

Time will tell.

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!

THE RICHEST MAN IN ZAIRE

Former Democratic Republic of Congo President Mobutu Sese Seko was said to have accumulated a massive fortune from plundering his mineral rich country’s coffers. He continued where the Belgians left off, expropriating billions of dollars while condemning his countrymen to a sub-human existence.

The way he blew his country’s fortune took on some very bizzare forms.

In Gbadolite his home town, he built an airport with a runway that could land the biggest jumbo jets. The story goes, he would drive out of home saying he was leaving for Kinshasa and head around the corner to the home of his mistress, who was the sister of his wife. She lived in the ministers’ village in Gbadolite.

After a reasonable time he would tell the pilot to take off for Kinshasa, calculating that his wife would know he had left Gbadolite. When he wanted to go back home he would call the pilot in Kinshasa and tell him to fly back to Gbadolite.

"Money was no obstacle for “the cock who left every chicken in his wake sated”....

Soon after his overthrow another urban legend grew out of the Congolese attempts to explain Mobutu. That he was not the richest man in Zaire, as it was called during his reign.

As the story goes when he wanted money from the central bank, he would give his personal assistant a chit, on it a request for say $10,000 from the central bank. The PA would add a zero to make it $100,000 and hand it over to the governor. The governor in turn would add another zero to make it a million dollars.

So when the money was withdrawn the governor pocketed $900,000, the PA $90,000 and Mobutu would get his $10,000.

This week the payout of $600,000 instead of the requested $60,000 for Ugandan students in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Corona Virus outbreak in China, reminded me of the Mobutu tale.

The government decided last month they would not evacuate our students in the blockaded Wuhan city, but would instead send them $61,800 to tide them over the period. Somewhere between the decision and wiring the money to our embassy in China $538,200 was added to the sum and we all exchanged knowing winks at this sleight of hand.

The finance ministry realizing the “error” wrote to China ordering the officials there to refund the extra money.

This episode was disturbing for many reasons but two particularly stand out for me.

The first was that knowing the processes of getting payment out of government it is not as if this money was pulled out of drawer and handed over. There is a paper or electronic trail that has to be satisfied for this money to be paid out. Several levels of authority would be needed. So even if there was a “slip of the pen” someone would have caught along the line. Or so we think...

For us mere mortals we can only conclude that many people were in on the deal, it was not a solitary figure sneaking around the corridors, working on his own. That scenario would be too scary to contemplate.

Secondly, that us the unsuspecting masses’ natural reaction was to assume someone or some people were trying to “eat”. That our confidence in our government is so low that we did not even give it the benefit of doubt. Isn’t that why government struggles to explain itself when it wants to move on an initiative, which in their wisdom they think is good for the country from vaccinations to pest control to building a hospital.

Trust makes progress easier and smoother. Mistrust causes friction, that costs time, energy and resources to overcome. Is it no wonder that beyond the slowness of government bureaucracy we can’t get anything done in a timely manner?..

But even more worrying given the Mobutu analogy is that these kind of shenanigans obviously happen all the time. The boldness to inflate a figure by a thousand percent can only come with long practice. It makes you wonder, who is the richest man in Uganda.

WE NEED, NO, MUST CHANGE THE RULES OF THE GAME

Last week tourism state minister Geoffrey Kiwanda kicked up a storm, while in trying to promote the Miss Curvy beauty pageant, put his foot in his mouth and then some, by saying the Ugandan woman’s fame curves  can become a tourist attraction.

The way women took offence to this reminded me of how many years ago the headmistress of Maryhill High School, Mbarara took issue with the government school truck.

Sr Felice could not imagine transporting her girls around in the truck, which had “Produce for export” emblazoned on its side. She promptly had it changed to “Support girls’ education”.

Earlier this week President Yoweri Museveni while speaking at the 32^nd Summit of the heads of State at the AU called on his counterparts to generate a sense of urgency in pursuing a common market for Africa and an eventual political union.

He argued that it’s only by coming together economically and politically can we banish the stereotype of the continent as being bedevilled by hunger, disease and poverty and also prevent a repeat of the colonisation of Africa.

Two seemingly unrelated events but which highlight the major challenge of our continent.

"While some sections took offence at using our women as marketing tools and objectifying them, if you looked at it another way it’s a clever, if not original way, of shifting the measure of beauty...

Western media through its sheer dominance has created a standard of beauty characterised by tall, slim and light skinned women, which we have come to accept, even if only at a subconscious level.

It is this thinking that, I was reminded years ago, saw no Ugandan lady nominated to contest for the “Face of Africa” model search competition almost a decade ago, because our women were not tall enough and had too much around the waist and hips.

It is the kind of thinking that subconsciously has men hankering for lighter skinned partners, with straightened hair.

But as mentioned above, because of this standard of beauty, our women have next to no chance at foreign beauty pageants, which is why Quin Abanakyo’s run at the Miss World beauty pageant was such a surprise.

"When you get into a game in which you do not make the rules, chances are you will be competing at a disadvantage. You either muster the rules and hope you can excel despite your lack of input in their formulation; you can contravene the rules and guarantee that you will lose anyway or walk away and go and start your own game with your own rules...

The organisers of the Miss Curvy competition have in essence gone away and created their own game, where their contestants can compete from a position of strength rather than from other people’s measure of what constitutes beauty.

Whereas they may not, or never, get world wide acclaim, because they don’t fit in the “conventional” definition of beauty, you can rest assured they will do just fine controlling a niche that makes sense in our context.

The call for a unified Africa falls somewhere between learning to play by established rules and breaking the rules anyway, which is the only way one can hope to compete better in a game not of ones making.

The colonial era saw Africa split up by arbitrary boundaries based on a logic that was not our own. That is how you find our border communities everywhere on the continent just don’t take this political boundaries seriously.

"But the boundaries never the less have served to separate our populations, disaggregate our resources with the net effect being the basket case that the continent is today...

We have to contravene those rules on one hand, so that on the other hand we can compete more effectively in the global arena, where size is might.

Africa’s resources are so vast that it’s a scandal of prodigious proportions that we are the poorest continent on the planet.

By one example it is estimated that the mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo have an estimated value of $12trillion. That’s just a number, but when you realise that this is the total economic output of the US, you have to wonder.

When you drill down to its essence, the reason this is so is because we are divided, playing by someone else’s rules, which invariably work in their favour not ours.

So yes taking a leaf from the Miss Curvy organisers, if we are to have half a chance of not only surviving, but thriving as a continent we need to take a hard look at the rules and tweak them, scuttle or ignore them altogether. The sooner the better.

THE TOP TEN SHILLINGS & CENTS POSTS OF 2016

Uganda never bores. For better or worse we are always making news. This blog tries to go beyond the news to explain, interpret and decipher the news.

2016 has been a good year for news and below are the top ten Shillings & Cents posts by page views. This is the second edition -- the first having been at the end of 2015, of what will be an annual event

#10: WILLIAM KAJOBA, IN THE EYE OF THE BAILOUT STORM

On an evening talk show early last week Kampala businessman William Kajoba came out strongly in favour of a bailout of local businessmen, who are struggling through the current economic hard times and are staggering under the weight of the growing debt load on their businesses. more

#9: RUGASIRA ON COFFEE, CHOCOLATE AND EXPORTING TO THE WEST

 I prefer to seat upstairs at the Good African Coffee shop. But Andrew Rugasira had other ideas. We sat downstairs with a display of Good African’s various offerings as a backdrop to our conversation.

Rugasira is launching a line of chocolates to complement his company’s line of coffees, which project started a decade ago and took him from the foot hills of the Rwenzori Mountains to Buckingham palace to the rarefied heights of high finance in the business capitals of the world. more

#8: THE UPDF SHOWING THE WAY ONCE AGAIN

Last week the UPDF’s Wazalendo Savings & Credit Coop had it annual meeting.

According to its financial report they made a profit of about sh12b, which was 30 percent higher than the previous year when profit after tax came in at sh9b. Savings almost doubled to sh60b while the loan book came in sh146b. The 69,000 member group had invested sh80b in their SACCO by subscribing to the SACCO’s shares. more

#7: POST ELECTIONS, FOCUS ON JOB CREATION

As the dust from the just concluded polls settles it’s time to move on, use the lessons of the campaigns as a stepping stone to a better future for all Ugandans.

As far as I am concerned everything – political or social has its root in how the economy is faring, how it’s being run.more

#T5: THE GHOSTS OF KARUMA PROCUREMENT RETURN TO HAUNT PROJECT

The troubles that dogged the Karuma Hydropower project’s procurement continue to stalk the project, threatening the multi-billion dollar dam’s future usefulness.

In the current spurt the Energy ministry and the Uganda Electricity Generation Company Ltd (UEGCL) are in a heated battle over the supervision of the Karuma and Isimba dams, with accusations and counter accusations being traded, a situation that has been brought to President Yoweri Museveni’s attention. more

#T5: INTERVIEW -- WAPAKHABULO IS REARING TO GO AT UGANDA OIL COMPANY

Josephine Wapakhabulo was last month appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC). Dr Wapakabulo sat down with Business Vision’s Paul Busharizi to discuss her company’s role, her plans and the prospects for oil in Uganda, below are the excerpts of the interview. more

#4: BREXIT AND WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION TO PEOPLE IN LARGE NUMBERS

Last week the headlines were all about the shock UK vote to leave the European Union (EU).

By a four percentage point margin the British were scared into believing that immigrants from eastern Europe, the middle East and Africa would overwhelm their shores, and a vote to keep them out would be better than staying wed to the largest economy in the world. more

#3: SOUTH SUDAN'S IMPLOSION IS OUR WAKE UP CALL

The flare up in fighting in South Sudan is disheartening for the disruption and loss of lives that it entails but also for the economic loss to Uganda that it signals.

Clearly the recent peace deal between the South Sudan government of Salvar Kiir and the rebels led by former vice president Riak Machar has failed to hold. more

#2: WILL THE MUSANA CART BRING THE ROLEX TO THE WORLD?

Almost two decades ago two young men asked themselves what it would take to create a “Rolex” chain of restaurants.

The ideas would be take the rolex, which at the time was championed by one Sula in Wandegeya, create a menu, standardise the ingredients, upgrade the sanitation issues, license the Sula name and employ him for good measure. more

#1: WITH THE CABINET ARE WE BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE?

This week a double take was necessary on news that NRM members of parliament were sulking over not being appointed to the cabinet and went further to task President Yoweri Museveni to explain  his selection criteria.

Museveni ever the consummate politician, it is reported, listening to their griping, said he would take their concerns under advisement and would get back to them. more

REGION SORELY NEEDS POPE’S CALMING PRESENCE

The more things change the more it seems they stay the same.

The last time a Pope visited Uganda a genocide was bubbling under the surface in Rwanda, an intractable war continued in South Sudan, and in Somalia Mohammad Farrah Aidid was trying to strengthen his grip on a country which was in the throes of implosion after the overthrow of Siad Barre two years previously.

Fast forward to today and Pope Francis is visiting a troubled region grappling with civil war, disease and poverty.

The Somalia peace process flatters to deceive, South Sudan is squandering its promise, Burundi is on the edge of the kind of wanton violence, a throw back to Rwanda two decades ago and in the Central African Republic --- Pope Francis’ final stop on this tour, the center is failing to hold as marauding gangs make the country ungovernable.

In the interim Uganda has fashioned itself into a regional enforcer with campaigns in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Africa Republic, South Sudan and Somalia. It has participated in peace missions further afield in Liberia.

Uganda sees itself as a peace enforcer than peace keeper, holding the ultimate sanction over warring parties a mission that evolved out of the disgust at the sterility of UN peace keepers during the Rwanda genocide.

"Pope Francis, which name he chose in honour of Saint Francis of Asisi, who famously yearned to be an instrument of God’s peace, may agree on the general principle of seeking regional peace but may disagree with Kampala’s methods...

He will complete the second year of his papacy in March next year, a papacy which has done more to change the perception of his office through his message of compassion and his humble demeanour, than any other Pope since Pope Paul  VI.

Pope Paul VI whose 15-year papacy came to an end on his death in 1978, created more dialogue with other religions and opened the mass to a personal appreciation by millions by allowing the use of local languages. Previously the high mass was said in Latin.

He comes at a time of charged emotions as Ugandans rev up for a crucial presidential election next year, yet another cross roads in this country’s political journey.

A campaign loaded with vitriolic, coloured by past slights and painted with character smears which while we giggle at the name calling we know we are fast reaching a place of no return where resolution will be a zero sum game. And we are only two weeks in to the campaigns.

The main antagonists President Yoweri Museveni, KIzza Besigye and Amama Mbabazi have suspended their campaigns for the duration of the successor of St Peter’s trip, before they go after each other with hammer and tongs again.

"It would be an important interlude during which we as a country can reflect and even take St Francis of Assisi famous prayer to heart, if only to banish our turbulent past and the foreboding signals ahead....

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

It is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

ARE WE SEEING THE LAST OF JOSEPH KONY?

Last week the US announced it was sending more personnel and materiel to beef up the African Union regional army’s hunt for the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

This time around an extra 150 personnel will be flown in, to assist the 100 Special Forces already in place from the previous assistance. Officially these elite units will not see any action, but use high tech equipment to ferret out the elusive Joseph Kony and his band of murderous cronies.

Kony, down to a few bad men, is holed up somewhere in the Central African Republic near the south Sudan border,  it is thought, a lawless hell hole with several other outlaws roaming around.

"Thankfully the terror the LRA meted out on Ugandan soil is a fast fading memory. Kony probably played his last hand in 2002 when after a year’s lull in activity attacked the border town of Agoro in Kitgum and triggered Operation Iron Fist, a foray into Southern Sudan by the UPDF...

Subsequent attacks in Uganda like the bloody massacre in the Barlonyo in 2004  or attacks into eastern Uganda were attempts by the LRA to disperse the concentrated action on their camps in South Sudan.

A major turning point in the war against the LRA was the gazetting of the rebel group as a terrorist organisation by the George W. Bush administration in 2001. It also helped that  Bush listed Sudan as part of the axis of evil, which prompted Khartoum to cut off overt support for the LRA and allow Uganda to pursue the rebels deep into southern Sudan. 

At around the same time the government was released from the arbitrary cap on military spending imposed by the donor community for almost a decade prior.

Kony was also the first individual to be indicted by the newly created International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2005.

Incidentally former ICC prosecutor Mario Ocampo was around last week hawking his services as a special prosecutor to the war affected communities of northern Uganda and Barlonyo in particular.

More than a decade later the White House reacting to mounting pressure from powerful constituencies at home to help in shutting down the LRA and the desperate need for some foreign policy victories, have set their sights on the remnants of the LRA.

To put a final nail in the LRA insurgency would be to put a stop to one of the most intractable conflicts on the continent.

The conflict which started as a last stand by retreating soldiers of the UNLA, overthrown by the NRA in 1986, was hijacked by Joseph Kony and transformed into an orgy of bloodletting, large scale kidnappings of children for use as soldiers and sex slaves and the forced displacement of up two million of the northern Uganda’s people.

The NRA and later the UPDF did not always acquit themselves with distinction, leaving a sore taste in the mouth that is yet to be expunged.

So Kony’s prospects going into the future are decidedly bleak. But we have heard that all before.

This time things may be different. 

Among the reasons the LRA have been able to hold out so long is that they recruited by abduction and were therefore difficult to infiltrate. A few people who presented themselves for recruitment met very nasty ends.

With a badly depleted force and now operating in a foreign land far from the Acholi heart land in South Sudan the LRA must be feeling truly like fish out of water. 

Secondly the LRA’s low technology approach to war means they still run around on foot shunning vehicles and most recently telecommunications -- unnecessary if you are not interested in controlling territory, but problematic if your generals are getting older. Kony according to records will be 53 this year.

And finally Khartoum for fear of alienating itself further, probably can’t touch their former ally with a ten foot pole.

"In a strange way the capture or demise of Kony will only be good for political back slappers. Believe it or not there are still some who sleep with one eye open, in mortal fear of the return of the son of Odek village, but  reactions to Kony’s end will be mooted probably more relief than jubilation....

New York Times correspondent Thomas Freidman coined the word the super-empowered individual, loosely defined as a person who by leveraging force – physical, mental or another against a system is able to cause ripples through society for better or for worse. 

At the time he came up with the term the internet was not in widespread use and the Osama bin Laden’s Al Queada had not flown planes into the World Trade Center, but could have been referring to Kony.