WE CANNOT CONTINUE LIVING AT THE MERCY OF GOD

At the beginning of this month the police in northern Uganda arrested a key suspect in the February murder of police officer Joseph Bigirwa.

The suspect Joseph Olanya it is alleged shot and killed Bigirwa, as the policeman tried to foil a robbery at Gaz petrol fuel station in Kajjansi.

It was suspected that Olanya had fled to South Sudan. He was arrested last month for allegedly staging a car robbery at Karuma along the Gulu-Kampala highway.

By a stroke of luck he was recognised by a detective as he sought bail in Gulu and detained.

Last week Kampala businessman Erias Sebunnya Bugembe was killed near his home in Muyenga while out on his morning exercise. The police has ruled out that the death was accidental and are searching for the alleged murders.

Sandwiched in between these two events were probably dozens, even hundreds of crimes committed most of which may go unresolved.

Is it the case of a more pervasive media presence or is that the incidents of crime are rising in our society?

According to the police “Annual crime and traffic/road safety report 2013” reported criminal cases were down to 99,959 in 2013 from 100,465 in the previous year. This could suggest two things, the obvious, that crime rates are down year-on-year or that crimes are happening and people are reporting to police less than the previous year.

According to data aggregation site Numbeo, Uganda is not in the top 20 unsafe countries to live in. In Africa we are a safer country to be in than South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Somalia. However we are ranked the 23^rd unsafest nation out of 139 countries polled.

"Most safe societies rely on the goodwill of their citizens to keep the peace. And for the most part this works. But that is not enough...

The general lawlessness of the 1980s was brought under control, thanks to more disciplined security forces.

On the surface of it, it could be suggested that the beefing up of the police force to its current 40,000-man strength from a paltry 14,000 at the beginning of the decade could be a factor.

But the truth must also be that we are generally not a lawless society. You are not likely to get mugged in broad daylight on our high streets and even at night there is a general sense of safety and security.

Most safe societies rely on the goodwill of their citizens to keep the peace by being upstanding members of society. And for the most part this works. But that is not enough.

Assuming the crime levels are down to zero the security forces have to be prepared to tackle insecurity whenever and wherever it arises.

And that is the challenge for Uganda.

As it is we have about 100 police staff for every 100,000 Ugandans. This does not compare well with most policed state Russia, which has 564 police staff for every 100,000. More liberal democracies like Denmark at 197, Canada at 202 and the United Kingdoms, 262 suggest our police force is  woefully undermanned.

But police numbers are not everything, in fact a case can be made for smaller police forces but well equipped with the latest equipment and crime fighting techniques.

Thankfully the ID project has been launched and this single initiative will change policing forever. 

Up to this point our police were working in the dark. Even if they dusted up the crime scene and lifted some thumb prints the robustness of their database is questionable.

If increased numbers and police presence serve as a deterrent to criminals, having good information systems is what will keep criminals off the street once they are apprehended.

But finally improving the police is not an issue for the police alone.

The long term way to combat crime is to ensure that income and wealth inequalities within society are minimised. This is done by while creating an enabling environment for businesses to thrive,  improving and increasing access to education, health and other social services for the majority of the people. On average better educated, healthy people are paid more.

I couldn’t find any statistics to back my claim but it’s possible that many, if not most crimes are committed out of necessity. If more people are earning a decent wage because of their enhanced capabilities it isn’t a stretch to expect they will have no incentive to steal or commit other crimes.

So back to the case of Kampala businessman Bugembe, more commonly known as Kasiwukira, the chance of the police apprehending the culprits is not very good (I would love to be wrong about this). If significant headway is made on the case it may be more out of luck than anything else, just like in the capture of Olanya aka Bucherman the alleged killer of police officer Bigirwa.

The point is that as the population grows and by extension the levels of criminality rise, we need to rely less on the goodwill of the people to keep our society safe. A more equitable economy and a better equipped police force will be the key.

THE YOUTH ARE THE NRM’S NEW BEDROCK ...OR NOT?

Last week in a meeting of the ruling National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) top  organ the reminiscences of historical members were cut short when the leader of the youth wing Dennis Namara said the youth were tired of the stories and were more interested in what the NRM can do for them.

He was reportedly shouted down by older members who demanded that he show respect for his elders and take back his words.

It was a telling moment that was drowned out by the business of the day, which was to decide on the fate of the party’s Secretary General Amama Mbabazi who, along with his wife, was accused of creating dissension in the party’s ranks.

The NRM has its roots in the youth movement of the sixties that missed out on the colonial struggle, but, which disgruntled with the way the country was being run in the 1960s ,70s and 80s took it upon itself to cause the change they were looking for.

Those same youth are now an older generation, while not too long in the tooth, are losing or have lost touch, with the new youth whose perspective is being shaped by western standards and not the anti-colonial struggles or the fight against post-independence dictators.

There aspire to a lifestyle modelled on what the media feeds them, one of unbridled freedom, boundless affluence but one too, in which they have a say as to how their society is governed.

The NRM has been quite successful in harnessing the youth’s energies to keep in power not only creating youth seats in parliament but also allowing a lot of upstarts across the political divide to challenge for elective office, a situation that may not have arisen in more mature democracies.

The youth have taken the inch and now they want a mile.

"NRM can easily become a victim of its own success if it does not move quickly to embrace the youth, as part of the way to reinvent itself from a party whose glory days are long gone and remain as warm memories in the elders of the party, to a party in step with the times and reflecting the aspirations of majority of Ugandans...

It’s only natural that the firebrands of yesteryear become the fuddy-duddys of the present, demanding respect, not averse to setting the younger people in their place and keen to douse out any revolutionary fervour.

NRM can easily become a victim of its own success if it does not move quickly to embrace the youth, as part of the way to reinvent itself from a party whose glory days are long gone and remain as warm memories in the elders of the party, to a party in step with the times and reflecting the aspirations of majority of Ugandans.

Because like it or not time and the numbers are on the youth’s side.

Statistics are hard to come by easily more than two thirds of adults of voting age are between the age of 18 and 35, the age range where he historical depth from which Uganda has risen are not even a fading memory.

For the politically ambitious the NRM remains an attractive proposition. It’s the only political organisation with a true nationwide reach. Believe it or not it still living off the momentum from reconstructing the economy and returning a sense of stability to the nation.

The NRM has always argued that internal friction is good for the party, allowing it to stay in touch with popular sentiment, take note of divergent opinion and weed out the elements who no longer share the collective vision.

And it is true, just like for natural organisms that grow stronger through some exposure to disease and stress so too should a good party. To shield a party from internal debate and disagreement is to consign it to a slow death.

Love them or hate them whatever happens in the NRM colours Uganda’s political landscape. But for the NRM too they should remember that the rabble rousers of today will be at the helm of affairs in the not so distant future. The question is will they be with or against the NRM?

WEALTH INEQUALITIES ARE NECESSARY

Last week someone posted on social media that the six richest men in East Africa own as much wealth as half the region’s population, about 66 million.

The post of course invited the knee jerk reaction of disgust at these men’s greed for owning so much when millions of East Africans are existing on a sub-human level.

There are right and wrong.

They are right to be disgusted because such wealth disparity is generally not healthy for economies. But they are wrong in venting against the said gentlemen, who in many ways it’s not their fault that they are where they are and the rest of us are where we are.

The richest men in the world, in our region, in our country are businessmen. Some workers may be paid highly, but a high salary does not equate to wealth. The rich are rich because they manipulate all or at least two of the factors of production – labour, land and capital. While the worker only has his labour which may not be entirely in his control.

Because the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts, you can see why the businessman will always come out on top of the money sweepstakes.

The businessman’s ability or skill in manipulating these factors to serve more and more people is what makes him grow richer and richer with less and less effort. Somebody once said that turning $1m to $10m is work but turning $10m to $100m is inevitable.

Imagine how many hours in diligent service, study and sacrifice it would take a worker to double his salary from its present level?

We really are not in the same race.

"While creating the enabling environment for business to thrive, governments need to tax these businesses and use the money to improve general infrastructure so businesses can continue to expand and to improve on social services so the people can be better educated, given the probabilities the better educated one is the better paid they will be and healthier, more work days not interrupted by sick leave would lead to improved income....

The worker if he is lucky is increasing his income arithmetically while the businessman in relation to his skill would be increasing his wealth exponentially.

It is made worse by the fact that the bigger the businessman the more the need he will have to be involved with government, to influence policy. So again by aggregating resources he becomes someone government needs to pay attention to.

Governments only respond to numbers.

One lone man ranting at the corner of the street may only get detained for a few hours, but an angry businessman with thousands of workers, serving millions of clients and paying billions of shillings in taxes is another matter altogether.

The rich will get richer. Of course there will be those who fall off the gravy train every so often but as a class they will get richer. Which is not a bad thing in itself.

An economy is only as viable as its private sector. After all it’s the private sector that creates wealth, not governments.  So it’s in every well-meaning government’s interest to see that the business community thrives. Good governments do this by ensuring general security, macroeconomic stability and that contracts are upheld.

In the general population not everyone is an entrepreneur and less so those who will become spectacularly wealthy. Since the success of choosing winners has been patchy at best, it is important to create an environment where all those who may have an entrepreneurial inkling can try their hand and allow the cream can rise to the top.

The few who stick their necks out and win become rich.

What we need to guard against is that inequalities do not get too large as to destabilise the whole system.

That too is where governments come in. While creating the enabling environment for business to thrive, governments need to tax these businesses and use the money to improve general infrastructure so businesses can continue to expand and to improve on social services so the people can be better educated, given the probabilities the better educated one is the better paid they will be and healthier, more work days not interrupted by sick leave would lead to improved income.

With better incomes the workers may have a better chance of climbing the wealth ladder.

Growing wealth inequalities are an indictment on the government of the day, a reflection of its inability to distribute the benefits of rising wealth in the general economy.

So, that there are people making money in an economy legally is welcome and should be seen as a sign of hope for the rest, and not only because these trailblazers are showing what is possible in our context.

In fact while the tycoons will be a tiny proportion of the population we need to grow more fabulously wealthy people in order to get government to think more progressively. But that is a story for another day.

WHY UGANDAN BUSINESSES CAN NOT GET PASSED DOWN THE GENERATIONS

The storyline is a familiar one. The parent founds the business, slogs to make it successful -- a huge mansion in the outskirts, children studying abroad all while accumulating a prodigious amount of frequent flyer miles every year.

Then the entrepreneur breaths his last and all hell breaks loose.

If the business is not torn asunder by family wrangles, the heir to throne doesn’t seem to be able to keep up the momentum of the business, either through poor management or as is more likely, the business’ success to begin with was an illusion.

The heirs, torn between rescuing the business while continuing to live the lifestyle they are accustomed to find themselves swamped, overwhelmed and way out of their depth.

It’s not all the kids’ fault

1.       Short term vision

Most of our businesses are started to sustain the founder and his family.

They are started for subsistence. Which is understandable going by the crazy period in the 1970s and 1980s we lived through when long term planning was a luxury no one could afford. What these businesses were, and many today still are, are a job opportunity for the founder and his or her spouse. There really is no vision beyond that.

A business can only grow to as big as the founders’ vision allows it.

In countries which have had the benefit of long term stability founding entrepreneurs can plot for national, regional and even world domination. They recognise that business growth is a survival mechanism more than an ego trip, and to grow they need to be increasingly systematic in their processes.

It starts with the vision, even if it is not on paper.

Bill Gates famously stated as his goal, to put a computer on every table in America. Never mind that he could not fathom what the average man would need with 300 kilobytes of memory!

2.       Regularise the business

In the beginning just like God, the founder can do everything – bookkeeping, marketing, hiring and firing but as the business grows the need for delegation of the functions will become more urgent. This will necessitate a coding of all the functions so that everyone knows his functions and targets.

Related to the last point for lack of vision the founder keeps doing everything or at least has the final say on everything from building new premises to procuring staples. The business will only grow to the extent of his energy, perspective or competence.

So not much effort, if any, is put into all the things that would make it a sustainable business – documentation, creating systems, promoting a meritocracy and more importantly making the distinction between the owners of the business and management, which does not necessarily mean that one is distinct from the other. 

"We start our businesses to make money. But is we can shift our emphasis towards serving more and more people in a sustainable way the money will follow suit. That is a major shift in thinking for a businessman who is hoping his business will throw up his next meal...

The subsistence mentality is encapsulated in the thought that, after all how many beds can you sleep in, cars can you drive at one time or mouths does one have as a justification not to do the necessary work to grow the business sustainably.

3.       Must the kids inherit the running of the company?

The above leads to the mentality that the kids must, not only inherit the business, but run it as well. Unfortunately for many of these trail blazing pioneers they often become victims of their own success. Their improving fortunes often mean that their children get quality educations and they develop other interests away from the family business.

To spare every one the aggro many founders would do well to liquidate the company and

pass on the cash to the heirs.

But that would be to ignore the responsibility of the entrepreneur to the public and fail to recognise that when a business provides a good or service, employs people and pays taxes it becomes a public good, never mind that it is privately owned. To break it up for cash would be dereliction of duty by the owners.

So our businessmen need to expand their vision so we can at least have national companies and secondly get away from the hangover that they have to pass the going concern’s management down the blood line.

4.       Business are intended to serve, with profit as the byproduct

We start our businesses to make money. But if we can shift our emphasis towards serving more and more people in a sustainable way the money will follow suit. That is a major shift in thinking for a businessman who is hoping his business will throw up his next meal.

If you think about it the businesses that make the most money are those that serve an increasing number of people year after year after year.

In December 2012 the executive Chairmanship of the Tata Group was handed to Cyrus Mistry, only the second person in the company’s 150 year history who was not of the Tata family. Mistry took over partly because Ratan Tata his predecessor had no kids, but he has brought fresh energy and the legacy is safe in his hands as his family are major shareholders in Tata anyway.

To tick off the figures ; Tata does more than $100b in sales or five times Uganda’s total economic output, its more than a hundred companies operate in 80 countries in industries as diverse as steel, automobiles, telecommunications and ICT.

You don’t get to be that big with a vision that does not extend beyond your tummy, however big your tummy is.

pbusharizi@newvision.co.ug

Twitter @pbusharizi