CELEBRATING 28 YEARS OF NRM RULE: 25TH JANUARY 1986 - 25TH JANUARY 2014 The politics of under-development NRM style Anyone who has travelled to Nairobi, Johannesburg, New Delhi or even Tripoli during Muammar Gadhafi’s Libyan days, will have come across some senior Ugandan government official or an NRM ‘historical’ either limping or being wheeled on or off a flight to and from some state-of-the-art hospital for medical attention. Over the years, I have engaged these medical tourists, particularly the so-called ‘historicals’, whenever I have had the opportunity to talk to them and asked them why treatment abroad? They have given me all sorts of reasons ranging from lack of proper facilities at home in Uganda, to poor standards of medical personnel, to fear of ‘poisoning’ by their enemies if they seek treatment at home. One thing they have in common though is the fact that they believe they are entitled to treatment abroad. They claim that is what they fought for, a little bit confusing because I thought they went to the bush to fight for better roads, excellent schools, working hospitals and good governance? Kudos Let me make my disclaimer early on here before I am misconstrued. There is nothing wrong with someone seeking medical treatment. Not at all. Indeed, the more lives that can be saved, the better for mankind, for Uganda and for development. My grievance is not even the fact that not many Ugandans can afford such luxuries, in fact, it is the reality that no Ugandan, with the exception of maybe just about a handful, can afford to pay for such luxuries out of their pockets. Even the ones who can afford to pay for it, still use their cronies’ fraternity to sponge money off the state to pay for their medical treatment, luxurious accommodation and shopping sprees. Sad-state-of-affairs A recent report by an NGO implies that there is some improvement in the public health care sector but if you read the 102 page report by HURINET closely, you will notice that because things have deteriorated so drastically over the past 30 years, there is no other direction standards can go but up – they cannot sink any lower. However, the reality is that this is the current state of hospitals in Uganda today - youtube/watch?v=yBs_K_T8EYA as experienced by a team of American students who visited Mulago on an exchange programme. If Mulago, the main National Referral Hospital – is in such a sorry state, what can be said for hospitals such as the Colonial era development models such as Jinja, Mbale, Mbarara, Gulu and the post-independence satellite hospitals such as Anaka, Kiryandongo, Kiboga, Rakai etc. which still lack the basic facilities that they possessed over 40 years ago. What has gone wrong over this time? Anyone who has lived in, or visited Uganda over the past 30-40 years will tell you that the quality of health care has deteriorated drastically over the same period, particularly in the last 25 years. I have many prominent Ugandan friends in government and private sectors who are my peers, born around the same time as me to parents who were working all over Uganda and I usually challenge them that had things been this bad when we were born, we would not be alive today. Furthermore, there are stories of Banyankole born in Acoli and Mbale, Basoga born in Arua and Baganda born in Moroto - a real tale of diversity by birth. That situation does not, and cannot prevail today. For one, Uganda is such a tribalistically divided country today that you rarely find people from other tribes working in other regions that they are not indigenous to or if they are, they are probably soldiers, Secondly, no one, even the ‘regional hospital babies’ of the ‘60s and ‘70s will allow their children to be born in such appalling conditions. One of them said to me “I was born in Mulago in the early ‘70s but every time I find myself in the general vicinity of that hospital, I get the hell out of there so quick I do not even want to glance at the buildings”. I do not blame anyone of these people for shunning what, at one point, was a national monument along with Makerere University, Owen Falls Dam, Kabalega National Park and many others. In some cases, one can contract serious illnesses by just stepping onto the grounds of these hospitals alone. Where did the wheels come off? We find ourselves in this decadent state due to two simple factors – gross mismanagement and corruption. A government that is more interested in lining the pockets of its cronies and a leadership that is totally oblivious to the sorry state of hospitals and public schools that it has turned its back to the masses. Furthermore, the theft of donor money from Global Fund and GAVI plus the more recent theft of donor money from OPM has meant the fat, greasy kleptomaniacs have never had it so good. Last week, at a private party at a friend’s house on Entebbe Road, a prominent Ugandan entrepreneur confided to me that he brought an international charity that was prepared to invest GBP50m (US$75m) into the Ugandan public health sector without any strings attached but they hit the buffers immediately when Ministry of Health officials demanded ‘sweeteners’ of about GBP2m (US$3m) in advance before they approve the project. Those investments are now benefitting patients in Ethiopia and Botswana. One time I challenged a former Minister of Health at a function. I asked him why they have abandoned our public hospitals. I gave him a scenario that whereas he could afford to fly his parents and family abroad to Europe or SA or even to India for treatment, could he imagine a situation (without wishing him any ill-fortune) whereby a close member of his family met an accident in his village or town and even the best aerial emergency services could not lift them to Entebbe fast enough leaving them to the mercy of the same regional referral hospitals that they have ran to the ground? The Honourable Minister’s reply was both curt and astonishing “We have very good private hospitals now in my town”. I was gobsmacked! Cronies seeking medical treatment and travelling on Diplomatic Passports The reason why I have been moved to write this article is the conversation I had in an Indian airport lounge recently with the wife of a not-so-senior Ugandan government official who was pretty cheesed off at the poor patronage they had had from State House Entebbe for her husband’s treatment. She complained that the good public servant had been disgraced. Why did the government only give her husband pocket money of US$50,000.00 and only US$15,000.00 for her shopping (this did not include the treatment, flight and one month’s accommodation costs which were paid directly by government) moreover she was aware that a certain Minister went to South Africa for a two week treatment with his wife and they were given almost US75,000.00 between him and his wife. She intended to make a complaint to the president on her return to Uganda. These people travel on Ugandan diplomatic passports – their position in government does not warrant such privileges but they take it for granted. If 100 of such people travel abroad every year – which is not insurmountable a figure - the money expended alone (about US$7.5m) could have built a brand new hospital in each major town in Uganda with fully-fledged medical facilities and equipment in the term that the NRM government has been in power. What about the poor man? I recall sometime back when a cousin of mine who lives in London fell ill while he was visiting Uganda. He had suffered a bad attack of Malaria – the irony is that the poor chap had to be flown to London to receive treatment where he could access a Tropical Medical Treatment Facility at one of the University of London hospitals. Uganda should have been the most appropriate place to treat a Malaria patient one would have thought? Of course the poor man will never know how they have been conned by their leaders. The government official’s wife opened my eyes to the biggest health corruption scandal in Uganda today. The senior and connected government officials do not want state-of-the-art local and regional hospitals because they will not get ‘per diem’ and shopping purses for their wives if they were to be treated at Mbarara, Entebbe, Mbale, Gulu or Arua General. In fact, to some of these officials, illness is a blessing in disguise – indeed ‘every cloud has a silver lining’. Frank Okello Abe is an International Attorney-at-Law who can be found at any airport lounge in Doha, Dubai, Delhi, Mumbai, London, Johannesburg, Entebbe, Nairobi, New York or at [email protected] OR @ Ugandan Politics 2016 on Facebook
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 19:55:02 +0000
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