Empire Tutsification: East African community collapsed in 1977 because of the quarrel between Amin and Nyerere. The major trouble came from the economic disputes between Kenya and Tanzania. Amin and Nyerere feud was an additional dimension. Also Museveni did not mention that reviving the East African community in 1999 was an attempt to defuse a possible war between Kenya and Uganda. It is surprising that Museveni is quick at pointing out the benefits of East African federal system but continues to fragment Uganda into economically unviable districts. What is good for East Africa is not good for Uganda. By Radio Free Buganda on Sunday, 30 June 2013 at 13:22 Asked why Tanzania and Burundi were not at the meeting, President Museveni, flanked by Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, answered that it was not shameful and that they would be briefed. Indeed, it was not shameful and they will be briefed but that response didn’t sound convincing at all, as it doesn’t really explain why Dar es Salaam and Bujumbura couldn’t come. East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) member Dan Kidega is one of the people worried about the health of the community in light of the Kampala meeting that excluded Tanzania and Burundi. What Museveni is hiding from the public is that he has weakened Uganda through a balkanization policy which he opposes at the regional level and impoverishment of non-Tutsi Ugandans to use Uganda as a base in pursuit of Tutsi Empire as part of re-colonization of the region with a strong external backing. I urge East Africans especially Kenyans and Tanzanians to be careful and avoid rushing into the East African political federation because you may regret it too late like Ugandans are now regretting having invited Museveni to fight on Uganda soil hoping he was working for peace and security, political justice and prosperity for all only to discover too late that he had other projects in mind as he announced in April of 1997 that was published in the Shariat and other news papers. Museveni talked about good work NRM has done in the health sector but deliberately skipped informing the nation that despite the NRM efforts the is on the verge of total collapse as for example the diseases that had disappeared have resurfaced with a vengeance. He admitted that he didn’t know where water-borne diseases belong. Surely he should have asked his minister or presidential adviser of health before addressing the nation. That he has been president for 27 years and doesn’t know where water-borne diseases belong reveals serious shortcoming on part of the head of state and government of Uganda. This raises the fundamental question of the quality of leadership. Museveni attributed road accidents wholly on reckless driving but was silent on the dangerous state of the roads. Every year funds are allocated to road construction and repair but virtually nothing happens. Where does the money go? Museveni reported free education at primary, secondary and A-levels. But what happened to drop out and quality of schooling? He knows the record is so bad that he chose to omit the two dimensions from the report. Finally Ugandans know that Museveni personally objected to providing school lunch. During the 2011 presidential campaign he reported that he had asked the World Bank to advise him on the issue. What did the World Bank recommend? If we don’t hear from the government we shall put the question to the president of the World Bank. What we know is that many parents don’t have food to pack for lunch. Therefore we should follow majority opinion that government should assist with school lunch also agreed to by NEPAD. Otherwise school dropout will continue and young kids will be forced into early motherhood and raise the level of population growth which will be a function of government policy failure. The president finally acknowledged that maternal mortality remains a big challenge. Having many hospital and dispensary buildings per se won’t solve the problem. Museveni’s announcement for the first time that he was born in Mbarara hospital in 1944 has added more confusion to his place of birth. Ugandans and others had pressed him to let us know exactly the location where he was born in Ntungamo. Having failed to do so he came up with this story of Mbarara hospital and he expects Uganda and the rest of the world to believe him. He also mentioned where his sister was born but left out where his brother Salim-Saleh was born. Even if he was born in Mbarara hospital, Museveni still needs to point out the village where his parents lived at the time of his birth, including evidence such as resting place of his ancestors. Otherwise his place of birth will remain a troubling thorn under his foot. In order to end malaria, Museveni suggested terminating mosquitoes altogether using larvicides. To get an idea about the difficulties of terminating mosquitoes he should checked with Zanzibar records where it was tried. On human capital formation or human resource development Museveni was completely silent on food and nutrition security, housing and dressing. Under-nutrition, urban slums and wearing second hand clothes and walking barefoot remain serious challenges that make him comfortable. So Museveni can’t congratulate his government yet. He needs to balance food for export and food for domestic consumption. He needs to pay much more attention to sprawling urban slums that he created by advising that more Ugandans should drift to urban areas where economic opportunities are found. So far this has been a policy failure. Reports suggest that over 70 percent of urban population dwell in slums especially in Kampala. Pulling down structures won’t solve the problem: it will only increase the potential for urban revolt. Museveni reported that Uganda population has grown fast because of good results of NRM policies. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Two things he omitted have caused rapid population growth namely high level of absolute poverty combined with early school dropout and many illegal immigrants and refugees. Museveni deliberately encouraged relaxation of immigration controls so that we get outsiders to occupy and utilize unoccupied arable land and unutilized water abundance. This policy has resulted in many people coming into Uganda than leaving it. There are areas where illegal immigrants exceed indigenous population. Birth control alone won’t solve the problem. UNFPA has been spending large sums of money in Uganda (the highest amount of almost 20 million as of March 20, 2013 in Sub-Saharan Africa). UNFPA has stepped up reproductive health including birth control among vulnerable and poor people, including indigenous people who are already dwindling in many parts of Africa. This assistance may have adverse consequences in the future including Batwa people in western Uganda. Through the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA) Uganda is training doctors and nurses, and midwives in “a range of reproductive health services, including … the administration of long-acting contraceptives, such as intrauterine devices and implants”(UNFPA Annual report 2012). In every state of the nation address and budget speech Museveni reports plans on infrastructure (roads, energy, water, ICT and oil etc) which are largely unimplemented that this reporting has frankly speaking lost value. Right now Uganda has no development blue print: SAP was abandoned in 2009 and replaced by a five year development plan which hasn’t been implemented as reported by the prime minister. The 2040 vision is still being prepared. It was launched prematurely. That vision 2040 was dead on arrival is reflected in the fact that Museveni mentioned it once in connection with infrastructure. That Museveni has lost bearings on the economy can be seen in how he reports about creating a middle income economy and society. He has variously reported that it will be achieved in a few years’ time or within 30 years. Museveni’s failed to create an independent and integrated economy that he talked about so often until he quietly dropped it. Now Museveni is talking about integrated market by creating a conducive atmosphere for private sector-led growth. It was thought we had this all along when the government privatized public enterprises en masse to generate revenue and improve efficiency? What happened to export-led economic growth that he had been talking about since 1990? Museveni appeared combative when defending foreign business in Uganda. What benefits have foreign businesses conferred on Ugandans in terms for instance of creating remunerative jobs and promoting growth rates? Museveni attitude is reminiscent to Tumusiime-Mutebile’s when he was defending hiring young European experts while experienced Ugandans were marginalized or locked out of the country. There is an element of guilt conscience. Museveni has always talked about the primary role of agriculture in Uganda’s development but underfunds the sector. That some agricultural institutes are being turned into military barracks, that NAADS is always in need of revamping and cooperatives have no minister of state and possibly no budget signifies Museveni’s lack of interest in modernizing agriculture especially crop production for obvious reasons. Reversing overfishing, Museveni was warned a long time ago at least in my book published in 1999 and he has a copy in the presidency about the dangers which he ignored. Now he is saying he is getting information that those destroying the fishery resources are not indigenous people. He knew this a long time ago and he encouraged it in his speeches when he was stressing the need of increasing earning foreign exchange through inter alia Exporting fish as an integral part of overall export-led economic growth. Museveni says he cannot compromise on our heritage but our heritage includes feeding our families which Museveni has already compromised in a big way by exporting food, leaving very little for domestic consumption. On his determination to deal with ticks Museveni reported that he had to fly to Ireland to discuss the problem. Surely this could have been ably handled by the minister or experts responsible for livestock. This is a case of micromanagement and unnecessary interference in the work of ministers. No wonder they don’t talk much because their work is done for them by the president. On Uganda moving forward, Museveni underscored the economic growth rate of 5 percent as a big achievement. But we have been told that to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 Uganda’s economy needs to grow at a minimum annual rate of 8-9 percent. It is because Uganda has done poorly on the MDGs that it was not able to present a report at the UN General Assembly Special Summit in 2010. The next review is on September 25, 2013. Hopefully Uganda’s report will be ready. Keeping inflation so low at 3.6 percent could mean that so much money has been pulled out of circulation and interest rate so high that business owners or potential ones are not borrowing, causing the economy to grow slowly and youth unemployment to keep rising. Uganda is still following the Washington Consensus although it was officially abandoned in 2009 because staff in the ministry of finance and central bank including Mutebile and Muhakanizi is not willing or is unable to switch to a new development paradigm of public and private partnership. Washington Consensus was originally designed for Latin American countries and was imported to Uganda and applied without adjustment to local conditions. As always Museveni continues to blame failure on saboteurs and promises to address corruption. The utility of this argument is close to zero. The state of the nation address had nothing on peace and security which used to be a favorite topic as well as figures on poverty reduction and per capita incomes. He has been forced to drop them even when the UNDP’s Human Development Report covered economic growth as a success in Uganda. The sad reality is beginning to impact on the president’s speeches. Militarization of the police, allegation of dispatching intelligence officers to Europe and North America to harass dissidents there, invading media houses, crushing journalist demonstration, selling Muhoozi as his successor as president, recommending corrupt and sectarian Sam Kutesa as President of UN General Assembly next year and damaging revelations by exiled and once strong man Gen. David Sejjusa (Tinyefuza) from London have made it difficult for Museveni to talk about peace and security, human rights and administration of justice. Here are a few comments on the budget speech: The speech says that vision 2040 has a roadmap. First of all there is no vision yet. It is not ready. Therefore there can’t be a roadmap. The draft was approved in principal by parliament meaning that more work needed to be done on it and this is still being done by the National Planning Authority. Achieving middle class income has shifted from being realized in 2017 to within 30 years. This is admission of a mission impossible in the short term. Infrastructure is again presented as the main constraint to investment and rapid growth yet large sums of money are allocated to the sector every year. Where has the money gone? Uganda must take seriously any proposals to deal with land. Before titles can be given especially in areas where there was war as in Luwero Triangle, Northern and Eastern Uganda, the public must be sure that people who were displaced got their land back. It is estimated that half the population in Luwero Triangle perished. So who is occupying their land? In Luwero Triangle where some land was allocated by resistance officers it needs to be confirmed that people from outside the areas did not grab Baganda land. We should be careful about the proposed land court. It could work against powerless peasants. Land matters in Uganda now are essentially political and need to be settled by political means. The government has acknowledged the problem of youth unemployment and what has caused it but is unable to provide a strategy to address the situation. This is an area where the government has not made an effort because keeping the youth unemployed may be good for the government at least for now but the time bomb is ticking. NRM continues to stress Uganda’s comparative advantage in agriculture. Museveni has quietly withdrawn his earlier confidence in the industrialization of the economy within 15 years upon assumption of the presidency. Mutebile seems to have won the argument because he has insisted that Uganda’s comparative advantage is in agriculture and export of agricultural commodities but no country has become developed without a strong industrial base. So Mutebile’s stand needs to be revisited with reference to Brazil that has diversified its economy with manufacturing playing a vital role. Uganda wants to innovate but doesn’t want skilled people back home. Earning foreign exchange through remittances seems to be more important than bringing Ugandans home to engage in innovation. Museveni stated that NRM will continue to create an enabling environment for growth, development and socio-economic transformation and fight corruption. But where does the President intend to start from? It is easier to talk about science and technology than to act. Museveni should have realized that by now. Student loan may be better than raising fees that students from poor families can’t afford. But we need to see the details. Government has recognized the problem of improving transparency and accountability, noting that it will take time but Uganda will get there. This is a diplomatic way of conceding defeat in fighting corruption, sectarian and mismanagement. The most disturbing part of the budget speech is the tax increases that are extremely retrogressive and will hurt those in low income brackets especially the poorest, confirming that Museveni has always wanted to impoverish Ugandans to the bone. Taxes on water for domestic use, taxes on wheat and flour, taxes on petrol and diesel, taxes on kerosene will definitely hurt the poor the most. Poverty will deepen and spread. The president was right when he stated that this was a historical budget drawn largely on domestic resources because the donors have withdrawn much support. This budget speech is very empty on new ideas. Museveni must accept that he is losing the economic battle, explaining in part while he finally let Chris Kasami retire. He has been permanent secretary and secretary to the treasury for decades. Keith Muhakanizi who has been de facto boss of the ministry of Finance will almost definitely become de jure boss: the new Permanent secretary and secretary to the treasury. At the end of the day Tutsi will control the powerful ministries of finance, information and communication technology, foreign and internal affairs as well as defense (Katumba Wamala is there to keep Baganda in NRM camp without real power). That is the administrative coup that Museveni has carried out. By Radio Free Buganda on Sunday, 30 June 2013 at 13:22
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 12:24:36 +0000
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