Middle income status: A very ambitious but attainable goal

For Uganda to move towards middle income status, the country needs to take steps, and below are some of them.

Align programmes
The first step is align all Government programmes to the NDP II. This is where all our plans and priorities for getting into middle income have been defined. All government departments, ministries must be fully coordinated to focus on the aspirations in this plan. No deviations in priority and execution must be allowed.

Empower MDAs
All government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) should be empowered and accountability demanded from them. Institutions and agencies of government must remain independent but accountable for all they do, and should be well facilitated. Any delays in implementing government policies and programmes and deviations from the approved budgets should not be blamed on politicians. Technocrats have the capacity to plan and execute and this is why the heavily burdened tax payer pays them. Politicians ought to give the technocrats a chance and wait to demand for results. Over-committing government must invite reprimand because at the end of day the tax payer will be require to innocently fill in the gap.

Enforce the law
Laissez-faire in executing government programmes and projects must stop. Especially now, when we are focusing on serious timelines - 2020. This country has laws that have never worked! Government is about law and order; and laws must be followed to the letter. Any public servant responsible for enforcing laws of whatever nature must take serious responsibility to do so.

Punishment for crime
Any attempts by the citizenry and the private sector to frustrate law enforcement must invite serious reprimand and we must see people both in government and the private sector beginning to go to jail for this. Countries that have developed or are into middle income have been extremely serious on enforcement of rules, laws, regulations and procedures. Our mistake here is that we have offered Ugandans extremely excessive freedom in the guise of democracy and human rights. Some of our citizens are indeed stronger than government! Our government must change approach from patronage and siesta, to serious demand for compliance and results if we are to get close to middle income.

Involve society
The civil society and the private sector should be fully involved in policy evolution. For policies to be effective the beneficiaries must be part and parcel of their evolution. Enforcement and compliance becomes easier when the citizenry take part in policy formulation. You reduce the cost of compliance and maximise benefits that accrue from implementing such policy.

Be frugal
Stop extravagance and demand frugality across all MDAs. This is both for government and the private sector. For private sector though, the market conditions do shape our conduct. When you are extravagant, you run bankrupt and you are driven out of the market because of costs. However for government it is usually not the case. Government can be wasteful and inefficient but still remain in operation – leveraging taxes paid by the private sector.

Review spending
Government needs to carefully review its recurrent spending and focus resources more to areas that create wealth and jobs for this country. You cannot get into middle income with 80 per cent of your youths unemployed! Expenditures on workshops, seminars, unnecessary allowances, public travels, public holidays, use of government vehicles (just check what happened through the long festive season) and the like are taking too much of tax payers money and must be critically reviewed by the head of the civil service and the service delivery unit in the Office of the Prime Minister. Short of this, and without sounding like a prophet of doom, we are getting nowhere on middle income status. We should have a lot more serious public holidays such as Tree Planting Day. You wake up to do nothing else but plant a tree or two. Governments around us have instituted this and we must do it here, especially in the wake of climate change challenges.

Service contracts
Enforce performance contracts for civil servants and get them to focus more on service delivery: Clear targets and key performance indicators must be drawn and given to all individuals executing government programmes/projects at all levels - both at local and central governments, including Cabinet.

Improve supervision
Strengthen supervision and inspection in government. One of the challenges of execution is the lack of supervision and inspection. We read this a lot in sectors such as education, health and construction.
Teachers are not in class, health workers are not at the health centres, drugs are at the Medical Stores but not in health centres, buildings are collapsing, and roads are half done. This is a supervision challenge and the Prime Minister’s office ought to rise up to it. Again if we do not strengthen this, it will be business as usual.

Punish the corrupt
Institute punitive action against corruption and public thefts: More people must increasingly be jailed for this. Countries that have set their foot on the path to middle income status such as China have distinguished themselves in this area. Rwanda is now quickly following into the footsteps and truly their vision 2020 will get them into middle income.

Monitor activities
Strengthen the monitoring to assure Ugandans that we are on the right course and getting there. Many times we spend money but never come back to ask for results. Accountability must be strengthened to put each one of us on our toes to deliver.

Promote local content
Implement the local content policy and empower local entrepreneurs to create jobs, enhance incomes and add value to exports. This will save foreign exchange and reduce indebtness. The reduction in energy charges can only be realised if we expand investments and create demand for power. This comes about, if as a country, we can provide the required market for our products through the local content policy. Government, through the ministry of Finance, is now writing a framework to operationalise the policy and the private sector should be called to the fore to take part in developing this framework.

Middle income countries
What they are. Middle income countries (MICs) are a diverse group by size, population and income level, and are home to five of the world’s close to seven billion people and 73 per cent of the world’s poor people.
MICs also represent about one-third of global GDP and are major engines of global growth.
Following the World Bank classification of defining MICs through their per capita income the following are some of the countries that fall in the category of lower middle-income. These stand between $1,026 to $4,035.
These are: Senegal, Bhutan, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Lesotho, Sudan, Swaziland, DR Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Mongolia, Egypt, Arab Rep. Morocco, Ukraine, Nicaragua, Uzbekistan, Fiji, Nigeria, Georgia Pakistan, Vietnam, Ghana Papua New Guinea, Guatemala, Paraguay, Yemen, Guyana, Philippines, Zambia, Honduras, and Samoa. It is this category Uganda is striving to reach in just about three years from now.