Museveni’s first year: A mixed bag of wins, losses

He promised parents while campaigning in Alebtong District in November 2015 that if they voted him back to power their school girls would get free sanitary towels, geometry sets, exercise books and computers in the next financial year (which is ending).
According to results published on the Electoral Commission (EC) website, President Museveni won in Alebtong with 31,952 votes or 48 per cent of the valid votes cast.
After his re-election and swearing-in, the population waited for the promise to be fulfilled in vain. Government was silent on the matter until activist Dr Stella Nyanzi kicked up the storm with a campaign on social media that everyone woke up.
It wasn’t until the President’s wife Janet, also the minister for Education, told Parliament on February 15 that there was no money to fulfil the pledge, and consequently Dr Nyanzi being sent to prison early last month, that the matter was put to rest.
After promising free sanitary towels and computers, the President while campaigning in Nwoya District promised 18 million hoes to six million households engaged in farming across the country.
The pledge, somewhat a contradiction to his gospel of transforming Uganda from an agrarian to industrial economy by 2040, was implemented partly after Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda was directed to make money available for procurement of the hoes. But weeks later the process was halted due to budgetary constraints. That was the last time the voters heard of the pledge.
President Museveni swept the votes in Nwoya with 9,922 or 41 per cent of the votes followed by FDC’s Besigye with 6,838 or 28 per cent while former prime minister Amama Mbabazi garnered 4,994 votes.

Talk is cheap

At his first campaign rally in Luweero District, the heartland of the Luweero Triangle where he waged the five-year guerrilla war that brought him in power three decades ago, Mr Museveni pledged to increase funding for the National Agricultural Advisory Services (Naads) to the tune of Shs1 trillion if re-elected.
From Luweero, he moved to northern Uganda where besides the free pads, computers and hoes, he pledged to inject Shs20b in the cattle compensation programme, and to eventually settle the Shs500b debt.
Throughout his campaign trail, the President preached job creation and inclusive development, two aspects he said would usher Uganda into modernity.
An assessment of all the presidential pledges during the last presidential campaign by this newspaper shows that Mr Museveni is yet to fulfil any. In monetary terms, the pledges totalled an estimated Shs3 trillion.
Three years before the election, a parliamentary committee report documented that the President’s earlier pledges since 1986 totalled Shs12.9 trillion.
Several of the monetary pledges were not captured anywhere in the ruling NRM party’s 338 page policy framework with the theme: “Taking Uganda to Modernity Through Job creation & Inclusive Development.”
The document at its launch was dubbed the “diagnosis” of Uganda’s problems and the prescription for the next five years.
Talk is cheap, actions are expensive, it is often said. Never mind that the other candidates in the race also made several pledges.
But the President’s Senior Press Secretary, Mr Don Wanyama, says “running a country is not like a home; there is a lot to consider as which is the first priority”.
“That notwithstanding, the President has spent the first one year setting stage for his vision of transforming this country into middle-income status,” Mr Wanyama told this newspaper.
“Also don’t forget that the President was elected on a five-year contract so you cannot claim he has not done anything in the first year.”
Besides traveling out of the country to Germany, France, the US, UK, Qatar, South Africa, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, South Sudan, Somalia, Zambia, Sudan and Angola in the first year of his fifth term to either attend international conferences or “woo investors”, Mr Wanyama says “also don’t forget the continued gains made in stability of the country” that most naysayers easily dismiss.
“The deliverables may not be visible, but a lot is being prepared in the kitchen; and one by one it shall be seen in due time.”

Kisanja hakuna mchezo
At his swearing-in ceremony at Kololo Independence Grounds headlined by 14 African heads of state and delegates sent by Washington, Beijing and Moscow, President Museveni declared his new term as a year of no monkey business “Kisanja hakuna mchezo”, warning government officials against incompetence and corruption that have riddled many institutions for a long time.
The same was emphasized at the four retreats so far held at Kyankwanzi attended by all government officials at various intervals, presided over by President Museveni, which according to Mr Wanyama was to ensure that bureaucrats and political leaders read from the same script.
“And you have seen that unlike previously, during this one year the President has expressed zero tolerance for incompetence,” he argues.
At the inaugural Cabinet meeting on June 23, 2016, the President outlined 15 tasks for his new government for this term.
“The Civil Service is educated although they have issues of integrity,” the President remarked at the retreat at State House Entebbe.
Education and improved healthcare have meant that average life expectancy has grown from 43 years to 63 years, he argued, adding that “many youth can now read and write, have mastered numeracy and can use the internet. They, however, need more skills in the areas of agriculture, metal work, construction, ceramics, motor-mechanics, computer use, etc.”
While case by case performance on each of the 15 tasks can be debated, there have been some strides in some areas like fast-tracking activities for commercial oil production to start in 2020 since it is the International Oil Companies investing, but that notwithstanding, it is unlikely the timeline is achievable.
Similarly, early last month the President tapped a new head of the Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), Ms Jolly Kamugira Kaguhangire, to spearhead reforms at the body. In the same regard, he has since delegated the army to man the corruption toll free line at UIA.
The war on corruption has so far netted junior Labour minister Herbert Kabafunzaki and in late March two officials from the ministry of Finance who were arrested over bribery claims. But the case turned out complicated, involving a group of lawyers and several middlemen, and have since been released on bail.
Energy minister Irene Muloni told this newspaper late last month on the sidelines of the reception of visiting Equatorial Guinea president Obiang Nguema at State House Entebbe that they are in advanced stages of talks with the different players on reducing power tariffs. She said they had started with lowering tariffs for the manufactures.
Opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party president Mugisha Muntu in an interview, however, reiterated: “Gen Museveni can build all the dams, roads and everything else he has dreamed of but until the country addresses the fundamental question of a transition, all he has done may not stand through time.”
“If you get the fundamental[s] wrong, everything else is bound to go wrong and for that matter whatever he’s done is hanging in balance,”
“Our army has been in Somalia for almost 10 years now but during Siad Barre‘s time back in the day, in Libya and even in Ivory Coast, I think actually they had better roads than we have but where is everything now?”
“We went to the bush and fought for five years to restore the fundamentals of peacefully changing one government smoothly to another which Gen Museveni betrayed and now because even himself is not certain what will happen after him, the country is living in some illusion.”
Makerere University political science don Juma Okuku also advances a similar viewpoint that “Ugandans are living an illusion that the government is constructing roads, railways and they go out at night and drink till dawn when the President is the military and state power and is using it whenever and how he feels like.”
“If the ‘stupid’ Idi Amin had food silos but now we have to turn to China for food aid even with the enabling environment to grow our own food,” Dr Okuku argued. “Yes it has been one year, but one year of the same— nepotism, incompetent institutions and one person who thinks has a vision for this country.”
President Museveni and First Lady Janet climaxed their first year of his fifth term on a visit to the UK where he was scheduled to address the UK-Somalia conference on drumming up humanitarian support for the war torn country in the Horn Africa.
But when he gets back to embark on another year in office, his daunting to-do list includes a frail economy, rising commodity prices, pockets of insecurity on the watch of a police force in a mess, not to mention enforcing the 15 tasks of his government.

Museveni promises during campaigns

President Museveni pledged to pay war veterans, whose numbers are unknown, but total debt is believed to be about Shs1,500b. Already, he indicated Shs70b had been paid during the 2015/16 financial year.
He promised to increase funding for microfinance projects from the current Shs44b to Shs500b. He promised Shs7b into a women’s fund and Shs33b into the youth fund to uplift their livelihoods.
He promised Arua city status, preached poverty eradication, transformation of agriculture, infrastructural development, ICT development, and so forth.

He scrapped collateral security requirements for rural dwellers wishing to access loans from the Shs85b government’s Micro Finance Centre, and in almost every region around the country promised to tarmac almost every road, especially those part of the 2,000km listed in his party, NRM’s manifesto.
He promised better housing for teachers, to improve the quality of healthcare, better housing facilities for doctors, police officers, construct 300 toilets in Kampala, and to build more regional hospitals.

Museveni tasks at first Cabinet meeting

The 15 tasks President Museveni outlined for his new government at the inaugural Cabinet meeting were; working with the proprietors of Bujagali to lower the costs of electricity; concluding of negotiations for the Standard Gauge Railway; building of 22 industrial parks; Uganda Investment Authority ensuring investors get all the necessary licences in two days; zero tolerance to corruption and addressing the problem of poor regulation.
Other tasks included interventions in agriculture, for example, to convert 68 per cent of the homesteads from subsistence farming to commercial farming; fast-tracking the oil and gas sector, especially on the Greenfield oil refinery and crude oil export pipeline to ensure oil production starts in 2020; value addition in the mineral sector; environmental conservation; and addressing the issue of service delivery decisively, especially in the areas of health care, education and feeder roads.

He further listed addressing land issues, increasing salaries of soldiers and other security personnel until they come in line with the salaries of the teachers and the medical workers, setting up (reviving) of a national airline, eliminating indebtedness to army veterans without deviating from the priorities of defence and security, electricity, and roads.