The Presidential address to the nation was spot on

Mr Thembo is the chairman, Governance Plus Advisory Services. [email protected]

What you need to know:

People should read. The social media respondents on this matter seem not to know that this nexus exists. Do our people really read - most shockingly some of these are leaders.

I listened and recorded (for future reference) the Presidential address that was aired live on all major electronic media outlets on September 9. I have also reviewed a forest of responses from different platforms, especially social media, responding and evaluating the address.

True, Museveni’s analytical capabilities and clear understanding of the problems afflicting a developing country like Uganda is unequalled. Where our good friends opposed to Museveni and their handlers will scratch on the top of the issues, Museveni goes deeper. He brings out the real issues-accepting the problem that there is. He also gives well-rounded explanations to make anybody ready and able to listen to understand the real dynamics affecting our country.

The analysis of the security problem, putting it in the context of the larger/macro security problem-and the current micro security menace, especially in the urban areas, was very instructive. When he got to the economy, the President went deeper into evaluating where we are as a country as compared to where we were some three decades ago and making a very educated conclusion that Uganda was now ready for the take-off.

Bravo Mr President, we need more of this so as to empower us to understand more the ecosystem in which our country operates. I now turn to the social media responses to the presidential address, most of which I find extempore, surreal and unreasonable. A number of those responding to the President’s address had issues with his referring to the 1986 as his reference point.

Where is the problem with this? Year 1986 is just yesterday with regard to nation building. Yes, the President has to continue mentioning 1986 as this is when our country had reached the worst you can ever imagine in all spheres of socio-economic matters. I imagine our friends in Opposition would not want our young people to know what happened then because they are stuck with the maniacal narrative that it is Museveni who has destroyed everything in Uganda.

By 1986, the economy was contracting, inflation in three digit galloping mode, balance of payment in the worst shape ever and absolute poverty biting nearly all. This is where NRM found Uganda and there cannot be any success story or failure to be told without first referring to this period.

Other interesting responses were on the issue of corruption. To some of our young people responding to the President’s address, it was as if what the president said meant that this was his first time to take some measurers to fight corruption. We can help. Corruption, as the President clearly put it, is a strategic bottleneck to development. All efforts should be directed towards the fight of this menacing problem. The anti-corruption Unit in the State House and the telephone numbers the President provided is another front to assault this problem.

What we have to appreciate is that fighting corruption is mainly a transactional matter requiring concerted efforts of nearly all facets of the government and institutional collaboration. The core institutions of government, that is the State (Executive), rule of law (Judiciary) and legislative (Parliament), should work in tandem.

We see a dedicated Parliament taking on its oversight role aggressively, the Executive has put up several measures to improve transparency and accountability frameworks-and loopholes identified in public finance management are handled as they appear.
What remains, in my view, is the sharpening of the investigative capacities of the police and sensitisation of our communities to be aggressive in the fight against corruption. We should note, however, that corruption in Uganda is older than all the institutions that are supposed to fight it. Secondly, corruption had at one point reached a level where society had accepted it as the normal way of doing things.

I have always told a story of how I was personally scoffed at in my area. A colleague of mine built for his parents, one year after he had started work, a palatial home when mine were still in a hut.

According to the community, I was the bad boy who did not care about my parents. Nobody at that time had the audacity to ask how this diploma holder, who had worked only for one year, had gotten the money to buy off the whole neibourhood, own a fleet of vehicles and other properties.

Today, because of the change in attitude, I am happy when I see people put on inquiry when one accumulates unexplained wealth: This is the beginning of the fight against corruption. Taking the fight in the Executive office (State House) is complementary to other efforts.

Then came the issue of youth unemployment. The President’s explanation with regard to the nexus between improved health services (immunisation), population growth and unemployment was the most misunderstood-deliberately tough, I imagine, because the President was crystal clear.

The social media respondents on this matter seem not to know that this nexus exists. Do our people really read - most shockingly some of these are leaders. Population is a supply factor whilst economic situation is a demand factor in the labour market. An imbalance between the supply of labour and the demand for it gives rise to unemployment and underemployment.
It is a known fact that during the demographic transition, that is the transition of the population from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates, the resultant effect is high population growth.

The high population growth in most developing countries will not necessarily grow in tandem with economic growth and this will result into too many people chasing too few available job opportunities in the economy. This is fact.

For example, as the President explained, our population has more than doubled in the past three decades, but obviously, much as we have had impressive economic growth, our employment creation capacity has not kept pace. Government has expanded on educational opportunities for all, but the available jobs have not kept pace and, of course, the mismatch between needed and owned skills in the market. There is no way you can explain unemployment in Uganda without deeply looking at this nexus-much as there other contributory factors to wholly explain the raging unemployment in the country. You don’t solve the problem of unemployment in Uganda by loud-mouthing it and asking our young people to fight government.

It’s the kind of measures the president is suggesting, most of which he has already piloted that will solve this problem. And more strategically, the kind of public investments that the president enumerated will create the enabling environment to improve the economic situation hence reducing the imbalance between supply of labor and economic situation.

Like I responded to one of my friends on social media who had posted that he spent six hours trying to understand what the president talked about, the insinuation of which is that the president talked nothing: “when your mind is mired in hatred, deceit and populism, you are a kind who may not appreciate what the president address was all about.

To some of us who listened with a sober and open mind, the President’s address was seminal and spot on. We need more of such communications from the Fountain of Honour.

Mr Thembo is the chairman, Governance Plus Advisory Services. [email protected]