Uganda Airlines will die again – or kill taxpayers

What you need to know:

  • As for President Museveni, he has a unique opportunity to apply his judgment and exercise his authority.
    Insider pushers of the project have painted a seductively optimistic scenario, apparently including under-pricing the aircraft.

The most popular toy among Uganda’s kids (especially boys) is probably emmotoka (or toy motorcar).
When they grow up, flying is right up there with the thrilling experience of driving motorcars.
If you have some interest in psychology, you could be profoundly entertained by exploring the link between the obsession with cars and air travel among our MPs and their favourite toys when they were infants.
Interestingly, then as now, they did not want to hear arguments about the cost. Parents and taxpayers should just make these things available.
And what if you could actually make cars?
Wow! Do you remember how the story of the then (supposedly) impending mass production of a rogue electric car called Kiira-EV became the mother of ruses? Many ordinary people, government officials and President Museveni himself got very excited. One university professor even apparently earned a stint – although it was the briefest of stints – as a government minister on the strength of this fairy tale.
President Museveni and a good number of other Ugandans are now in the process of buying another fairy tale: the resurrection of the national carrier, Uganda Airlines.
The most puzzling thing is that the reasons why Uganda Airlines is almost certain to fail again are obvious. All government officials know them, yet Mr Museveni’s government seems bent on defying the evidence.
Poor capitalisation partly killed the old Uganda Airlines in 2001. But the NRM government still typically lingers or acts erratically when settling many of its big local and international financial obligations. Will it suddenly behave differently when it comes to capitalising Uganda Airlines?
Political interference, nepotism, incompetence, corruption, neglect and generalised abuse of almost anything that belongs to Ugandans but is controlled by the State; these ills afflicted the defunct airline, and there is very little to assure sceptics that the NRM leadership has the political will to prevent these ills from affecting the operations of the new airline.
Already, some of the actors who have had interests in the aviation industry and also played in high NRM politics and corruption are hanging around like a plague.

On top of these concerns, the economic outlook for the country is gloomy, with investor confidence low and unemployment frightening. It is hardly the right time to pour government and borrowed money into an industry that – even at the best of times, and in the best of hands – has brought misery to many governments.
It seems that President Museveni has been mocked and taunted into a trap by both his detractors and vampire “friends” of the regime, who keep denigrating Uganda under his rule; that Uganda is not muscular enough as a country without an airline of her own.

Pride goes before a fall. In the October 16 Sunday Monitor, Capt Francis Babu dismisses the European, American and our economists, who warn that Uganda cannot (successfully or profitably) run an airline.
He argues that since Dubai, “a mere city-state” can run an airline, we also can. “…what we need is to change our mindset…”

Well, it can’t be the size, Mr Babu, because that ‘mere city-state’ has got many things right that Uganda gets wrong, like importing Uganda’s Lwera sand (!) and then selling finished glass sheets to Uganda.
If it is changing the mindset, then perhaps Mr Babu should be talking of a revolution before whipping up support for the airline.
Under the NRM, Uganda is a vampire state, and Mr Babu’s wishful thinking can neither change its predatory ethos nor the unforgiving complexity of the aviation industry.
As for President Museveni, he has a unique opportunity to apply his judgment and exercise his authority.
Insider pushers of the project have painted a seductively optimistic scenario, apparently including under-pricing the aircraft.
After he is committed (assuming he is not in cahoots with them), they will hit him (and the taxpayer) with the true scenario, which will probably include some overpriced components.
Meanwhile, his detractors are waiting for the fiasco to happen so they clip his wings. This time, the President should not cast about for scapegoats. He should take full responsibility for that fiasco.

Mr Tacca is a novelist, socio-political commentator.