We can’t make East Africa great by crawling our way

President Museveni spoke East Africa to a lot of common sense in his written speech circulated ahead of the opening in Kampala on Thursday of the ‘EAC Heads of State Retreat on Infrastructure and Health Financing and Development’.

Very early on in the speech, the President puts things in perspective by declaring that “we owe it to ourselves and the future generations to ensure that this region has efficient, interlinked and interoperable infrastructure to enable our people to increase their prosperity through the exchange of goods and services”.
Good stuff.

But, as things tend to unfold, implementation gets in the way. I have never worked in the public sector and therefore have no close-up experience of how ideas get turned into actual projects that affect our lives.
From the outside, I am always confused when the government announces a project only for basic issues (e.g. clean tendering, compensation/resettlement) to crop up to delay or fail the project altogether.
I would expect that by the time the President, for example, announces that a road will be built in place X, all the groundwork has been done. In other words, the announcement would be more about when the project will actually start, how long it will take, how much it will cost, why it is needed, and possibly who the contractor is.

When the government says it is expanding the Northern Bypass in Kampala over the next two years, one assumes that at that point all the funding has been got, compensation has been done, and a contractor is ready at the site. Not quite.

Kampala Capital City Authority leaders spent much of 2014 telling us they will build flyovers to help decongest the city. “We have finalised all the necessary procedures for the Clock Tower– Jinja Road flyover project and the process to remove the clock tower junction and Umeme substation are complete,” KCCA executive director Jennifer Musisi said in December 2014.
Months earlier, another official declared that Kampala will have the first flyover in 2019. It is 2018 today. Just saying.

So, why the rush to announce these grand things when clearly you are not ready? Is the rush to score political points? Or is it a way to invite public debate? If the latter, then the announcement should be clear. Most times, the announcements are made in terms that suggest all is set as Ms Musisi said of the flyover in 2014.

If not ready to run with a project, government officials should just shut up. We won’t kill them, although we will adjudge them clueless and incompetent and political — all those horrors combined.
In his speech, circulated to journalists on Thursday, President Museveni said: “I wish to mention some of the challenges, like, delays in project delivery caused by procurement challenges. As heads of state, we agreed on the priority projects across the region but we do not have in place a harmonised approach of procuring for these projects. This is an area that we must address, collectively.”
President Museveni. Really!

What exactly is the process that leads to the agreement on these priority projects when all the homework has not been done to deliver them on budget and on time?
Let’s say the presidents, while chatting amongst themselves over busheera, come up with ideas and announce them the next hour. What stops the bureaucrats in all the regional capitals working backwards to flesh out the brilliant ideas of the wise heads of state? The third infrastructure retreat was held in November 2014, Mr Museveni says in his speech. More than three years later, the priority projects still have no harmonised procurement system.

Which begs the question: where is the urgency and sense of purpose in all this? If, as the President said, East Africa is the fastest growing region in Africa, could it not grow even faster if those who lead us showed more resolve? They surely owe it to themselves, to the rest of us living today, and to future generations.
We can do whatever we want but we can’t create a glorious East Africa by bumbling along.

Bernard Tabaire is a media trainer and commentator on public affairs based in Kampala.
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Twitter:@btabaire