What all these types of budget leakages have in common is that they are various ways of paying regime supporters enough to want to stay loyal even if they may see the failures of the regime and the extent of the poverty and deprivation of the majority of the people.

There is a general rule that all people who seek national political leadership want as much power as they can get and also want to hold that power for as long as possible. This rule is what is at play in Uganda. While holding power, the available national resources can be used for the welfare and delivery of services to the people or they can be used for buying the loyalty of key supporters and promotion of corruption, graft and waste at the expense of people’s welfare. The desire to survive in power dictates the nature of key decisions on the use and allocation of resources and the management of the national Treasury becomes subordinated to the regime survival project.
This is where we are in Uganda. Good governance, the concerns and welfare of the people are secondary to those of the regime and regime supporters. This is why many of us, some time back, came to the conclusion that for the country to move forward, change at the national leadership level is imperative. Fortunately, most people have gradually come to the same conclusion, even among those considered beneficiaries of regime survival. Gen. David Sejusa is just one of many, the others will come out of the closet in due course. How to bring about change is, therefore, the issue that needs discussion for harmonisation of actions and activities.
Let’s look at a few key resource allocation decisions dictated by regime survival: Repression and suppression of people’s rights and freedoms has increasingly become a priority regime sector on which vast sums of money are spent. For example, it would be interesting if a committee of Parliament could produce a report on the actual expenditure on controlling, surveillance, arresting, imprisoning and prosecuting Dr Kizza Besigye, Eria Lukwago, Ingrid Turinawe, etc. How much money is spent on the preparedness for repression; on tear gas, mambas, specialised equipment like gas masks and related materials, training and retaining of personnel to continue performing the horrible acts necessary to keep the regime in power? How much money is spent on judicial time for handling the cases of individuals and groups in the innumerable protest situations? And how much money do these affected people spend to defend themselves in the numerous situations they encounter the forces of repression? This is just one area that siphons off funds that could have been spent on service delivery or even the welfare of the personnel (army, Police, security agencies) in these agencies used for repressive purposes.
But take the other area vital for regime survival namely, corruption, waste and mismanagement. The generous estimate is that 50 per cent of the national budget is lost through corruption, embezzlement, fraud, etc. But if you include the resources expended on investigation, prosecution and the judicial process the cost of a corrupt regime/kleptocracy becomes clearly enormous. How much money has been spent on the Chogm, Gavi, Prime Minister’s Office, Public Service/pensions and the numerous corruption scandals? How many special investigation commissions have been put in place and how much time and money have the police, courts, Parliament, Local Councils, civil society and the media spent on the malfeasance of public officials and their collaborators?
How much money is lost through mismanagement of projects and programmes such as Naads, Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture, Universal Primary Education and Universal Secondary Education, infrastructure construction, maintenance and repairs? How much money is lost through misuse of government assets, such as the huge fleet of government vehicles? Consider the cost of convoys of security details for innumerable officials, a situation inherited from the post-war situation of 1986 that persists just as a status symbol.
What all these types of budget leakages have in common is that they are various ways of paying regime supporters enough to want to stay loyal even if they may see the failures of the regime and the extent of the poverty and deprivation of the majority of the people. The loyalty of these people can only shift if it becomes clear that the chief patron no longer has the capacity to deliver. That is why the army never interfered to save Mubarak or the Tunisian regimes. Regime survival endangered all the regime supporters and they abandoned the symbolic figure. Could Uganda be moving towards this scenario and what are signs to watch?

Mr Ruzindana is a former IGG and former MP.
a_ruzindana@yahoo.com

The resounding victory of Salaamu Musumba in Kamuli has rightly generated a lot of fear within the NRM’s highest ranks. This was not just like any other by-election. It was a district by-election comprising several parliamentary constituencies and the President and NRM deployed everything at their disposal and they failed miserably. That she won in every polling station except that of the NRM candidate is a pregnant message. On the same day, we lost in Kween District but NRM is not trumpeting their victory as something even of tactical importance.

This victory, in addition to that of the Kasese Woman MP, are of strategic importance. They mark a turning point in the learning curve of how to win elections characterised by unfavourable conditions, but more importantly, in showing that the NRM/State party (President, ministers, RDCs, security agencies, public funds/assets and public officials) is not invincible and may gradually disintegrate. These victories create confidence and remove fear which is the other asset that intimidates voters, especially in rural areas. I know the plan is to distabilise Musumba and make her fail as chairperson, but the voters already know that she will be actually chair of an NRM administration. So if she fails, it will be NRM that has failed, not Musumba.

The blame game has started and everything to minimise the magnitude of the victory is being said and written. It is said disunity in the NRM is the cause of Musumba’s victory but that is true because a superior organisation causes disunity and confusion among the rank and leadership of the opposing forces and that is what happened. That is as it should be. When I saw Musumba coming to Namboole to vote in the FDC presidential elections, her calm demeanor was evidence that she was already confident that victory was assured. The task now is how to consolidate and organise for 2016 elections.

As we celebrate the Kamuli victory, there are issues relating to the party presidential electoral process that need to be attended to urgently but also correctly. I was in Dar es Salaam most of last week and on coming back, I have checked at the FDC party headquarters whether there is any complaint relating to what has appeared in the media and there is nothing. Two days (November 24) after the Namboole National Delegates Conference, a meeting of the top party leaders and representatives of the former candidates in the presidential elections, chaired by the party chairman, was held at the party headquarters and a number of issues were raised. It was agreed that a process should be put in place, by the party chairman, to handle them was agreed.

However, some other matters not discussed in any forum have arisen, e.g. how long the term of the new president is. I am not sure why this should be an issue as Dr Besigye did not serve his first full term. He was elected in October 2005 and his first five-year term would have continued until 2010 but in February 2009, fresh elections were held for the party president and other offices and they all started new full terms. If in 2009 Besigye had been elected to finish his shortened term by one year, it would mean that he should have been elected for a third time in 2010 for another five year term and this did not happen. If the new president serves up to 2014 to finish Besigye’s term, it would mean that he would be eligible for election for his first term in 2014, meaning that he would be able to stand for the same office three times, that is for a total of two and half terms.

It is clear, therefore, that the party elected a president for a full term of five years and the next major election will be for the party flag bearer and preferably two years before the 2016 elections so that the flag bearer-elect can have the opportunity to put in place the campaign machinery, structures, manifesto, funds and other logistic al arrangements. Once the flag bearer is chosen early, it would make it easier to select all candidates in orphan (where the party has no elected representatives) parliamentary and local government constituencies as well.

Mr Ruzindana is a former IGG and former MP.
a_ruzindana@yahoo.com

A few days ago, a stock broker told me that Umeme shares were available and I told him that Umeme was not fit to be floated on the Stock Exchange because it is not a profit-making company. As if they had heard my remarks, a few days later on July 23, they dispatched a team of three people to disconnect electricity from my house for a bill I have not yet received.

These people had come the day before but they did not disconnect power. They came back the next day when I happened to be home and I showed them evidence that I had paid all the bills delivered to me. They said they would nevertheless give me a disconnection order, which I refused to accept since I had no pending bill. They said since I was proving difficult, they would disconnect me anyway. Indeed, a few minutes later - at about 11 a.m., power was disconnected.

I immediately went to the Umeme office at Kitintale where I talked to a young lady who was said to be the one responsible for such matters. I showed her my payment receipts against all bills so far delivered. She moved up and down between offices and I moved behind her to see what she was doing. Eventually, I asked her why she was not writing down my complaint and she said she was checking something, meaning that, perhaps, I was telling a lie. I asked for the bill for which I was disconnected but I did not get one. She checked some papers, but I got no word from her as to why I had been disconnected.

Eventually, I left in disgust at what is obviously an inefficient outfit. Power eventually came back at about 3 p.m., but up to now, the current bill for which power was disconnected, has not yet been delivered. This is the Umeme that wants to sell shares to the public.

I had occasion to write about a similar incident that befell me sometime back and I got some interesting feedback from people who frequently suffer from Umeme malpractices. They told me that there is a bills delivery and disconnection racket. It is said the company, which delivers bills takes its time to enable its counterpart, which disconnects consumers, to accomplish its work before bills are delivered. Indeed I have noticed that bills are delivered long after the payment due date.

Therefore, on the face of it, most consumers are usually late in settling their bills and so disconnection can rightly be made. If you pay expeditiously as I did, then the disconnecting company can base its actions to disconnect a consumer on the amount on the late undelivered bill, as they did in my case. The existence of possible collusion between the companies delivering bills and disconnecting consumers is, therefore, not far-fetched.

The fees paid to each company are probably based on the number of bills delivered, or the number of disconnections made. If bills are delivered on time, then there would be fewer disconnections, thus affecting the income of the company with a disconnection contract.

Either way, Umeme revenue collection is affected because bills are settled late and when a disconnection is made, a consumer uses less electricity than he/she would have used, thus again adversely affecting the revenue collection of Umeme. Since inefficient revenue collection affects the profitability of Umeme, the Capital Markets Authority should seriously look into this issue before allowing Umeme to sell shares to the public.

Corruption often develops syndicates or networks and they fight back when new initiatives threaten them. Thus it is not surprising that the installation of pre-paid meters has stalled even in a pilot area of Kitintale. If pre-paid meters became generalised, the contracts for delivery of bills and disconnection would be no more.

Thus clearly, there are people with a stake in the status quo, just like Umeme has a stake in the status quo. All bills attract a service charge, which fluctuates with the amount of the bill i.e the higher the bill, the higher the service charge. Clearly, pre-paid meters should not attract any service and consequently, Umeme is in no hurry to install them.

Mr Ruzindana is a former IGG and former MP.
a_ruzindana@yahoo.com

The teachers are striking once again and they are supported by foundation bodies which in the first case founded schools long before government got interested in education. Most parents support them too because they are interested in a good education for their children. Job satisfaction is important in any work place, especially in a school environment. A happy teacher is a good teacher. Part of the explanation for falling education standards is poor remuneration of teachers, who see their peers prosper through corruption avenues that are not available to them. Government cannot plead inability to pay when it is creating superfluous new districts which no significant section of the population considers a solution to any of the myriad problems facing the country. For example, how has the status of a district given Bududa an early warning system about an impending landslide or preparedness to handle a landslide when it occurs? How has possession of a district contributed to the reduction of high levels of HIV/Aids in the Sese Islands or how have the very many districts of Karamoja uplifted the region from abject poverty and underdevelopment or how have the innumerable districts of Busoga helped to resolve the impasse over the selection of a Kyabazinga or the reduction of the highest level of the incidence of poverty in the country?

The level of remuneration of civil servants is generally very low and needs to be appreciably improved to, among other things, make it possible to control corruption. In a corrupt system, public officers like teachers, most soldiers and others without opportunities for corruption must be properly remunerated upfront. This is the point which the teachers have consistently made. The recent PAYE threshold increase is too low as the figure was proposed more than 10 years ago before the value of the Shilling had fallen so badly. The minimum PAYE threshold should be at least Shs500,000. If one favoured public officer can be paid more than Shs40 million plus extravagant benefits then the outcry of the teachers must be heeded as a plea of shortage of funds sounds hollow. The premise that teachers are expendable is false as in fact more teachers are needed since most schools are understaffed. Threats against teachers demanding a fair remuneration for their labour must stop. Peaceful strike action is within their constitutional rights to highlight the effects of the worsening cost of living in the country.

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For ages, there has been a government advert that “water is life”. As if the economic situation is not bad enough, government has recently imposed a Value Added Tax of 18 per cent on this “life” without indicating what value has been added this financial year which was not there the year before. This is yet another effect of the over expenditure on the last general elections, which created the lack of funds that is being felt across all government ministries. But it is stretching matters too far to tax water merely because government knows that no one will abstain from using water because of the imposition of a tax. However, this being largely an urban issue, it could spark off street protests and the usual collision with the Police. Government should therefore rethink this measure. The issue is not whether the tax is high or not, it is whether water should be taxed at all.

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The demand of Bunyoro for a share of oil revenues is legitimate but it should be made in conjunction with other legitimate demands. For example, the impact of oil and gas extraction on the environment can be quite serious. Therefore, Bunyoro must insist on environmental provisions, in the oil agreements, which ensure high standards commensurate to those in developed countries and which impose stiff noncompliance penalties and make it mandatory for the oil companies to restore polluted areas so that the oil companies are discouraged from the temptation to cut corners. If the provisions for training Ugandans to manage oil provisions are weak, this will also affect Bunyoro. Therefore, besides the share, Bunyoro should be concerned that the agreements with oil companies are fair to the country. In addition, Bunyoro should also work out a development plan indicating what the money will be used for.

Mr Ruzindana is a former IGG and former MP.

a_ruzindana@yahoo.com

At any time of the day there is a meeting, a workshop, seminar or conference going on somewhere in the world on any issue imaginable. For example, the bigger boys were in Japan meeting to fundraise for Afghanistan, as they approach the exit schedules for the end of their large scale military presence, so that it does not look as if they are abandoning that country without making arrangements for its survival. Without much ado, they agreed to collect from among themselves a princely sum of $16 billion, never mind the reports of some amount of economic turmoil in the backyard of some of the countries participating in the meeting in Japan. Some other big boys were in a London Summit on family planning and related matters such as contraception, fertility rates, unintended pregnancy, size of families and development in the world. To put women back on the world agenda, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the host of the summit, offered about $800 million for Third World Family Planning Services. Other meetings were taking place on the bailout of Spanish banks, as Greece continued to make noise about its strangling austerity bailout terms. Meanwhile in Egypt, the stage for a confrontation has been set by the new President who re-instated the newly elected Parliament that had been dissolved by the military on the orders of the Supreme Court, which has immediately restated its position on the unconstitutionality of the elections of the parliament, meaning that the parliament should remain dissolved. It looks as if the prospects of stability in Egypt may depend on how ready the main players may be willing to work out compromise arrangements.

On my part, I have been in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, most of this week attending a conference of 11 countries on political party financing models and regulations, with specific focus on state funding experiences of various countries. Most people in Uganda may not know that in other countries the state officially funds political parties from the government budget. Ugandans are rather used to seeing, hearing or reading about some officials unofficially helping themselves to the inexhaustible well of public funds. However, world over, there are quite a number of funding eligibility criteria ranging from mere registration to representation in elected legislative bodies at national and/or sub-national levels or to just participation in elections or on the threshold of a minimum number of votes or seats received in the previous general elections. For example, in South Africa there is a Represented Political Parties Fund which, in the current budget, received about SA Rand 92 million of which 10 per cent is divided equally to all parties represented in the National Assembly and Provincial legislatures and 90 per cent is divided according to seats received by each party in the last elections (South Africa has a proportional representation system in which the proportion of seats is equal to proportion of votes received). In Tanzania, the fund for political party funding is equal to 2 per cent of the recurrent expenditure less amount payable in defraying the national debt.

Disbursement of 50 per cent of the subvention is on the basis of the party seats as a ratio of all parliamentary constituencies and the other 50 per cent on the total party votes as a ratio of all parliamentary votes cast in an election. In addition to the 2 per cent, some other subvention is given on the basis of party representatives in district or urban councils.

Here in Uganda, we have a law, Section 14A of the Political Parties and Organisations (Amendment) Act, 2010, which provides for the use of government public funds for political party activities for the purposes of elections and normal day-to-day activities of political parties represented in Parliament. The formula supposed to be used is that in respect of elections, eligible parties shall be financed on equal basis, while in respect of normal day-to-day activities, government funding should be based on the numerical strength of each political party in Parliament. The important points to note are that, unlike in other countries, our law does not specify how much money government should allocate to political parties and actually so far, government has not appropriated any money for funding eligible political parties.

Mr Ruzindana is a former IGG and former MP.

a_ruzindana@yahoo.com