Regime survival, not people’s welfare, dictates resource allocation decisions

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