For NRM to rule 27 years more, it must support people like Kazeire

Poverty numbers have come down from the highs of the 1980s when the majority of Ugandans were dirt poor. Today it is about one in four. That still makes it nine million Ugandans living in the sort of poverty that is unacceptable. Who are these people?

At 27 years in power, President Museveni is still powering ahead. To where? To what end? To transform Uganda into a middle-income country as soon as yesterday, he would say as he always has.

Tremendous change has indeed occurred since 1986. But that change would still have happened even without Mr Museveni because it is in the fundamental nature of systems to self-correct once they have veered dangerously to one end as Uganda had by collapsing as a viable country. There is no doubting, however, that Mr Museveni’s force of personality and leadership quickened the arrival of the change we have seen.

In fact, the public argument in Uganda today is not about how to revive the country, make it secure and stable for individuals and businesses to plan, to dream and act on those plans and dreams. The public argument is about how to make the security and stability work for the largest possible number of Ugandans. How do we make the national cake bigger, juicier and then share it more equitably?
Poverty numbers have come down from the highs of the 1980s when the majority of Ugandans were dirt poor.

Today it is about one in four. That still makes it nine million Ugandans living in the sort of poverty that is unacceptable. Who are these people? Where can they be found? What interventions can be made to break the cycle of poverty they find themselves in? Those are questions for Mr Museveni and his technocrats to answer.

Answer those questions they must. For inequality, especially economic, is the single most critical issue Uganda must deal with in the years ahead.

While Mr Museveni, as the man still in power, must answer the questions posed, it would appear he has lost time so much so that even if he tried, he would still not deliver.
In allowing public sector corruption to blossom as a form of patronage, Mr Museveni has lost the initiative. Corruption long took on a life of its own. It is undermining all public sector projects meant to reduce poverty faster, deeply.

Because of two decades of war, northern Uganda weighed down national development indices. To help the region recover quickly once peace returned, billions of shillings were allocated. And billions were stolen by Mr Museveni’s own civil servants.

Just one example is enough to illustrate how much President Museveni’s government can no longer function at levels required to move things forward significantly. That is the total failure to award multimillion-dollar government contracts in a clean way.

Even once the kickback-induced kavuyo of contracts is settled, other silly problems emerge. We were recently told the government has no money to compensate people whose land and related property will be destroyed to make way for the construction of the new Entebbe-Kampala highway. Who plans these projects? This is utter nonsense. Even for a project such as the present one where there was no bidding because the Chinese who are providing most of the money chose which company would do the job, we cannot meet our part of the bargain.

I also know, by the way, that a number of technocrats were unhappy over the lack of bidding. They couched their disappointment in concern over lack of openness, chiding the Chinese for their shady ways. Their concern, actually, was that the lack of tendering denied them a chance to eat a layer or two of this road in kickbacks.

Yet amidst all this self-inflicted chaos, there is so much individual initiative that the government could be falling over itself to support. Somewhere in Nyamitanga on the outskirts of Mbarara is Kazeire Health Products, an agro-processing factory that bottles water and 100 per cent organic juice.

Mr Edward Kazeire, the 33-year-old owner, buys green tea leaves, lemon and honey from locals to use as key ingredients in his health-giving drinks. He employs more than 120 people and is expanding. I will tell Mr Kazeire’s story in a future column, but what I saw and heard on December 3 last year was so inspiring. It pointed to the future – where we need to create things instead of just consuming them.

This being Uganda under Mr Museveni, Mr Kazeire – all burning passion and ingenuity – has thus far not got any government support beyond not paying VAT on his equipment. You would think such a young Ugandan entrepreneur deserves more support than all these foreign mall-builders in Kampala.

Happy NRM Day, anyway!

Mr Tabaire is a media consultant with the African Centre for Media Excellence. bentab@hotmail.com