The good, very good of 2012 plus a few New Year non-resolutions

As lord mayor (of protests) and executive director (the two positions rolled into one for this purpose), I will fight to keep Kampala’s streets unlit and its glorious potholes intact

This past year, as would be expected, had its sensible share of national dramas petty and grand. Part of the playacting, especially amongst our increasingly feckless politicians, has spilled over into 2013. If in doubt, see the matter of Cerinah Nebanda.
Despite the public corruption and unimaginable incompetence, plus growing mistrust within the political class, some good things happened, and are still happening, in our land.

I like what I am seeing on energy. The policy to encourage investors to build small hydropower stations – 2MW here, 18MW there – has quickly yielded 300MW of light and heat. Private people are making money while the country is improving its electricity supply. Of course, Bujagali came on stream big time in 2012. And, there is the 600MW Karuma – if we can overcome our perennial failure to competently “design, cost and implement” projects that large.
With plans to generate more electricity from gas, heavy fuels, geothermal energy (and someday wind, the sun and uranium), the future can only be brighter. Local manufacturing needs to be fired up.

Did anyone notice that President Museveni was busy last year, if not launching hydropower stations, he was cutting the ribbon for the (re)construction of several highways? Some new ferries also started plying the waters of our rivers and lakes, easing travel for pleasure and business for many communities.

At the African Centre for Media Excellence, a non-profit organisation with which I am affiliated, heart-warming things happened. After two years of working with 21 Ugandan reporters and 24 reporters from a highly regarded West African country to share knowledge and tips on covering the burgeoning petroleum sector, the results came in following a rigorous international evaluation of the two-year project. The Ugandan journalists, all competitively selected, outperformed their West African counterparts on every score. That was stunning, given that our journalism still requires a lot of work – and even more prayers – to get it to a minimally decent level.

Following in the footsteps of the impressive Kiira EV crew, Makerere kids “invented a hand-held pregnancy scan-like machine called WinSenga … to scan a pregnant woman’s womb or detect problems such as ectopic pregnancy or abnormal foetal heart beats ...The pinnard horn part of the machine while connected to a smart phone is pressed against the abdomen of the pregnant woman. The smart phone screen then displays data on the location and condition of the foetus.” Why does this matter? “The invention of this technology comes in handy as statistics has it that about 16 Ugandan women die as a result of pregnancy complications,” reported the Ventures Africa website.

Teen prodigy Phiona Mutesi – straight out of a single-parent household in the slums of Katwe – made her exquisite chessboard moves on the international chess circuit. A new book, The Queen of Katwe, is out about her. A Disney movie is in the works. And she is just getting started.

Mr Stephen Kiprotich rocked. So did The Hostel TV series, achieving cross-border appeal. The creative and decidedly smart gang around WAZO/Talking Arts may just take Ugandan arts to a higher and higher place.

There is also that guy who slid into my “local joint” one quiet evening a few months ago, and is now a regular. Turns out he is a transportation engineer who happens to be a whiz in micro-simulation (modelling) of transportation systems. He has all the answers to Kampala’s traffic jams caused by kamunyes, boda bodas, buses, etc, if only KCCA could pay him and act on his geeky findings. For now, he is happy working on various international projects from his balcony in Kampala.

So, how about a light-hearted take on things in the form of resolutions for 2013?

* Because I work for OPM and Ministry of Public Service, I will steal a few more bucketfuls of Ugandan taxpayer shillings and donor dollars. The hell of it!
* As VP, I will support those well-connected types building car showrooms on Kampala’s road reserves if only to curry favour.
* As an honourable MP and political leader, I will speak (read heckle) first, then think later.
* As lord mayor (of protests) and executive director (the two positions rolled into one for this purpose), I will fight to keep Kampala’s streets unlit and its glorious potholes intact.
* I will make a few more babies just because my richer relatives will provide for them – well, I will hassle them to, make them feel guilty for being better off while at the same time manufacturing fewer children.
* From Bad Black to Good Black (there is a good reason some countries refer to prisons as correctional facilities). I intend to remain Good, until some loaded but hapless mzunguman shows up.
Happy 2013.

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