Here is why the donor aid cuts are the best thing to happen to Uganda

In the absence of foreign aid the government will not love us any more than it does, but it will have to respect us and our views.

The decision by donors, or “development partners” as they prefer to be referred to, is one of the best things to happen to us. I have five reasons to support my argument.

The first, as the current saga in the Office of the Prime Minister shows, is that aid rarely reaches the intended recipients. Money meant to help poor people clear their land, build houses and rebuild their lives after two decades of war was spent on luxury cars, apartment blocks and foreign travels by thieving or undeserving officials.

The poor people of northern Uganda and Karamoja did not benefit from the money meant for them; they will lose nothing from it being withheld.

Where the money does trickle past the parched, greedy mouths of politicians and civil servants, a lot of it often goes to pay for useless workshops, buy 4WD cars and pay for fancy mansions and gym memberships for local and expatriate staff. Many would-be beneficiaries are statistics, footnotes to dodgy accountability documents.

Secondly, foreign aid undermines the emergence of domestic demand for accountability. As long as the government can receive billions each year from London, Washington or Berlin, the local taxpayers can go hang themselves on tomato trees.

In the seven months since this newspaper broke the story of corruption in the Office of the Prime Minister, senior government officials have remained remarkably quiet or complicit in the attempted cover-up and exoneration of key suspects. The moment donors cut aid; a meeting was arranged for them with the President at State House and assurances given that no stone would be left unturned in finding the culprits.

The government thus plays to the foreign gallery and ignores most of the demands of the locals, although we contribute the bulk of the budget. In the absence of foreign aid, the government will not love us any more than it does, but it will have to respect us and our views.

Thirdly, the absence of foreign aid should allow us the space to keenly examine why we need it at all. A small example suffices. Germany, a country whose people have a sobering protestant work ethic, has cut 3 million Euros that had been promised soon. The cut is wholly justified.

What is not justifiable is the silence by the Germans and relevant local officials about the billions (more than 10 times more than the cut aid) that was given to a German firm, Muhlbaeur, in a late-night meeting at State House Kampala to produce national IDs.

In fact the more you think about it – and this is my fourth point, in case you are still counting – how much of the aid do we really need to get the job done and how much of it goes to support government profligacy and encourage rural-to-urban excitement?

If Uganda were really a poor country would we have spent over $100 million on renovating State House Entebbe? Would our ministers and technocrats drive luxury 4WD cars whose list price is enough to power a small village?

Can poor countries afford to pay almost a billion dollars to buy fighter jets that might never fire a shot in anger in a decade? If we were a poor country would have let a handful of officials steal almost $500 million in pensions over the last 10 years? Could a theft of such a grand scale have gone undetected by a country that prides itself on more intelligence outfits than you can count in a day?

Uganda is not a poor country. And when you peel away the layers of waste and the fat around the imperial presidency and the bloated government one gets the impression that we can do without aid if we tried to live within our means.

Which brings me to the last point: dignity. How can we claim to have celebrated 50 years of independence this year when 25 out of every 100 shillings we spend in the budget is begged from donors?

Aid, by its very nature, is meant to be a temporary fix; a short-term solution to help you take care of yourself in the long-term. Used well, it can produce wonders. Abused, like a drug, it causes a woeful addiction.

We are a country that, before independence, was lending and donating money to Britain. Fifty years later, the donors might have unknowingly helped cut the umbilical cord that has kept us dependent on them.

We come from a culture of honest hard work. Begging to take care of one’s family is not in our DNA. It is time for us to get rid of the greedy charlatans and live honestly but modestly. In order to do that, we must not waste this crisis.

Twitter: @kalinaki
dkalinaki@ug.nationmedia.com