Uganda’s rich are so poor, all they have got is money

Much has been made of the Shs6 billion paid to 42 government officials following a tax settlement with Heritage Oil and Gas Company.

There has been a lot of gnashing of teeth over what some people see as government officials being paid for just doing their jobs, and for what some consider a lot of money.

These, in my view, are the wrong concerns: Government employees, like their private sector counterparts, should be able to receive compensation over and above their contractual obligations if they go beyond the normal call of duty to earn it; and the amount paid out is a tiny sliver of what was recovered.

There are, however, three major concerns with the nature of the payment. The first is about the moral hazard that is likely to be entrenched by such a precedent. Government employees are called public servants for a reason; they are employed to serve the public interest, not their individual interests.

Thus a police officer who foils a bank robbery might be pleased to receive an envelope with a wad of cash from the grateful bank manager but shouldn’t feel hard done by if all she gets is a civilian handshake. She certainly wouldn’t be expected to march into the banking hall and ask for a share of what she saved, which appears to have been the case this time round in that the originators, movers, seconders and approvers of the said bonus were, in most cases, also the beneficiaries.

The absence of this arms-length distance tainted an otherwise reasonable and perhaps even justifiable proposal.
This, secondly, was compounded by what can only be described as a lack of transparency.

Your columnist followed the Tullow and Heritage cases closely and knows some of the people on the list of awardees who burnt the midnight oil or simply stood their ground when it would have been safer and perhaps more rewarding to look the other way and let the recovery fail.

Yet your columnist also knows people on the list who were actively working to undermine Uganda’s interests, and some not on the list without whose intervention the case could have been thrown or still-born.

That the payment of such honoria has to be negotiated with the President is a significant part of the problem, for it goes from a pre-determined and principled claim for just reward to a pandering to presidential powers for patronage.
Gagging Parliament from debating the matter, as Justice Steven Kavuma (Surprise! Surprise!) ) is attempting to do, is to waste an opportunity to clarify whether any laws or guidelines were broken and, more importantly, to have a conversation about public pay in the country, rewards for excellence and punishments for failure. For instance, around the time former Attorney General Peter Nyombi was pushing for the reward, of which he is a beneficiary, the country failed to defend an arbitration claim brought by a contractor against the Roads Authority, UNRA. Reason? The Justice ministry could not find Shs160,000 to pay filing fees in time. Result? A court award of Shs6.6bn against us, to be paid out of your and my taxes.

If Mr Nyombi et al were diligent and shared Shs6bn from the oil case I’d like to know who was negligent in the Roads case and how much of the Shs6.6bn is being recovered from their salary.

In the same vein, I don’t think I should be required to contribute a damn cent to the $10 billion Uganda owes to DR Congo for the rape and plunder that took place there. The generals who carried back the timber and minerals from Congo are well-known; why should I, who never touched even a 4x2 panel of wood from Congo, contribute to this fine?

Finally, most damning about this whole affair is that we have come to a point where everything is determined by money. Why not name a street or two after the main players if what we seek is legacy?

Why not celebrate these heroes and serenade them instead of celebrating whoever gave a kilo of sugar or a goat to the rebel fighters? Folks whose children should be proud of for serving their country now have to defend themselves against collusion and looting?!

When did we become a country in which some people are so poor, all they have is money?

Mr Kalinaki is a Ugandan journalist based in Nairobi. [email protected] &Twitter: @Kalinaki