Otunnu’s plan to make Uganda better

After one month of keeping the public guessing, the Uganda Peoples Congress party launched its manifesto in Jinja in which it committed to create at least 2 million jobs within its first three years in office, if it wins the February ballot due in 66 days.
Much of the targeted employment, whose details are contained in the party’s manifesto made public last week, fall in the construction industry to be buoyed with substantial government spending in infrastructure development.

Mr Olara Otunnu’s administration plans to expand the Kampala-Jinja highway into a dual carriage-way in the first two years while similar works on the stretches to Busia and Malaba border towns would be completed a year later. These would be major engineering projects involving huge sums of money.

The public works seem ambitions; the derelict Pakwach and Kasese rail links are to be brought to life immediately, and extended to the neighbouring Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo for cheaper haulage of imports/exports.

All-weather roads, UPC says, will be upgraded by 2015 and dry docks established in Busia and Malaba at the border with Kenya. No costs are indicated for the proposed robust road and rail upgrade, which would make travel within Uganda and to neighbouring countries more efficient and fun.

Mafia clique
The central theme of the manifesto is ‘Reconstruction of a failed State’, which is what UPC maintains Uganda has become under Mr Yoweri Museveni, and the document crafted from the onset in angry tone piles blame on the President for destroying the country.
Its preamble, penned by Mr Otunnu, the UPC leader and party presidential candidate, is mordant.

“Our country has been hijacked by a ‘mafia’ clique that has appropriated the state to serve their personal interests,” he writes, “This ‘mafia’ has used the state as an instrument for plunder, stealing and repression for the purpose of holding onto power.”
UPC, the only party to have ruled Uganda twice (1966-1971 & 1980-1985) under late President Apollo Milton Obote, wants to restore good governance; uplift ordinary people; end segregation, corruption and build an inclusive society. So how will the party achieve this?

Mr Otunnu, a former UN under-secretary general for Children and Armed Conflict, hopes to organise a national convention to establish consensus under a new constitutional order to resolve the sticky issues of federal governance, land and unity.

There will also be established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, with a mandate to inquire into all past wars, so as to establish the truth; provide accountability or forgiveness for transgressions as a medicine for healing. “UPC presents this manifesto as a new covenant with the people of Uganda. We must take back our country,” Mr Otunnu says in signing off the blue-print to agents to use for catching votes.

The manifesto speaks in the tone of mixed-economy that is receptive to free-market practices but gives government the leverage on tax/pricing in petroleum, electricity and telecommunications sectors. “Through planning, investments, and targeted programmes, [we want] to place particular priority on promoting and supporting the roles of women, small-scale farmers, small-to-medium size business operators and entrepreneurs, and the youth, in building Uganda’s economy,” reads the document. The principle etched in the manifesto is that of government providing equal opportunities to all citizens without biases based on tribe or status.

10% for Agriculture
To shift the gear in enhancing employee productivity, the party promises to amend labour and employment legislations; promote unionisation and undertake tailored skill development trainings for entrepreneurs in private sector. Recognising agriculture as the pillar of the economy and for job creation, Mr Otunnu says he will allocate 10 per cent of the national budget to the sector; revive defunct cooperative societies; build silos to keep surplus output and establish national marketing boards to stabilise prices of agricultural produce. Architects of the manifesto also had their eyes set on purposed regional balance as well as emancipating youth, women and children through ad hoc interventions.

For instance, the eastern Jinja district will under a UPC administration regain its position as the country’s industrial heartland in a process to be activated by a time-bound Jinja Industrial Renewal Commission. Credible reconstruction programmes and special educational scholarships will be at hand for northern Uganda and Karamoja dismembered by the LRA rebellion and cattle-rustling, respectively. Mr Otunnu wants four in every 10 key government jobs such as minister and permanent secretary to go to women, who will then have a louder voice in environmental protection matters and economic management.

Decongesting Mulago
The health sector is up for a revamp. The party commits to allocate 15 per cent of the national budget to the sector; rehabilitate the 22 hospitals erected by previous UPC governments; recruit 10 doctors and 20 nurses for each hospital that will own an ambulance for referral services. All this will be done within the first three years.

There is also a plan to build three 100-bed hospitals in Metropolitan Kampala to de-congest Mulago National Referral Hospital alongside one specialised medical facility for women, and children, in each of Uganda’s four geographical regions.

In education, the UPC announces it will scrap direct state sponsorship at universities that favours the wealthy and put in its place a loan scheme to benefit all deserving students across the country. It will also shake up ongoing free primary and post-primary education programmes to streamline teacher-to-student ratio and improve quality.

Training and remuneration of security forces too is a key highlight. Peace and mutual respect with neighbours has been crafted as the hallmark of UPC’s foreign policy proposals that also afford Ugandans living in the Diaspora leverage in local politicking and governance.

It highlights a commitment to fight global terrorism and resolve the Somalia crisis alongside that of LRA, whether through talks or combat. Mr Otunnu writes with nostalgia about the by-gone ‘good old days’ under previous UPC governments – and forcibly implants the possibility of a better future for Uganda under him.