Reflections on our diplomatic service

What you need to know:

  • Damage. Truth be told, most of the political appointees are unfit and unsuitable to represent Uganda abroad as ambassadors or high commissioners. They are not material for the diplomatic corps and have done enormous damage to the national image and prestige of Uganda.

Uganda’s diplomatic service is in the news once again, regrettably for the wrong reasons. Last year, minister of Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa was unable to attend the 74th regular session of the UN General Assembly allegedly because, according to US media, he is a wanted man by New York Police, a claim the Foreign Affairs minister denies.

According to a front page story published in Saturday Monitor of February 8 titled, “Ugandan diplomats, cadres clash abroad,” several diplomatic missions of Uganda are locked in fights between failed politicians appointed by Sabalwanyi as heads of mission and seasoned career diplomats who serve under these incompetent NRM cadres. It’s despicable, embarrassing and a tragedy of monumental proportions.

The matter was initially raised by the Auditor General and featured prominently in the 2018 report of the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, but it’s an old story which is an open secret in diplomatic circles and the corridors of power.

Regular readers of this column will recall that I have expressed concern many times about the goings-on in Uganda’s diplomatic service. I have time and again defended the interests of career diplomats who have been marginalised and humiliated by the NRM regime.
I have advocated the need to establish and maintain a professional foreign service staffed by career diplomats in order to promote Uganda’s national interests. The contrary has sadly been done by the NRM regime.

A few years ago, I wrote an opinion about a quintessential conman who was then deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Uganda in a European city. I am advised that this former head of a dubious Ugandan political party has been elevated and is now Uganda’s High Commissioner in a leading African country.
It’s incredible, mindboggling and an insult to the government of that country that deserves better and senior representation from Uganda, preferably a career diplomat.

When the National Resistance Army (NRA) grabbed power in 1986, one of accusations the new regime made against the Uganda Peoples Congress administration was that it had politicised Uganda’s diplomatic service and appointed too many politicians as ambassadors and high commissioners, positions which the NRM regime felt should be filled by career diplomats.

I remember at the first senior staff meeting held at the ministry headquarters in Parliament House, then minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Ibrahim Mukiibi, stated categorically that, unlike in the past, Uganda’s heads of mission would henceforth be predominantly career diplomats.

The appointment of Ambassador Mukiibi, a long-serving career diplomat, fluent in French, Arabic and Russian, gave the illusion that a new chapter had indeed been opened in the foreign service.
We were promised that a minimum of 60 per cent of Uganda’s heads of mission would henceforth be career diplomats. It was too good to be true, but we gave the NRM regime benefit of the doubt.

When Sabalwanyi announced, in 1986, the appointments of Uganda’s new ambassadors barely five or six were career diplomats, including Ambassador Stephen Nabeta to Kigali, Rwanda, and my dear friend Ambassador Daudi Taliwaku (RIP) who was posted to Cairo, Egypt. The number of career diplomats who represent Uganda abroad as heads of mission has fallen steadily ever since. As of today, Ambassador Mull Katende is the only career diplomat who is head of mission; his duty station is Washington DC, USA.

Truth be told, most of the political appointees are unfit and unsuitable to represent Uganda abroad as ambassadors or high commissioners. They are not material for the diplomatic corps and have done enormous damage to the national image and prestige of Uganda.

Another disturbing feature of the diplomatic service, according to reliable sources, is that recruitment, promotions and postings to our embassies and high commissions abroad are no longer done on merit, but on regional and political grounds.

Meritocracy, which was the basis for recruitment and promotions in the foreign service, is no longer valued and has in fact been discarded. Uganda’s national interests cannot be served on the basis of cronyism and nepotism. The people of Uganda deserve a lot better.
For God and my Country!

Mr Acemah is a political scientist and retired career diplomat.
[email protected]