Why the craze for districts, counties?
Growing up in western Uganda, we rarely ate fish due to the scarcity of lakes in the region. Therefore, we were content with rare occurrence of fish on our menu.
The same was with our leaders and essential services. Back then when the total number of districts was only 39, an LC5 chairperson was such a powerful figure and his visit meant almost a public holiday. The same with an MP when the size of Parliament was still less than 200 legislators.
With a Cabinet of less than 70 ministers, children as early as Primary Three knew each minister by name and his or her docket. We didn’t do too much research; Radio Uganda gave us all we needed, and the calendars in our homes, with the President and his Cabinet were such huge resources.
We also knew every district in the country and the counties that constituted it. It was also easy to locate Agago, Budadiri, Terego, Igara, Sheema, Buhweju, Ruhinda, Kashari and Rwampara on the map.
Then something rare happened; someone convinced our society that fish would be domesticated in what they call fish ponds. Before long, fish was everywhere around us, in our homes and kiosks. In fact, there was more fish than tomatoes around us.
I think that must have been the same time the fishmonger met the President and somehow convinced him that ponds could also apply to the management of the country. That’s when hell broke loose.
Where we had 39 districts, we are now at 135 and still counting. Where we had one city, we now have eight and by 2040, to fit in our vision, they will be more than 39 cities.
The number of legislators is about to reach 500 and by our 2040, we shall have more than 1,000.
As for the Cabinet, one general once said, even if he became minister of crocodiles, he would still remain a minister; I think we are almost there. The big question is, is fish bad for our health? Not at all. It is actually nutritious and we risk being malnourished if it is not on our diet.
Likewise, is it bad to have a bloated Parliament, a huge Cabinet, many districts, etc? It would be good if they matched the service nutritional requirements and created more avenues for widening our tax base.
Let’s face the reality. Three of the six districts carved out of the mother district of Bushenyi do not have any single commercial bank branch. One of them has never had a tarmac road.
The minister for Local Government, while justifying the creation of seven new cities, could only say the cost for running them is such a small thing, implying, given chance, he will create more new ones! Don’t ask him who will maintain them.
