There is a new mafia in government, says Nasasira

Works and Transport Minister John Nasasira has decried the growth of a cartel, that he says is ruthless and willing to do whatever it takes to win contracts advertised by the government.

Eng. Nasasira, whose ministry awards more than 100 multi-billion shilling contracts per year, says the cartel is largely composed of middlemen who use their connections within government to secure contracts for firms that pay them a commission.

“There has been a cartel building up in the country. Most people don’t know it. But there is a new group of people that has been developing in the country, and they are ruthless so we must fight them, who make themselves middlemen between the contractors and those awarding contracts.

They work on commission and they will do anything [to win the contracts]. They have now reached a point where they blackmail contractors but we are trying to hunt them and catch them,” he said.

================================
FULL INTERVIEW:

Works and Transport Minister John Nasasira has served in the same office from 1996 to-date – 60 per cent of President Museveni’s 25 years in office. In an interview with Sunday Monitor’s Benon Herbert Oluka, the minister acknowledges some faults during his tenure, defends his record and speaks out on some of the things he believes are being done the wrong way in the government he serves;

Few individuals in President Museveni’s Cabinet get their names dragged in the mud as relentlessly as the Minister of Works and Transport, Eng. John Nasasira. That avalanche of criticism is due to take another twist after a pressure group campaigning for the repair of Kampala roads early this week agreed to hold the “John Nasasira-Adolf Mwesigye Pot-hole Expo.”

Yet when questions are put to Eng. Nasasira, 61, about the state of Uganda’s roads, which is the major reason that he gets vilified, the veteran minister remains largely unflustered. In fact, the Kazo MP sometimes chooses to see the funny side of the criticism – and laughs at it. At one point during the interview, he re-captures the pain of many travellers through the words of a highly placed critic and bursts into laughter. “One time I met an Ambassador and he said, ‘whenever I hit a pot-hole, your face flashes on my dashboard,” he mused.

If Eng. Nasasira is not finding comic relief in some of the criticism, he simply waits his other critics out – in part because he thinks many of them are not very conversant with the issues they analyse.
“The best way to deal with mud when it is thrown at you is to let it dry,” he says. “When you let it dry, it drops off. If you try to touch it in a hurry, you will smear it all over your body. So my approach to these mud slingers is if they throw mud at me, I am a very patient man, I let it dry. And in many cases it has dropped off.”

One question that I could not resist asking is why, despite all the open criticism by the public, President Museveni has kept faith with Eng. Nasasira. What is his secret? A deal, perhaps, with the appointing authority?
It is a question that catches Eng. Nasasira by surprise. He says, at first, that he too does not know why. Then, recalling some incidents in the early 2000s, he hazards a guess.

“I think there was a period after 2000 where, in spite of my own warning to ourselves (including in a March 2004 Cabinet Paper) that we were heading to a crisis (if the government did not increase funding to the road sector), there was a lot of belief that donors would help us out. Maybe, partly, (the document) saved me in the eyes of my Cabinet colleagues and even the President. When the President understood this, he acted (after 2006),” he said.

Eng. Nasasira admits that “there was that period when things went out of control,” a spell he says was down to poor funding of the sector. Between 1996 and 2006, he says, the average road sector annual budget was 50 per cent of what the ministry required. He explains that the shortage of funding resulted in a road maintenance backlog.

“That is when I started getting condemned; around 2005–06,” he says. “Before that, I was a hero. I used to win best performing minister (award) until the roads got bad. Where there is a bad road, I can’t have a good name.”

Despite what he calls the poor funding of the sector, Eng. Nasasira says he does not lose a lot of sleep over the ministry’s performance under his leadership because he believes it has done well. Asked to pin point the successes, he is initially reluctant, perhaps because he did not want to appear to be blowing his own trumpet and to be campaigning to be retained in the next Cabinet. However, he soon relents.
“Have I performed?” he asks, then answers his own question.

“As far as I am concerned I have. Under my watch, we have increased the paved road network from the 1,800 kilometres we found here, of which 90 per cent was in bad shape by the way. We have now added another 1,500 kilometres.”

The minister, however, has a bone to pick with whoever expects Uganda to have a perfect road network from the current level of funding. He says, “As a least developed country, it would be wrong to expect that all roads would be in perfect condition. If all these roads were good, then we would be among the middle income earner group or upper income. So, for some time our network is going to be in three classes; good, fair and poor. What we are working on is to see that we increase good, increase fair and reduce poor.”

However, according to Eng. Nasasira, even that plan could remain a pipe dream without adequate funding. Last year, while appearing before the Budget Committee of Parliament, the minister repeated a similar warning to that of 2004. He said Uganda needs at least Shs2 trillion per year for each of the next four financial years from 2010 to construct a viable road network.

However, the government did not provide the money in the 2010/11 budget – meaning the works ministry has already fallen behind on some of its latest work plans by at least a year. Instead, according to Eng. Nasasira, funding has once again reduced.

“We were supposed to have a budget of Shs1 trillion per year for three years (from the 2008/09 financial year) to see if we could address the backlog of roads that needed reconstruction, maintenance and upgrading,” he said. “But the truth of the matter is that after three years, we have only got 42 per cent of that money.”

Rail, water, air
The other three forms of transport in the country have also had mixed fortunes during Eng. Nasasira’s tenure. Commercial air transport received a boost with the recent facelift/expansion of Entebbe Airport, but Eng. Nasasira says there is no need to revive a national airline. He says, like the defunct Uganda Airlines showed, it would be commercially viable.

Instead, according to the minister, the government is concentrating on providing a conducive environment for the private sector and other established international players to provide cheap flights. Water transport has also taken a hit in some areas, like the Lake Victoria where the three ferries plying the Port Bell-Kisumu and Port Bell-Mwanza routes were grounded following a collision between two of them. Eng. Nasasira says contracts have been signed to repair two of the ferries before they are handed over to RVR, who got the concession to run the railway service.

Eng. Nasasira, however, says other lakes are well-served. The government built the Kalangala ferry, and is constructing others to serve Lake Bisina in Soroti, another that will link Bukungu in Busoga, Mutu in Lango and Agwara in Teso. Another will serve Rwampanga and Namasale. He, however, says water transport still has its challenges that the government is yet to overcome, and which have limited the participation of the private sector.

“You need to have navigational aids and communication systems on our water bodies and then build landing infrastructure like piers. Then you can bring the private sector. We are also revisiting the laws, which are archaic,” he said, adding that Uganda has now joined the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). IMO is providing support for Uganda to develop an institution to regulate water transport.

For the railway sector, he readily agrees that it is “a museum piece,” as President Museveni recently referred to the infrastructure. The minister says the three railway routes need complete reconstruction.

The governments in the East African region have developed a master plan for the railway network. However, according to Eng. Nasasira, the governments will have to source for funding themselves, and then deliberately subsidise freight cargo, because the prospects in the railway sector are not viable enough to entice the private sector.

“It is not something you can attract the private sector because it will have to be guaranteed by adequate cargo. If you look at the most active one from here to Mombasa, currently Mombasa handles about 16 million metric tonnes per year. Now, out of that about 4.5 metric tonnes are non-Kenya bound. The other balance remains in Kenya. Of the non-Kenya bound, about 70 per cent remains in Uganda. Yet to run a profitable railway, we need about five million metric tonnes. We have not yet reached that capacity,” he said.

The government has, however, set up a mechanised brigade within the UPDF, which is learning how to build railway lines. “We are determined to find the cheapest ways of building the railway; not a cheap railway but the cheapest way,” vows the minister, who adds that it requires at least $2m (about Shs4.8b) to construct a kilometre of a railway line.

Eng. Nasasira admits he runs the ministry that oversees arguably the most lucrative and the highest number of government contracts. In a country where corruption has been described by the Inspectorate of Government as a way of life, the vice is a certainty in the ministry of works and transport. The only debate is over the level of corruption.

“Definitely there is corruption,” he admits readily. “It is not obvious but I think it is exaggerated by the public and the media. Because the perception in the country is that where there are contracts, everybody thinks there is eating. But where there are elements of corruption, we fight it.”

Corruption monster
Eng. Nasasira says the corruption monster is getting out of hand, even in his ministry. And in most cases, he says, those behind it are willing to do anything it takes to get the contracts tendered out. “There has been a cartel building up in the country. Most people don’t know it. When you take out a contract, for example in UNRA, they should evaluate tenders and award them. But there is a new group of people that has been developing in the country, and they are ruthless so we must fight them,” he said.

Within the ministry, Eng. Nasasira says corrupt people can easily tempt decision makers during the contract awarding process. These include officials who evaluate bids; the contracts committee and the accounting officer to whom an appeal goes. Once a contract is awarded, he says, corruption is also prominent during construction work.

Eng. Nasasira says while there are elements of corruption in his ministry, he insists it is not institutionalised. “We talk about corruption too much,” he said. “It is nice because it keeps everybody busy but at the same time it gives a perception that everything we do here, everybody is corrupt. What amazes me is everybody talks about corruption; then who is corrupt? Either we are pretentious people or we are not serious.”

It is during the discussion on corruption that Eng. Nasasira finally seems flustered. He says he can stomach any other form of criticism, but not accusations that he is corrupt. “People think that when you are in these so-called “wet” ministries, then you must be corrupt. I think the most talked about is roads,” he says.

“But where do I get money? What would be attracting somebody to corrupt me directly? I only interfere when things are not moving or when I hear those (of corruption) stories.” As he talks about his long working life, part of which he spent in Kenya, Eng. Nasasira says he has made enough money to a point where he is “not needy, but not rich.” “I am a believer in creating wealth and I don’t even want to pretend about it,” emphasises the minister, who says he is worth between Shs4-6 billion.