Prime
Angels and thieves in Uganda both need the same thing
Mr Charles Onyango-Obbo
What you need to know:
Telling the truth that they will act corruptly would be out of character, and voters would punish them.
Last week produced yet another agonising series on Uganda’s descent into a model kleptocracy as the #UgandaParliamentExhibition social media campaign revealed a rotting pile in the August House. As #UgandaParliamentExhibition raged MPs went to the site of the money-guzzling “International Specialised” to check on the works. Supposed to have been completed in 2021, Lubowa is now a $379.71 million (in excess of Shs1.4 trillion) phantom hospital. It is currently the most expensive hole in the ground in Africa.
Like others before them, the MPs found state security machinery had been deployed to block them; a loud statement about state capture.
It has fuelled further the debate about how Uganda became such a corrupt nepocracy; whether that is a good or bad thing; and what might be done to end the scourge.
For decades, many big voices have argued that there’s “good” to corruption in Uganda because by day the corrupt are investors – in real estate, and businesses – and they are also “patriotic” because they put their money down at home, not away in an offshore bank. In other words, those who steal from the taxpayer are the noble corrupt.
Along with this, the victims are blamed. The corrupt officials, leaders, and MPs are elected by Ugandans, the argument goes, and we are choosing them in our image. The voters are the problem. They are living their corrupt inner self through the leaders they elect. And, even if there are a few honest voters, they are in a no-win situation, because overall our society is rotten, so good voters can only elect crooked leaders as long as they are getting them from the Ugandan pool.
There are other arguments for corruption, but we will confine ourselves to these two today. We also will empathise, and put ourselves in the shoes of the corrupt and their advocates. To start with the latter point, there is a problem. While Ugandan society might be rotten, neither President Yoweri Museveni nor the MPs ever campaign on a manifesto that will oversee a corrupt government or steal when they get to Parliament. On the contrary, right from before he became president while in the bush fighting a guerrilla war, Museveni has always sold a strong anti-corruption platform and even argued for ending bail and other fair trial provisions for the corrupt. Parliamentary candidates also run as angels.
Surely, if Ugandan society is rotten to the core, and elects leaders who speak best to that side of them, a presidential candidate or MP promising to loot the Treasury and corruptly award all tenders to his/her relatives would win with 100 percent. So, why don’t they come out clean? It might be argued that, well, because they are dishonest, they have to lie that they will fight corruption. Telling the truth that they will act corruptly would be out of character, and voters would punish them.
Back then to the first point; that the corrupt could be noble, and an engine of economic growth. This idea sounds promising, especially when its proponents give examples from countries where their industrial economy was built by corrupt and despotic generals. And the US too is often cited. On one reading, the US was made great by the “Robber Barons” in a period from the 1870s to the early 1900s which saw great technological advancements, industrialization, and heady economic growth.
The Robber Barons became fabulously rich, wealth which is still growing today, but they used nasty methods. They created monopolies, destroyed rivals, beat down workers protesting conditions, and bribed officials and politicians.
Andrew Carnegie (built steel and railroads). John D. Rockefeller became America’s first billionaire from oil, founding Standard Oil Company. The Rockefeller Foundation is still doling out grants for things like agriculture around the world today. Cornelius Vanderbilt was into shipping and railroads, and you might know a few people who went to the wonderful Vanderbilt University. That’s him.
John Piermont “JP” Morgan, cornered the financial industry, and JP Morgan Bank still rules the roost today, deciding the fates of economies like Uganda’s. And there was Henry Ford, the man to whom we owe the modern car. His Ford Foundation still gives out scholarships and grants for good deeds, including fighting for human rights and democracy. You can see where this is going. Corruption doesn’t succeed in itself. It needs talent to turn into national wealth. The Robber Barons were creative, enterprising men, and knew how to work efficiently with their controversial fortunes. If you’d given JP Morgan or Ford $379.71 million, they would have created a leading global hospital network, not the sorry sight at Lubowa.
If you believe that corruption is good, fine; the problem then is that in Uganda those who get its proceeds are incompetent and untalented, which is why they can’t create a world-class economy, leaving millions mired in poverty. The angels and thieves in Uganda, therefore, both need the same thing – a meritocracy.
Mr Onyango-Obbo is a journalist, writer and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3
