Alarm bells, sighs of relief as lockdown enters third week

Author: Mr Karoli Ssemogerere is an Attorney-at-Law and an Advocate.

Many loved ones have departed from us. Some stories are more unusual than the death announcement by Beatrice Nyakaisiki Byenkya, the  chairperson Uganda Land Commission. There is something programmed in our genetic code. We always meet on my dad’s birthday, randomly. This year was no different at UAP Towers just bumping into each other. She sends her regards and off she goes. She announced the death of her mother and her eldest son all within 45 minutes of each other ! What grief!  Covid kills in pairs, scores and so on. Why is death so harsh?

Last week government published amendments to the Public Health regulations clarifying the reporting of Covid-19 deaths, burial procedures etc. In fact, the best approach would be classify Covid-19 as a highly infectious disease and make use of global generic terms to classify severity of outbreaks, from epidemic to pandemic. Until this point, no one in government has been willing to declare a state of emergency even though some aspects of one are in the public eye, especially the suspension of sittings of Parliament. 

Government is functioning normally, at reduced capacity. Some sectors like health and education have taken and will continue to take a battering. While hospitals remain open attending to Covid 19 patients, many facilities can no longer see or accommodate other patients with chronic illnesses. Talking to a senior physician at Rubaga Hospital, I was surprised when he told me he and others had to take pay cuts in the middle of the  outbreak last year as patients quickly evacuated most facilities that became logged with Covid 19 patients. Rubaga’s largest ward, the medical ward, is already converted to a Covid-19 treatment centre. The tiny emergency room with six beds two weeks ago was full and now congestion is moderating but patient intake continues. A small piece of paper inside the cashier’s office classifies the two oxygens available, an ICU bed goes for Shs 600,000.  There is a fee for sleeping on an ICU bed when you are a high dependency patient. High dependency patients are kept in sterile conditions as doctors attempt to diagnose the problem. Medical oxygen goes for Shs60,000 an hour and industrial oxygen for Shs40,000 an hour. I thought pinning up these tariffs is helpful for price to compare and most Covid-19 patients don’t require oxygen round the clock. 

Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja got baptism by fire when she announced a Shs100,000 social grant to about 500,000 vulnerable Ugandans but then saw beneficiary lists torched or dismembered in the city when the lists had in their count fewer residents alive than those who were dead or had moved. Uganda’s data collection and official statistics are often unreliable, even Uganda’s census numbers are suspect, a situation that would have been corrected by national identification cards. She is promising to go live tonight with messages. The national identification cards like everything police and law enforcement has turned out into a milking scheme where in addition to replacement fees, applicants for services are regularly solicited for bribes by the entire food chain from the LC 1 chairman for use of their stamps, DISOs and NIRA staff to get their applications reclassified as “VIP” applications. The National ID has also become a meal ticket for immigrants from across the border prompting Rwanda to adopt a confiscate and destroy and barring movement of persons found with a Ugandan National ID in the proximity of the international border. 

Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, the most optimistic person on the economy at least two years ago, joined Bank of Uganda Governor and lamented the rise in the debt burden shortly after Uganda drew $250 million from a $1 billion loan from IMF’s rapid credit facility. Uganda post lockdown will breach the 50 per cent debt-GDP ratio.  Uganda’s finances perhaps are more complicated than next door; as Kenya prepares for the 2022 General Election.  Kenya’s Court of Appeal was addressed by Dr John Khaminwa who told the hushed court that Kenya’s constitution was not amenable to amendment, the senior lawyer was visited shortly after by anti-corruption police.  

Kasaija is promising a leaner government, folding different agencies into their parent ministries and getting rid of constitutional bodies at the district level. So definitely the Constitution will be amended, and in all this hubris, the debate will be overwhelmed by amendments touching on land ownership, a subject that has been on the books for sometime. 

Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate.