Museveni, Kabushenga and the mafia politics 

Key word: Capitalisation. Key word: feudalism. Key word: merit. Key words: politicisation of the private sector, democratisation of access to public finance. Coming up shortly, here down.

First, ponder this age-old adage: when the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Probably explains why the only thing Uganda’s President does when challenged, is raise an iron fist. Addressing the nation last week, he did just that, vowing to crack down on those who are fighting his “value addition” efforts.

It was a response to former New Vision CEO Robert Kabushenga for his very strong objections to how some very many million dollars, belonging to the people of Uganda, were used, abused or misused, at public expense, to private gain.

We may not be clear about the exact figures – 10 or 20 or 28 million dollars; or the names involved. Let’s focus on the real issue: politicisation of access to public funds in the private sector, unnecessary interference rather than intervention by government in the private sector and the whole concept of a nicely organised mafia outfit and a small predatory elite controlling the most fundamental aspects of the private sector.

For a country to develop sustainably, one of the key conditions pre-requisite is exciting the private sector; so that people, in the ordinary course of thinking, are able to create, innovate, and to come up with business ideas that create wealth through manufacturing, provision of services, import and export trade and the like.

And for that to happen, there must be, inter alia, easy access to credit and any other avenue of both capitalisation and recapitalisation for business entities, not to mention structural incentives and cushion mechanisms or buffers for market failures.

It is not true – and it certainly isn’t right - that the President must be at the heart of every development effort. He is not God; he is a mere human and fallible at that.

And for good measure, at 80, he is hardly in the shape or frame of mind to be of strategic importance to the development equation.

Such is the order of nature that at 80, the inevitable vagaries of old age become an inhibition, so, Mr. Museveni cannot be getting better at running the country. 

A state begins to die when a small group of people among 45 million-strong population, have the monopoly of opinion and the monopoly of access to public finance and they operate above the scrutiny of the state’s accountability frameworks. 

It is amazing what citizens can do when given the chance to work within structural frameworks designed to enable and enhance, rather than stress and stifle their innovative capacities.

Orville and Wilbur Wright who invented the aeroplane didn’t do it through a presidential initiative. Neither did multi-inventor, Thomas Edison or Johannes Gutenberg.

European and American economies owe their vibrancy to a strong private sector, safe from politicians poking their hands everywhere.

Uganda’s claims to be a “democracy” should not only be political; the best form of democracy is economic – when people have an economy that works for everyone, supported by strong systems and structures, buttressed by clear accountability frameworks and people are able to become everything God made them to be.

Ugandans are gifted; but their giftings cannot be of benefit to the economy, if only a few people, thanks to ethnicity or political correctness, have the system on their side.

Those who have the ideas don’t have the money; and th
ose who have the money just don’t have the ideas and stamina, the entrepreneurial excellence necessary to sustainably create wealth and keep it.

Ignore Kabushenga’s argument, and you have Uganda turning into a feudal society, where the majority are slaves to a small, scavenging minority who own all the land, control  the money and cannot be restrained by law.

Mr Gawaya Tegulle is a Lawyer