Nationalism is key to development

Author: Phillip Matogo. PHOTO/FILE

What you need to know:

  • What is good for Ugandans doesn’t necessarily make it good for Uganda.   

Recently, ministry of Finance’s Permanent Secretary Ramathan Ggoobi said his ministry would keep a prime eye on every shilling invested in the Parish Development Model (PDM), which is aimed at fighting poverty at the household level.

Ggoobi highlighted efficiency as his ministry insists on the “precise tracking of every shilling invested in the PDM at every node, enhanced transparency, accountability, efficiency of PDM, reduction in transaction costs, as well as credit scoring of borrowers for subsequent loans.”

On top of this, he said, PDM is singular in its benefit to the country because, as an anti-poverty programme, it will be managed and owned by the people of Uganda. 

This distinguishes it from other government-led economic interventions, such as the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture, whose focal points are on one or two pillars of economic empowerment and not the entire value chain.

Avowedly, PDM rests on several pillars namely production, infrastructure and economic services, financial inclusion, social services and mindset change.

But let’s take a closer look at mindset change.

For it may mean everything and nothing at the same time, as the established attitudes held by Ugandans vary from region to region, person to person. An attempt to change these attitudes through a one-size-fits-all approach is thus essentially flawed. 

However, it has been noted that traditional farming methods employing rudimentary tools for subsistence purposes, a dearth of agro-processing and basic value addition on primary commodities to generate higher income earnings are due to a poor mindset. 

To address this, President Museveni will soon launch the model to pave the way for all the 10,595 parishes in Uganda to get more than Shs180b towards eradicating poverty from Ugandan households.  Assuming all the parishes receive

Shs17m each, government would have spent more than Shs180b this financial year to galvanise the fight against poverty through the implementation of this programme.

Mr Museveni said the model starts with organising its recipients into savings and credit cooperatives (Saccos), where government injects money to add to the funds from the members of the said credit union. 

Raphael Magyezi, the minister for Local Government, added that after the launch, government will immediately transfer the money to parishes that have formed Saccos, opened bank accounts, elected their leaders and received training in mindset change.

My problem with the so-called mindset change argument is that it conflates means with ends, presupposing that the means of creating wealth are an end in themselves. 

Thus, the focus is mainly on four factors of production-- entrepreneurship, capital, land and labour--to the exclusion of the fifth and most important factor: nationalism. 

According to the Asian Tigers, the highly developed economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, nationalism is a factor of production. 

If it’s ignored, programmes such as Entandikwa, Youth Fund, Naads, Micro-finance, Operation Wealth Creation and Emyooga will amount to a bill of goods (as they mostly have) when people choose their own wellbeing above the country’s.  This is because what is good for Ugandans doesn’t necessarily make it good for Uganda. 

If we choose programmes which fail to homogenise an ethnically heterogeneous nation towards a distinct culture of oneness, then we shall continue to have Ugandans who work against the public interest. Indeed, a winning economic democracy requires a “demos”, or a people who feel attached to one another.

With this in mind, we appreciate that corruption is the antithesis of nationalism.
We may disagree on what nationalism means, but in disagreeing we are searching for its meaning on the path to understanding that what needs to change is not our minds but our hearts.

Mr Matogo is a professional copywriter  
[email protected]