We must invest in public services

Today we are faced with multiple crises. Some arguably cannot be avoided such as Covid-19, cost of living, Russia-Ukraine war, while others can be avoided. The ones in Uganda could have been avoided. These include health workers going on strike, patients not receiving healthcare because public health facilities lack basics, and the high cost of education with schools charging exorbitant fees despite the Education ministry’s call not to do so.  

Rights like health and education should not be a privilege of a few people based on one’s ability to pay. How did we get here? What are our priorities? What will happen to our children if we do not rethink this broken system?

Why have we accepted to privatise and commodify services like health including through public-private partnerships? Have we learnt nothing from Covid-19?

Why are we not questioning the growing austerity imposed on us by funders including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that have left and will continue to leave public services chronically underfunded? How about the growing debt burden where we have normalised spending more on servicing debt than on health, education, social protection combined?

We are driving inequality and entrenching power disparities when we fail to invest in quality public services.  Women and the poor, whom public services are often the first point of call, bear the brunt. In Uganda this is a sizeable majority. Bank of Uganda estimates that only one percent of people earn above Shs1 million. But we all need quality public services. Covid-19 revealed that you are a medical bill away from poverty!

Uganda is not unique. As part of an African campaign for public services which the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER) is conducting, last year we met fellow Africans from different countries and the stories and tragedies were eerily similar. 

The rapid commercialisation of social services, on the continent and states’ failure to invest in public services triggered the African Commission’s recent landmark General Comment 7. The Commission reminded states that the provision of social services is an inherently public activity underscoring their non-commercial nature and calling on states to fund them through progressive taxation and to regulate all actors providing public services.

We really can and should expand financing for public services. We can and must rethink unfair tax rules, nationally and internationally that deprive us of the funding needed to attain quality public services while enabling only a few to accumulate income, wealth and power. 

Hopeful
A collective response is urgently needed. In November last year, I joined colleagues from all around the world, who are deeply concerned about the deteriorating state of public services, to discuss the importance of quality public services in our future. 

Together in Santiago, Chile, we called for more investment in quality public services through progressive taxation. The Santiago Declaration on Public Services reiterates the need for quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services for a fair and just society.

In Uganda, a concerned group of citizens came together during the height of the Covid-19 Delta wave oxygen crisis and formed a coalition penning our demands in the Peoples Manifesto for Quality Public Services.  A movement which is growing. Join us. Our future is public.

Ms Allana Kembabazi is the programmes manager at Initiative for Social and Economic Rights (ISER)