Why MPs cash for cars uproar is a sideshow

Earlier this week, I spoke to a USA-based political science professor, a veteran who has studied Ugandan politics for decades. He has recently completed writing a paper on the mess in Uganda’s electricity sector. The story is a scandal of grave proportions. Depressing and annoying.

Because of contract terms and agreements the government of President Museveni reached with foreign power generation and distribution companies, the latter being Umeme, Uganda has over the years lost billions, and the losses will go on. 

Worse, because the government committed to unreasonable concessions to the foreign companies, Museveni’s much vaunted ‘investors’, Ugandans have to pay exorbitant electricity tariffs for the companies to make a fixed percentage return on every investment they make. 

If Ugandans fully understood the extent of this scandal and who is responsible, they would know we have a humongous national problem. So, even more scandalous is the fact that many of us know nothing about the extent of the filth and financial malfeasance happening every fiscal year. 

There are moral objections to be made about Members of Parliament getting Shs200 million to buy personal cars in the middle of a ravaging pandemic when public health needs and emergency supplies should take precedent.

The practice of MPs cash for cars every five years is despicable, yet directing the fury at MPs is to latch onto symptoms that distract from the fundamental problems at hand. There are far worse manifestations of the rot, decay and dysfunction at the heart of the current regime of rule.

For years, writing in the Op-Ed pages of The Observer newspaper, MP Ibrahim Ssemujju laboured to breakdown the colossal sums that go to State House annually, a great chunk of which is designated ‘classified’. 

Hundreds of billions goes to the Presidency and is spent without much accountability and evidence of value for money. 

The daily travel budget for the President alone is shocking but is to be expected considering the length of the motorcade and the security provisioning that has to be provided for a President who has to naturally feel more and more paranoid about his security the longer he has been in power and the more he has become less popular. 

The bulk of the money that goes to State House and the Office of the President ends up oiling Mr Museveni’s vast patronage network that serves his lust for power and the unhinged desire to rule for life. 

Add to this the fact that the budgets for defence and security have over the years grown exponentially to trillions, increasing every passing year, again with chunks of it designated as ‘classified’.  Yet, to be sure, Uganda has not been involved in any official war activities except military adventures in Equatorial Guinea, Somalia and South Sudan that, on the balance of things, serve individual and regime interests rather than the national interest. 

Procurements in Ministry of Defence, in the Uganda National Roads Authority and in other ministries, departments and agencies that handle big money are riddled with gross abuse and sheer theft. 

Therefore, today it is inevitable to note that, arguably, the vast majority of people working in government, right from the very top down to local government officials, cannot convincingly account for what they own in property and cash.

The bottomline is this, fellow Ugandan, MPs are an easy target. Obviously, they should be questioned and condemned when they extract money which should otherwise serve the public good. As representatives of the people, MPs are ideally the custodians of all public resources and should ask questions of those abusing the public interest, not partaking in the abuse. This though is the ideal. Where Uganda has reached, it is a feast situation for all who are able and have the access. 

In a sense, MPs are the better of the many evils and parasites: they ‘steal’ openly by getting money to buy cars, something we know about and can make some inconsequential noise mainly on social media and a few broadcast talkshows or in a column like this. 

But think about the Permanent Secretaries, the Commissioners, the Army Generals and top police officers, the Cabinet ministers and the topmost fellows ruling the country, including the ruler at the very top, how many of these people can actually account for what they own and what they have? How many government ministries and agencies, including State House, can actually justify and account for the billions in budget money they receive every year?

The entire system is rotten to the core, it needs to be uprooted and replaced with a newly imagined system of government that reflects the needs and interests of the wider Uganda public. This is the real task beckoning at all of us.