FOR five months now, the research and advocacy team of Kabarole Research and Resource Centre has been debating on the issues of who is Uganda’s problem. It has been discussed widely even on most radio stations in mid-western Uganda. In this article, I present my own analysis of this hot debate.
When we have 16 mothers dying every day, impassable roads in most of the rural areas, high dropout rates in the country reported at 71% meaning that of 1,598,636 that enrolled in UPE schools in primary one in 2006 only 463,332 (The New Vision November, 10, 2012), 100,000 Ugandans dying of malaria every year, teachers, medical workers, police officers and other civil servants surviving on meagre pay, country losing over 600 billion in corruption each year, only Shs. 394.4billion allocated to agriculture sector that employs 66% of Ugandans, Ugandans increasingly having one meal per day, and the cost of living going up as peoples’ income are not improving. One wonders who Uganda’s biggest problem?
If this question is asked to His excellence Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, he will passionately blame the opposition saying they have always opposed his development agenda like construction dams, cutting of Mabira forest, and Mps who give him a lot of headache, are the real enemies and saboteurs of Uganda’s progress.
If you asked the opposition a similar question, they will strongly tell you that president Museveni and his regime are reason this country is progressing at a slow pace, thus their efforts are focused on changing the regime. A number of people in academia and civil society agree with this argument. From his deepest sleep, Patrick Muzinduki, a lead researcher in Fort portal will tell you that the people, the citizens of Uganda are the biggest problem. He argues that the people are the ones who vote the leaders into office; they pay taxes, and have power to hire and fire these leaders.
In my view, the problem of Uganda is ignorance, poverty and disease. These three fundamental problems answer the question of what is the problem.
After presenting what the problem is, I can now talk about who the problem is? The dream of Uganda and Ugandans in 1962 was a dignified life, with limited ignorance. People were equipped with right and relevant information to make informed choices, which reduced poverty levels, reduced maternal and infant mortality and increased life expectancy. Today leaders at all levels are greatest hindrance to the realization of the dream; they have blocked the way to the Promised Land and caused traffic congestion, on our way.
Politically, from the village level to the national level as a country we are going through a leadership crisis. For the last 15years we don’t have substantive Chairperson at LCI, meaning we are like a bottomless cup because the base of the country’s leadership has been ignored.
At sub-county levels the leaders, the so called managers who are supposed to monitor the implementation of all government programs, lack capacity to understand the basic of government programmes. In this era and age we have P.7 dropouts being chairpersons of LCIII, supervising university graduates.
In the last four months I have met over 200 sub-county councillors, and only 10% of these knew their sub-county budgets, 5% had heard about Vision 2040, non of them knew anything to do with National Development Plan. I have interacted with over 150 current office bearers of LCI, and only four chairpersons knew how 25% of their villages is arrived at.
I have attended some district councils, and the quality of what is discussed in these councils tells a lot about our leaders and the leadership that is steering this country. Like the sub-county councillors, majority of the district councillors sit and only wait for the meeting to end and sign for allowances, have limited capacity to understand the issues being discussed in the council, and lack a clear vision and goal for their respective constituents.
This is a similar problem at the national level where the quality of majority mps to engage and debate on critical issues is seriously wanting. Do we really expect to go far with such quality of leadership? In a country where there is only person who claims to have a vision and this vision has not been shared with others for the last 27 years, then there is a looming crisis.
Moreover, our political parties have failed to offer an alternative leadership that most Ugandans need.
They are busy holding demonstrations and politicking in Kampala, yet real problems are in the rural areas. What agenda do these political parties represent? In a meeting with political leaders of various political parties in three districts, I was shocked to find out that these party leaders from the sub-county level did not have their respective party manifestos, including the ruling party. What are they are following? Such are the leaders we have today.
Our cultural and religious leaders have fallen short of the holiness, and majesties bestowed on them long before; they have openly come out to show that money is the most important to them. Some of them are no-longer custodians of morality. They are fuelling conflicts, stealing church land, offertory and property, trading miracles, among others. Who should we follow?
The civil servants and the civil service of Uganda need serious scrutiny. Ugandans hoped that the 1993 reforms would make it better, but getting services in Uganda’s public hospitals is as hard as getting a horn of a “dog”, the Doctors are scarce, in ministries getting a letter signed is equivalent to leaving behind a brown envelope, in local governments and lower local governments it’s normal to be absent from office on Friday, and a big part of Monday. It’s extremely normal in public service to hug your coat and move around.
In a nutshell, our leaders have failed to unite us, to fight a common enemy which is ignorance poverty, and disease, instead they are dividing us more along tribal, party and religious lines. They have failed to identify national interests and national priorities that every Ugandan can identify with; have failed to identify who a Ugandan is, but also how many Ugandans need to be planned for.
Our leaders have diverted from our motto of “For God and my Country” to “For God and my Stomach.” Despite us contributing 80% of the total budget, the value for money in Uganda is still not there.
As leaders in various capacities we must stand and lead the struggle and our people will follow and Uganda will not be the same. But as for now, I’m strongly convinced that Uganda is where it is because of her leaders, and not her people. Societies that have changed changed because of their leaders like; Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Ghandhi, Nelson Mandela, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Ujaama Policy.
The writer is a political analyst & a research and advocacy officer
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