Uganda under Museveni is devoid of Ubuntu

I have been impelled to write this article by Professor Augustus Nuwagaba’s article “Govt must rectify the salary imbalance in public sector” (See Daily Monitor, Friday, September 9, 2011). Lots of money approved by MPs for community barazas; money approved for patriotism clubs yet the claim is that there is no money for salary enhancement for all civil servants.
We need to define the concept patriotism. Who actually is a patriot? Is it an MP who earns 21m a month; IGP who reportedly uses 1.3b a day whenever there’s a protest, demonstration or strike; is it a political leader whose daughter will give birth from a first world country using huge sums of taxpayers’ money when women in labour at Mulago Hospital corridors hardly find gloves, kaveera, cotton wool, surgical blade and spirit to enable them deliver babies; is it a minister whose children study from international schools but blackmails teachers with sacking when they demand a modest pay raise of Shs250,000; is it a presidential advisor who pockets millions of money including AC Vehicles and security guards when but never meet the president only to see him on TV yet medical doctors are paid 700,000, is patriotism a preserve of young men and women of one particular political inclination?
Where can the money be found? Where is the waste? A lot of government revenue is wasted on the following.
There is a tendency where government institutions especially ministries are being duplicated by the creation of various semi-autonomous authorities like KCCA, URA, NDA, UNRA, NPA, UIA, CAA, NFA, UWA, among others. There are other semi-autonomous agencies such as NWSC, NSSF, National Housing, Administrator General, etc. in addition to authorities we also have semi-autonomous Commissions. Workers in these agencies and commissions earn far higher than the conventional civil servants. Ultimately, the mainstream civil servants spend virtually all their energies thinking of how and how much they can steal to bridge the gap that exists between them and their counterparts in the named authorities. For example a fresh university graduate who enters public service starts from salary scale u4 and his/her take home is around Sh470,000. A similar fresh graduate who enters URA or NPA earns between 1.5 to 3m. if one wants to move at the same pace with their contemporaries they therefore spend virtually all the time devising means of “cutting deals” and the service delivery is poor if not negative. Mainstream civil servants are government employees and so are workers in authorities, commissions and other agencies. Why then can’t we have a uniform salary structure for all government employees?
The other area of waste is the big size of cabinet and parliament who earn very fat emoluments and the flowery title of honourable. To ascend to these positions, the academic requirement is a mere equivalent of Advanced Level. Shockingly, these MPs and ministers delude themselves that they make a bigger contribution than teachers, police, medical workers and without any shame university professors. Interestingly, quality of these “Honorable” members is wanting as some MPs may take their entire term without contributing to debate.
The other area of waste is the elevation of counties into districts and proliferation of sub counties for political expediency while duping the masses that they would bring or take services closer to the people. Instead these have ended up increasing the burden on taxpayers due to the cost of Administration like new Councils, RDC’s, DSO’s, GISO’s, Departments, vehicles and structures such as buildings. While the argument that the proliferation of districts and sub counties was meant to enhance service delivery, government health centres are devoid of essential drugs and equipment; government aided schools are on the verge of collapse because of poor performance; UPE and USE are just in name but we neither have universal primary or secondary school education because the remittance UPE for each pupil is less than Sh 2000 while USE remittance for each student is Sh41,000. In a school such Kigarama Primary School, parents are compelled to pay 15,000 for each child under UPE while at Kigarama secondary School parents part with Sh78,000 for each student under USE. One wonders if a parent pays 15,000 for his/her child and government tops up 1300 or 1500 why should government say it caters for our children?
Government violates ILO Conventions – convention 100- equal pay for equal value of work.
Doesn’t government have the money? The argument that government has no money is a hoax. There are too many taxes paid by Ugandans and URA collects huge sums of money on a daily basis. However, the problem is largely abuse and misuse of these monies through priority misplacement and imbalances in the allocation. These imbalances are largely responsible for the misappropriation and embezzlement of public funds as we highlighted in the foregoing. Our society has enough to satisfy all our needs but doesn’t have enough to satisfy our greed.
We have businessmen who pay no taxes. These happen to be business associates with the powers that be. Because they don’t pay taxes, if a genuine businessman imports or exports they are taxed through the nose. That professors cannot sponsor their children in universities where they teach is a truism. On the whole, what need to be overhauled are not the salary structures but a whole system starting from the political establishment. Many Ugandans under Museveni are devoid of Ubuntu which manifests in humanity, empathy and experiences a moral downturn.
The author is a human rights defender
Email: mpvessynuwagaba@gmail.com

Mr President, you can only promote welfare by ensuring social justice

Vincent Nuwagaba

On 12th April, the country witnessed a swearing-in ceremony of a president who has been around for the past 25 years. The president swore to preserve, protect and defend the constitution, but experience has shown that he will invoke the constitution only when it is in his best interest to do so. The constitution has been reduced to a mere piece of paper which can be thrown any time it stands in the way of those wielding power. In addition to preserving, protecting and defending the constitution, the president swore that he shall promote the welfare of the people of Uganda.
How can the president promote the welfare of Ugandans?
This is a true story for the attention of the president and his courtiers. Francis Ruhindi was a government sponsored student at Makerere University. He graduated with a second class upper degree with a cumulative grade point average of 4.27 in 2003. By all standards, Francis performed very well. Joan Kemirembe his sister was a privately sponsored student in Makerere University also. She graduated in 2005 with a second class upper division too. Their father Silas Nkundeki is a peasant from Bitereko Sub County in the new Mitooma district who sold his land and cattle in order to have his children attain university education expecting that after graduation the children would get employed and restore the sold land but also pay school fees for their siblings. Since they graduated both Joan and Francis have never gotten jobs and they depend on providence for survival. They have begged now for close to eight years and now they have turned into a laughing stock to very many people.
Ironically, as Francis and Joan – children of peasants languish on the streets without jobs, they have seen their contemporaries from wealthy families get jobs in National Social Security, Uganda Revenue Authority and some of them joined police and many of them are now District Police Commanders; Divisional Police Commanders, Officers in Charge of stations and Officers in Charge of Criminal Investigation Departments while some of them are Officers in Charge of Traffic. In fact, Francis applied to join the Police Force in 2007 but he was unsuccessful and the reason he gives for this is that he never had any government bigwig to recommend him. This is the time when it was proved that police recruitment was marred by awful sectarianism.
Francis, wonders why government wasted taxpayers’ money educating him and later deny him an opportunity to serve his country. Joan laments the fact that her father sold his land and cattle to have her educated. These are some of the people that government officials have been telling that Uganda is not a welfare state! The right to work is clearly fundamental to the enjoyment of many subsistence rights and livelihood rights such as food, clothing, housing and so forth.
The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stressed that, “The right to work is increasingly important as governments world over continue to withdraw from the provision of basic services, leaving these to market forces and non-governmental actors”.
It is ironical that the government wastes money on non-productive ventures at a time when our health centres are deathtraps and some people can starve to death. The core principles of human rights are human dignity, equality and welfare. The right to liberty vanishes when the right to equality is not ensured and in its turn the right to equality vanishes when freedom is not assured. This clearly is how interdependent and indivisible human rights are.
Finally, the president swore to defend the constitution at a time when the police and the military are brutalizing those who have expressed dissent with the government. This is a mockery of the constitution and the bible with which he swore to defend the constitution. The president can promote the welfare of the people of Ugandans by first and foremost ensuring that he pays heed to the concerns of the people. He must ensure social justice and desist from feeding the nation on his usual platitudes. Ugandans need jobs; drugs in hospitals; access to education and so forth. It is meaningless for the president to keep telling us of improvement in economic growth when it doesn’t translate into economic development.
Mr. Nuwagaba is a human rights defender
vnuwagaba@gmail.com