My recent
visit to Mogadishu and seeing what our troops have done there made me
proud. Yet perhaps the greatest lesson from Somalia was not necessarily
the good that our army is capable of doing in foreign lands but how
smart President Yoweri Museveni is at geo-strategic positioning.
Museveni has cultivated a very good understanding of the dynamics of
regime survival in Africa, a factor that explains his decades of rule.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Museveni’s mission to Somalia
Why the Western powers may keep financing Museveni even when some think he has passed his sale-by date
Kagame victim of own success
The world tends to hold him to very high, sometimes unrealistic standards
Over the
last one month, a rebellion has been ragging in eastern DRC against the
government of President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa. As I write this
article, over 40 armed groups, some of them former members of the
Congolese army, have taken up arms against his government. However,
international diplomatic activity, media coverage and human rights
campaigns have been focused on one rebel group, M23 and one country,
Rwanda and its president, Paul Kagame, for allegedly sponsoring the
rebellion. Even an interested observer may easily think the rebellion
is taking place in Rwanda, not DRC. Why is Kabila against whom mutineers
and rebels are battling for control of the DRC missing in the news?
Uganda’s anti-corruption rituals
To understand how theft of public resources flourishes, one has to observe how it is fought
Last week,
court dismissed as “no case to answer” charges of abuse of office and
causing financial loss against Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi in the Gavi trial.
Muhwezi had been taken to court on flimsy evidence that even state
witnesses – the Accountant General and the former Permanent Secretary in
the ministry of health – said he had not authorised any payments. A
similar situation attains to the charges brought against former Vice
President Gilbert Bukenya and the current charges against ministers Sam
Kutesa, Mwesigwa Rukutana and John Nasasira.
Rwanda’s donor aid cuts
Doesn’t a country that lost a million people deserve to protect its people against the threat of another genocide?
In a space
of one week in July, the Netherlands, Germany, UK and USA announced
they would cut their aid to Rwanda over its alleged involvement in the
ongoing rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are
another pointer to the dangers of Western aid to poor countries. The use
of aid as an instrument of blackmail is a common practice by Western
Europe and its offshoots in North America, Australia and New Zeeland. In
almost all official and unofficial relations with recipients, Western
donors keep rubbing in the fact that those recipients should behave
themselves lest… This “lest” includes a series of threats such as
cutting aid, sending a leader to the International Criminal Court (ICC)
or imposing sanctions.
Stiglitz’s Mubiru Memorial Lecture
Failure to define the necessary market regulation deprived lecture of the necessary nuance
The
lecture by economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz about the failures
resulting from deregulation of financial markets in the United States
and the need for a strict regulatory regime was engaging and frustrating
at the same time.
Democracy holds NSSF hostage
How a tiny minority of trade unionists have used politics to wrest control from the majority of the fund’s subscribers.
In his
State of the Nation address, President Yoweri Museveni said government
was going to borrow money from the National Social Security Fund (NSSF)
to finance infrastructure development. Later, the Chairman of the
Uganda Investment Authority, Patrick Bitature, said government should
do so without consulting workers. Since then, Bitature has been under
attack.
Mrs. Museveni’s life’s journey
If anyone wants a slice of the intimate life of the Museveni family, his wife’s autobiography delivers it
I have spent eight months trying to shape my views on Mrs. Janet Museveni’s autobiography, My Life’s Journey.
An autobiography is an attempt to tell others that: “This is who I
am” or “This is how I see myself” and “This is how I want you to see
me.” So it is an intimate self examination. Then of course, the
challenge is how much to reveal about oneself – your triumphs and
setbacks, aspirations and frustrations. In My Life’s Journey, I felt Mrs. Museveni did this with much greater success than most people would.
Get government out of business
The best way to improve service delivery in Uganda is to concession most of it to the private sector
Since 1995
the government of Uganda has been trying to build a hydro-power dam at
Karuma. Attempts to get a private company to do the work ended in
futile debates with international donors and local politicians. Then
the government decided to build a 600MW hydro electricity dam at Karuma
at a cost of US$ 1.2 billion itself. A committee comprising officials
from the ministries of finance, energy and environment evaluated three
companies; China Water and Electric Corporation (CWEC), Synohydro Corp,
a private Chinese company, and an Iranian company Perlite Construction
out of the six companies that bided for the contract. CWEC won.
Rwanda’s biggest security dilemma
The complexity of Kigali’s relationship with Kinshasa and the possible way tensions between the two countries could be reduced
As
fighting recently flared up between Tutsi rebels and government forces
in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Rwanda government has
found itself, once again at the centre of yet another international
controversy. Kinshasa has been joined by poorly informed, often
prejudiced international observers and `experts’, and local and
international human rights groups in a blanket condemnation of Kigali as
the mastermind of the rebellion. In the mad rush to point fingers and
apportion blame, the complexity of the problem in eastern DRC has been
lost, making a solution much more difficult to craft.
Democratisation in Egypt
Having removed Mubarak, the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square are realising that the struggle for democracy has just began
Last week,
Egyptians went to the polls to vote in the second round of their
presidential elections. The first round had produced two candidates:
Ahmed Shafiq, a former air force commander and last Prime Minister under
Hosni Mubarak; and Mohammed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood. The two
candidates reflected the historical contours of political division in
Egypt since the 1952 revolution led by Gamal Abdel Nasser: the army and
the Islamists. Funny how little things change.
A weekend visit to Kalangala
How BIDCO’s investment is changing the lives of people in the district and the potential it has to transform agriculture
Uganda
today consumes 250,000 tonnes of vegetable oil per year, up from 100,000
tonnes in 2005. Of this, 16,000 tonnes was produced locally from oil
palm by BIDCO in Kalangala in 2011. The company projects production to
peak at 20,000 tonnes this year. Another 24,000 tonnes are produced by
Mukwano from oil seeds. This leaves the country to import 210,000 tonnes
of vegetable oil from Malaysia and Indonesia every year at a cost of
about US$300 million of which about US$80m is transport costs.
Uganda’s possible Tahrir Square
Given Museveni’s long rule and potential for family succession, is Uganda now vulnerable to an `Arab Spring’
I argued
in this column last week that Africa has almost similar structural
conditions as the Middle East on the eve of the Arab Spring – sustained
economic growth for almost two decades, investment in mass education,
penetration of modern communication technology like mobile phones and
internet, a youth bulge alongside their joblessness and social and
political frustrations among the middle class.
Africa’s political risk profile
How realistic is the risk of political upheaval in Africa and what can be done about it?
Two weeks
ago, I was in Nairobi, Kenya to attend a conference on Africa’s
political risk profile. The moderator of the first session posed four
questions for discussion: Is stability more important than freedom? Is
the raw material for the Arab Spring available in Africa? Has the Arab
Spring changed the political risk profile of Africa and how? How do you
invest in Africa in the context of crony capitalism? These were
challenging questions whose answers depend as much on the objective
conditions on our continent as on the attitudes and agenda of any
analyst.
Prof. Ayittey’s postings on Rwanda
How one of Africa’s distinguished scholars has been misled to become hostile to a government that should be his natural ally
Prof.
George Ayittey is one of the most thoughtful and influential
intellectuals on contemporary Africa. He has been consistent in his
condemnation of Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame specifically and the
Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) led government generally often referring to
it as a dictatorship. In a recent tweet, which has motivated this
column, Ayittey argued that Rwanda under Kagame is repeating the
monopolisation of power by one ethnic group as the regime it overthrew.
How to change Kampala (Part 2)
A combination of sound technocratic management with a good dose of political skill will do the job
I
argued in this column last week that any attempt by Kampala City
Council Authority (KCCA) to carry out transformative reforms in our city
will create high political tensions. This is because all reform
produces winners and losers. Winners will support reform and losers will
become militants determined to resist it. KCCA will be conducting
reforms in a context of an already polarised politics of the wider
Uganda. The current government has been effective at sustaining economic
growth and fostering private wealth accumulation. But it has been
abysmal in the delivery of public goods and services. So, many people
don’t believe in the promises of better public sector management even if
many still have hope.
How to change Kampala (Part 1)
The innovations KCCA needs to finance the redevelopment of the city from its own resources
On April 19, Kampala City Council
Authority (KCCA) held a public dialogue on their plans to improve our
city. I was honoured to be the main speaker even though my knowledge of
city planning, administration and management is scanty. But like every
observant person living in a city and suffering from, but enjoying, many
of its problems and opportunities, there is an experience I could talk
about.
Healthcare for the rich
The politics of US$ 150m spent by government on evacuating top officials for medical treatment abroad
On Monday, April 23, Daily Monitor
reported that the government of Uganda spends US$150 million per year
(Approx. Shs 375 billion) on medical treatment of its top officials
abroad. When I was still young and intelligent, I would have been angry
and denounced Uganda’s ruling elites as heartless. I would have widened
the argument to claim that such abuses are symptomatic of a broader
elite crisis in Africa; and that it is lack of democratic accountability
that perpetuates such abuses. Today, I have grown old and stupid; I
carry a sobering awareness that such actions are actually predictable
human behaviour.
Africa versus East Asia
Why South Korea succeeded where Uganda failed
A common
argument to explain (the better term would be to “caricature”) post
independence failures in Africa is always in comparison to East Asia. It
is often argued, for example, that by 1960, Ghana and South Korea had
the same per capita income of roughly US$100. Yet 50 years later, South
Korea’s per capita income is US$ 32,000 while Ghana’s is US$ 3,100.
Therefore, the conclusion goes, there was gross mismanagement of Ghana’s
potential in comparison to effective management of South Korea’s
opportunities. The often unsaid but certainly underlying thesis behind
such comparisons is that there is something inherently wrong with
Africa. That unsaid “something” is racial; an inherent incapacity for
self government.
Building a state from scratch
What the leaders of South Sudan need to avoid as they begin the task of building a state and moulding a nation
Last week I
was in Juba, South Sudan on the invitation by friends from the Sudan
People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). It is an invitation I had been
postponing for nearly two years, unsure what awaited me. But I knew it
was a great opportunity to witness at firsthand an experiment in
building a state from scratch. There are hardly any new states emerging
from nowhere unto the world scene anymore. I was both saddened and
thrilled by what I witnessed during that brief visit.
Reflecting on the banning of A4C
How
government politically miscalculated the threat in spite of activists
having lost strategic positioning in their struggle for change
As fate
would have it, last week the Uganda government banned the civil society
advocacy group, Activists for Change (or A4C as it is popularly known).
Ironically, rather than demonstrate strength, this action reflected a
fundamental weakness in the government i.e. that it feels under siege
from the activities of A4C. For the activists, it was a major victory
against an all powerful opponent – a case of David against Goliath. I
had thought (quite wrongly I now realise) that the government had
neutralised A4C, rendered it a minor public inconvenience albeit an
irritating one. So when cabinet passed a resolution to shut it down, I
went around scavenging for answers. Why this sudden action?
Rwanda’s brand problem
How human rights groups exploit Rwanda’s positive brand to build their own and what can be done about it
There has
been an intense contest over “Brand Rwanda” in the international sphere.
Many visitors to Rwanda are impressed by what they see. Physical
observations – clean and well paved streets, manicured flowers, working
street lights, mowed lawns, functional hospitals and schools and
well-constructed pedestrian sidewalks strike a visitor’s eye. However,
these visual observations tell of something profound about post genocide
Rwanda – the construction of a functional state and one which has a
strong commitment to serving the public good.
Should governor Mutebile resign?
President should not jump from one arbitrary position to another in service of popular sentiment
Since The Independent broke the
story of businessman Hassan Basajabalaba’s Shs 169 billion
“compensation” last year, two ministers have resigned and three members
of staff at State House have been fired. All this shows how much, albeit
slowly, public pressure is impacting on government. As a citizen, I
feel satisfied that almost everything I demanded on this matter has been
met by the government.
Lessons from Kony 2012
How the documentary projects a picture of helplessness and how we can use its marketing lessons to portray a better one
The dust
has now settled on the documentary about Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
rebel leader, Joseph Kony. I was impressed by Invisible Children (IC’s)
marketing genius. Their ability to get an obscure cause and use
celebrities and social media to generate global attention to it is a
feat with few precedents.
Inside the West’s double standards Part II
How post-independence failures have helped the West change an image of who Africa’s heroes are
At the
time of independence, Africa was basking with self-discovery and
self-confidence. There was hope and confidence that Africans would shape
their destiny independently. We were supposed to cooperate with others
as equals. The first crop of post-independence leaders – Kwame Nkrumah
(consciencism), Julius Nyerere (Ujamaa), Kenneth Kaunda (Humanism),
Leopold Sedar Senghor (Negritude), Milton Obote (The Common Man’s
Charter) even attempted to develop distinct ideologies for their
countries. Even Mobutu Sese Seko had “Authenticity.” Many of these
philosophies were ill conceived and generated failure. But they were an
important effort to create a distinct view of who we are and how others
should view us.
Inside the West’s double standards Part I
How the West covers Africa and how we, African elites, need to expose these stereotypes
I argued
last week that there is a double standard among institutions – both
public and private – in the western world when dealing with an African
country like Rwanda or a European country like Belgium. For example,
mere allegations by Rwandan dissidents in the UK and Sweden to the
police that their government has sent a hit squad to kill one of them
are enough for police to take action and publicise the threat or expel a
diplomat. However, if similar allegations were made against the
government of Belgium, British or Swedish police would give Belgium the
benefit of the doubt, investigate the matter and establish some credible
basis before taking any action. The question is why the double
standards when it comes to Africa?
Rwanda and its critics
Inside one nation’s struggle against deeply entrenched prejudice
Over the
last five months, 19 journalists formerly working with News of the World
newspaper have been arrested in the United Kingdom for hacking into
people’s voice mails for news information. Six top company executives
have been forced to resign and two of them have been arrested.
Inside Rwanda’s skills gap
Trying to overcome a deficient professional class through education and by cultivating a performance-based society
Last week,
New Vision reported that Rwanda is recruiting teachers from Uganda to
teach in its schools. Many Ugandans may have seen this as an opportunity
to get a well paying job, but the story reflects a severe skills gap
that bedevils Rwanda. It is not simply about lack of English teachers.
Rwanda lacks very basic skills to help it achieve many of its ambitious
development plans and objectives.
Who is Bahati’s bill meant to dupe?
His
move is a masterstroke that eclipses political differences and diverts
public attention from real issues to imaginary problems
Recently,
Ndorwa East Member of Parliament, David Bahati, re-tabled the
kill-all-gays Bill before parliament. After his presentation, where he
claimed to be the moral vanguard of our society and his Bill the safety
valve for our families, he received a standing ovation from both the
government and opposition MPs. There is nothing that unites our
politicians across the political spectrum than a shared homophobia.
Indeed, it is one obsession that is equally shared by the vast majority
of our esteemed citizens especially our elites that dominate public
discourse in Uganda.
Can MPs improve oil contracts? Part II
Parliamentary intervention in government contracts has been consistently counterproductive because MPs do not look at all sides
(…continued from last week)
I argued in this column last week that
parliamentary intervention stopping the signing of oil contracts is
likely to make a bad situation worse. First, experience shows that it is
easy for anyone, leave alone oil companies, to buy off MPs. Therefore,
their current posturing does not impress me. Second, even if some MPs
are genuine in their interventions, most of them are poorly informed to
guide the contracting process to a better outcome. This is largely
because they have done little or no research to understand the
intricacies of these contracts. And they have not even bothered to seek
the services of technically competent people to help them.
Can MPs improve oil contracts? Part I
We should be suspicious of
parliamentary interventions in lucrative government contracts because
they often make a bad situation worse
Recently, President Yoweri Museveni
ordered government of Uganda officials to sign oil Production Sharing
Agreements with companies. This was in spite of a resolution by
parliament stopping all new agreements. Many Ugandans are rightfully
sick and tired of corruption and genuinely suspicious of the executive.
They support parliament in its self-proclaimed fight against the
problem. Yet I am much more inclined to side with Museveni on signing
PSAs.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
In defence of Agaba and Komakech
We need to place their actions against international practice even in democracies like the USA, France, and Italy
Since the late January shooting incident
in Luzira that killed one person and injured two, the public has been
baying for the blood of the “culprits” to wit (now) former director for
planning in KCCA, George Agaba and a policeman, Santos Komakech. To whet
the appetite of an angry public, the DPP moved fast to charge them with
murder. The police also moved swiftly to distance themselves from the
incident accusing KCCA officials of going to evict encroachers without
notifying them.
Reflecting on last presidential election
NRM
had historically suffered major defections before every election but it
enjoyed a big infusion of opposition figures in 2007-11
It
is almost a year since last year’s presidential elections. The dust
over the recriminations over it has settled. We have had sufficient time
to reflect on that election and see what made Kizza Besigye lose ground
in the north; what made President Yoweri Museveni retained his support
in Buganda in spite of his many run-ins with Mengo and why voter turnout
was at an all time low.
Before you listen to “experts”
What the arrest of Rwandan military and security chiefs reveals about Kagame’s leadership style
Last week, President Paul Kagame ordered
the house arrest of four top military and security officers; three of
them generals. Among them, I know the chief of military intelligence,
Brig. Gen. Richard Rutatina and the chief of staff of the reserve force
Lt. Gen. Fred Ibingira, fairly well. I can even claim them to be my
friends. The head of Rwanda’s external security, Col. Dan Munyuza, I
know, but not closely. I know little about the Commanding Officer of the
3rd Division, Brig. Gen. Wilson Gumisiriza.
Who is parliament speaking for?
With only 8% access to electricity and 75% of subsidies going to big businesses, why are MPs supporting subsidies?
Last week, a parliament committee passed
a resolution cancelling the increase in electricity tariffs. Many
Ugandans genuinely believe that in many of its actions, the 9th
parliament is driven by a genuine desire to serve the public good. Yet
many of its interventions are driven by ill-informed populism, blatant
ignorance and/or obvious self-interest.
Museveni’s rupture with traders
Is the standoff between government and traders the tip of an irreparable breakdown of their relationship?
Last week, striking traders paralysed
business in Kampala. Negotiations between their association, KASITA, and
the government did not yield much. As with all previous strikes and
demonstrations in Uganda over the last one year, the traders’ strike was
a welcome development. It shows that political contests in Uganda are
increasingly about public policy as opposed to emotive issues of clan,
tribe and religion. We are beginning to see organised groups in the
public policy market (as teachers, medical workers, consumers, traders,
vendors, boda boda riders etc) eliciting concessions from the state
through healthy confrontations.
Electricity cost going up 40%
But who benefits most from subsidies to UMEME?
A cabinet sitting on Wednesday Jan. 11 discussed increasing
electricity tariffs by 40 percent. Cabinet should remove these subsidies
altogether because they are not economically sustainable and benefit
the rich at the expense of poor citizens. Over the last five years,
government has paid Shs 2.0 trillion in these subsidies. This is enough
money to build a 300 MW hydro electricity dam at Karuma.
Looking at failure of public services
It is not corruption per se but the fragmentation of power that explains Uganda’s crisis
Two things stand in contradiction of one another regarding corruption
in Uganda: On a positive note, it seems not to have undermined economic
growth – at least, not yet. Uganda has sustained impressive rates of
economic growth over the last 25 years. On the negative side, corruption
seems to have led to a precipitous decline in the ability of the state
to deliver public goods (hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, electricity
dams) and public services (education, healthcare, agricultural
extension services, electricity, etc).
The political value of corruption
How theft of public resources has been used to build a broad multi ethnic coalition that sustains Uganda’s political system
The last Quarter of 2011 in Uganda was filled with one corruption
scandal after another. Yet in spite of many corruption scandals
unearthed, the mass media were only reporting a small part of it. Across
ministries, local governments and other public institutions in the
country, corruption is the essence of the political system in Uganda.
Politics is a vehicle for promoting the privileges of a few elites at
the top at the expense of the many masses below; and the so called
democratic process is a mechanism through which elites in Uganda have
captured and privatized the state.
A battle six years in the making
My latest attempt to qualify Rwanda’s progress to the incredulous mind of a critic
Over Christmas, Timothy Kalyegira and I got involved into a heated
SMS exchange about Rwanda, a subject I am deeply interested in and one
that he is equally obsessed with without noticing it. I had told Timothy
that Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame were having a relaxed
and cordial Christmas in Rwakitura as part of the effort to reconcile
themselves and their two countries. Below are excerpts for anyone to
read and judge for themselves.
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