THE LAST WORD | ANDREW MWENDA | And so it was that on the morning of December 24th, while going through Instagram, I saw a post on the wall of Lucy Bunyenyezi (Smize) announcing the death of her uncle Ezra Bunyenyezi.
For a brief moment I lost my balance. What? How? When? Why? I just could not believe it! How can Ezra, a man of boundless love and and an abounding generosity, die? He was so full of life and zest, the world needed more and more of him.
He is leading his supporters and admirers to COVID-19 mass suicide with recklessness and irresponsibility
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Presidential candidate Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine has been hosting large rallies across the country. In all of them, tens of thousands of his supporters gather in close contact with each other and vast numbers are without masks, in total disregard for the COVID19 pandemic SOPs. In one video, which I have watched from the beginning to the end, he tells his supporters: “those with masks should wear them and those without masks it is okay”.
How rapid economic growth and improving quality of life are causing mass discontent
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | There is widespread anger especially among the youths in Uganda’s urban areas, but most pronounced in Kampala. Very many commentators on current affairs think this is a result of poor economic performance, resulting in joblessness and poverty. These people argue that if we could sustain growth that creates jobs for the unemployed or underemployed, and if these jobs earned these youths good money, this anger would disappear. These arguments make logical sense but they are empirically wrong.
The things Museveni needs to look at as he battles a youthful musician out to oust him
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | I have just been re-reading President Yoweri Museveni’s 1981 masterpiece on why he chose a protracted armed struggle to fight the government of Milton Obote. It provides an incredible insight into how a weak group can employ its weaknesses as strengths and turn the strength of a powerful but oppressive state into handicaps. It is incredible how, even without strategic thought but sheer gut, Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine is using the same strategy and quite successfully against Museveni.
Why Bobi Wine is surging and what the president can do to stem the tide other than beating him up
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | There is a wave of excitement in favour of Bobi Wine and his bid for the presidency. The recent riots and their spread across the country only provide a glimpse into the popular interest in him. Anyone who has seen the traffic on social media would know his appeal. To underestimate his potential would therefore be to bury one’s head in the sand. Yet NRM seems impervious to these realities.
On Wednesday, Kampala went on fire after police arrested pop star turned politician/presidential candidate, Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine. The riots continued through yesterday (Nov.19). The partisans on either side are in overdrive. Critics of government post videos of police shooting at crowds where some people have, unfortunately, died.
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Government activists post videos showing street gangs mounting roadblocks, forcing anyone wearing yellow, the colour of the ruling party, to remove them. In one of these videos, a thug attacks a police lady hitting her with a hammer.
How the president, the security services and the opposition are beneficiaries of this political pathology
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Election season is with us and the police are in overdrive to beat the hell out of opposition candidates. The leading and perhaps most popular opposition presidential candidate is without doubt the leader of the National Unity Platform, formerly People Power, Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine. Immediately after he was nominated, police beat him up and tore his suit. The spokesperson of his party, Joel Senyonyi, was also beaten and left almost naked.
How the opposition have invented a non-existing problem and are promising to build bridges where no rivers exist
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On Monday, President Yoweri Museveni was nominated to run for an eighth term of office. When (not if) he wins this election, it will take him to 40 years as president, a remarkable feat. His efforts to cling to power, in spite of many promises not to, tells us very little about Museveni the man but a lot about power itself: few men find it possible to leave it easily and willingly. But that is a debate for another day. For now we need to deal with his legacy.
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | I woke up yesterday morning only to hear that the deputy head of the Uganda Media Centre Col. Shaban Bantariza is dead. The news struck me like a thunderbolt partly part because I least expected it but largely because Bantariza was not just a friend but also someone I greatly admired. He embodied that great and enduring liberal spirit of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF).
Why measuring poverty using income is misleading and why we need to switch to using wealth
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | It is seven months since Uganda locked down due to COVID. The lesson I have learnt from the lockdown is not related to health but economics. It concerns the method we use to measure poverty (indirectly, wellbeing). Currently, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS), like nearly all measurements of poverty elsewhere in the world, relies on income. COVID has taught us that income can sometimes be a misleading indicator of wellbeing.
Why our country continues to take more and more loans and what this means for the economy
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Uganda is at a crossroads. Early this year, government passed a budget of Shs32 trillion for the 2020/2021 Financial Year. It also projected to collect Shs21.8 trillion in taxes and then would raise the rest from international loans and grants, non-tax revenues and domestic borrowing. Then COVID struck.
A peep into a powerful treatise that people in the free market movement need to ponder over
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Few books have gripped me as did Thomas Piketty’s economics blockbuster, Capital in the Twenty First Century. Published in 2015, I took long to read it in large part because everyone was praising it; and I am always suspicious of popular things. But also the first time I opened it, its pages were littered with many equations that turned me off, mistaking the book to be filled with econometric abstractions that mean little in reality. But finally, the devil got into my head and I sat to reading it last year and been re-reading it (actually studying it) these last few weeks.
Why it’s important for the army or the government to tell the story of its transformation
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Next year, the Uganda Peoples’ Defense Forces (UPDF) will mark three major milestone dates. It will be exactly 50 years (Golden Jubilee) since its formation under its precursor name, the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) in 1971. It will also be 40 years since the launch of its second major phase of the struggle, the attack on Kabamba on February 6th 1981. Finally it will be 25 years (silver Jubilee) since it acquired its current name, UPDF, in October 1995 when this constitution came into force.
Why those who want change in Uganda need to think much more creatively about what it means
THE LAST WORD | Andrew Mwenda | Nearly two years since Gen. Omar El Bashir was removed from power through a popular uprising, Sudan is tottering on the edge of collapse. The government increased public sector wages by 400%, thereby throwing the country into hyperinflation. Then its currency plummeted against the dollar making the domestic cost of imported goods unaffordable by most of its citizens. For a country with limited manufacturing and therefore import-dependent, the rapid depreciation of the local currency cut deep. As if the spirits of the ancestors are angry at what is happening, Sudan has the worst flooding in a century, affecting nearly 70% of the population.
The real story of how teachers’ money was stolen and how the wrong guys were framed and jailed
On September 9, all major news outlets in Uganda ran a screaming headline: `Microfinance Support Centre officials charged with embezzlement’. It alleged that Shs11 billion released to MSC “just disappeared” into the pockets of four officials – John Peter Mujuni, the executive director, John Mwebembezi, the head of finance and administration, Joan Asiimwe Baryaruha, a teacher and Julia Birungi, a lawyer and the assistant credit officer.
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, NRM primaries degenerated into violence. Candidates and their supporters clashed with opponents leading to the shedding of blood. Some people died. The army and police were called in to keep the peace. There was massive rigging. Some people were surprised that such violence and fraud had happened. I was personally surprised it was not as violent and widespread. In 2010 and 2015, we witnessed worse incidents. I have been expecting the situation to get much worse before it gets better.
Why Dr. Kizza Besigye is right to say elites in Uganda are the most useless class
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye has argued that elites in Uganda are the most useless group in the country. Let us test this thesis and seek to prove what it reveals. The beginning point is poverty statistics from our Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) 2018. We know that the more educated one is, the higher is the likelihood that they will be living in urban areas, have a higher income and therefore the more elite they will be. The highest concentration of elites in Uganda is in Kampala and Wakiso district. These are the places letting Uganda down, right?
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | So another military coup has taken place in Mali removing an unpopular yet democratically elected government of President Ibrahim Keita. Keita came to power as an opposition firebrand in 2013, after a military coup had overthrown President Amadou Toure. His promises turned out to be pipedreams. The people, tired of corruption and incompetence, have been demonstrating for months, leading to an army mutiny and coup. The Mali coup is popular with “the people” (meaning those angry urban youths and intellectuals we see screaming on the streets). However, the UN, AU and ECOWAS have rejected it and have imposed sanctions on the country.
Why the opposition in Uganda needs to take organisation and unity seriously if they are to have a chance
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The nationwide youths elections this week should give the opposition in Uganda, especially the National Unity Platform (NUP), time to pose and reflect. Just as polling commenced, Timothy Kalyegira, a senior journalist in Uganda, tweeted saying NUP, less than two months old, were running “neck to neck” with the ruling NRM. Kalyegira, like many other elite Ugandans, has a habit of relying on his hopes to drive his analysis. And this is the fatal error that has stifled the growth of the opposition.
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Leading opposition figure, Dr. Kizza Besigye, has said he will not participate in the coming presidential elections because it will not be free and fair. According to Besigye, he has won all the last four presidential elections he has contested against President Yoweri Museveni. He claims the official results that are always announced by the Electoral Commission are false. Indeed, on two occasions (2001 and 2006) the Supreme Court of Uganda has said there were significant irregularities in the electoral process. On both occasions and with a majority of one vote it has refused to annul the election on the grounds that these irregularities were not sufficient to alter the final outcome of the election.
Why Bobi Wine’s new party will find it even more difficult to defeat Museveni in 2021 compared to FDC in 2006
| THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | This week, the National Unity Platform of Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine launched itself with two defections of NRM MPs and two other independent legislators. It was presented as a big event. Yet for all the hype, and compared to the birth of the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) in 2005, NUP seems to me to be a stillbirth. The MPs from NRM are nonentities whose names no one I have met can remember. Only Latif Sebagala from DP has some gravitas. In 2005 FDC was formed with many MPs, elected local government leaders and other leading figures on Uganda’s political scene from across the entire country.
Why Uganda’s opposition is going to hand Museveni an easy victory next year.
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | As we approach the 2021 general elections, it is apparent that the opposition, as expected, has handed an easy victory to President Yoweri Museveni and his party, the NRM. Yet after the election the same opposition politicians will fret and cry that the election has been rigged. It is even more interesting because the opposition claim to be fighting a dictatorship. I wonder then why they expect such a government to create a level playing field in the elections.
Why Uganda’s pro-democracy activists get it wrong when they support radical extremist cults as alternatives to Museveni
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | In their misguided (even though, perhaps, well-intentioned) war against President Yoweri Museveni, many pro-democracy (but mostly pseudo-democracy) “activists” bring three fundamentally erroneous assumptions. First, that Museveni’s government has mismanaged Uganda by relying on brute force and corruption to rule and is thus unsustainable. Second, that there actually exists in Uganda’s opposition a democratic alternative to Museveni. Third, that any change from Museveni is good and will, therefore, bring better government.
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, Bank of Uganda (BOU) issued a press statement in which it promised to appeal a ruling by the Court of Appeal in a case against businessman Sudhir Ruparelia over Crane Bank. Yet the statement did not deal with the reason why the court rejected all the grounds of appeal by BOU. Instead, BOU sought to win public support, and perhaps even morally bribe Supreme Court judges, on fictitious claims that somehow Sudhir stole money from Crane Bank. Yet this is not a matter that was before the court.
How a scientific election opens opportunities for the opposition in Uganda to perform better
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | There is a popular Chinese saying that a wise person looks for an opportunity in every problem while a stupid looks for a problem in every opportunity. This saying has been ringing in my head since government suggested that they will hold scientific elections i.e. all campaigning will be done electronically without mass rallies. Since then, opposition politicians and their cheerleaders on social and in traditional media have been biting their fingers complaining that this is yet another way in which President Yoweri Museveni’s government is trying to rig them out of the election.
Why opportunities that theoretically exist to cut wasteful public spending are politically impossible
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | This year, Uganda has been hit by three major disasters: a locust invasion, floods and COVID-19; a combination of which will shrink economic growth. COVID-19 has been the most economically devastating and will halve GDP growth and revenue collections. Yet the government of Uganda is entering an election season where public spending has powerful implications on voter behavior. Government has decided to bury its head in the sand by making unrealistic revenue projections.
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On June 24 morning I walked into Kikuubo, the epicenter of Uganda’s trade, in Kampala city. I found tens of thousands of people congested on the streets selling merchandise. While Kikuubo is always crowded, this time it was overcrowded; with the street teaming with chaos of traders selling from the street and from their cars, plus hawkers and vendors.
Reflections on the passage of an icon who did so much to shape who I am today
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | It is exactly one year this week since our mother, Mrs Constance Kabakali Muhangazima, left us! While we were happy that she had retired from this world to join the one she worked so hard for, and while we are now even joyful that she is in the company of her best friend Jesus Christ in eternal happiness, her departure nonetheless left a huge hole in our lives. We miss her kindness, generosity and unconditional love.
Why Museveni’s focus on corruption as the biggest problem of tax administration misses the big picture
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | During his national address after the reading of the 2020/21 Budget, President Yoweri Museveni decried the low ratio of tax to GDP in Uganda, which stands at 14.3%. Since 1997, this ratio has stagnated only growing from 11% in 23 years. Museveni then said that this is largely because of corruption at the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), which, he said, he has now addressed through the changes in the leadership he has forced onto that organisation.
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | This week, in his regular COVID19 briefings, President Yoweri Museveni claimed boda bodas are not an effective means of public transport! Who decides whether a particular mode of transport is effective: the president, a committee of experts or commuters i.e. the market? Ugandan commuters (the market) have consistently voted with their wallets for boda bodas as the most convenient and effective means of public transport!
How democratic politics has placed Uganda on a perilous road of an irresponsible and lazy citizenry
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | A dangerous, pervasive and malignant sense of entitlement has grown, spread and consolidated in Uganda. Many Ugandans believe they are entitled to various welfare benefits from the state in complete disregard to the resources available. Yet, at the same time, they have no corresponding sense of responsibility, for instance to pay taxes regularly and adequately to fund these welfare expectations. To make matters worse, our democratic process actively promotes this dysfunctional mentality. Elected politicians from President Yoweri Museveni downwards promise a nanny state in a country with hardly the requisite resources to pay for it.
How the East African Community may not survive the current pandemic and why this may be a good thing
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | The coronavirus disease has exposed the deep holes in the dream and delusions of the East African Community (EAC). It has not caused them. The gapping holes between the aspirations of the EAC’s key advocates on the one hand, and the reality of our economies and their politics on the other were already visible to those who cared to look. Most fans of regional integration schemes ignore the vital role of enlightened self-interest in the success of public policy.
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | In his interview with NBS television aired on May 11, President Yoweri Museveni revealed three things about Uganda’s oil sector that were depressing and illuminating. First he said the reason Uganda has not moved fast towards production is because international oil companies (IOCs) want to “cheat” the country as they have done in many other African countries. So Uganda has had to be extremely careful not to fall in the same trap.
Why Kadaga is right and Museveni is wrong about the role of MPs in the Coronavirus fight
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Uganda’s elites are very angry that their legislators allocated themselves Shs10 billion to aid the fight against the coronavirus. Many see the act as a form of corruption, arguing that the MPs are taking this money for themselves. President Yoweri Museveni, in characteristic opportunistic style, has joined Uganda’s chattering elites in condemning parliament, and so have the courts of law. In the ensuing cacophony of shrill alarms reason has been thrown to the wind. One has to be dangerously ignorant, or a fool or a demagogue to condemn MPs for what they did.
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last night, Sunday 19th of April 2020, I lost a young friend, Phil Manzi, to lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes! He was only 19! Why does death suddenly rob the world of such a young soul whose future was ahead of him!?
What we should know about our public medical facilities and their professionals as we face a pandemic
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M Mwenda | The corona virus is finally with us. For a large and loud section of Ugandan elites, our country should have the facilities like Intensive Care Units (ICUs) and High Dependency Units (HDUs), Organ Transplant Units (OTU) in numbers and standards we find in German, France and Italy. The gulf between these expectations and the financial, institutional and human-capital capacity of our poor nations is something that never ceases to amaze me.
How Uganda’s opposition leader helps the incumbent keep winning elections
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Opposition leader and activist, Dr. Kizza Besigye, has been consistent in denouncing the electoral process in Uganda as a sham. In a recent interview with Daily Monitor, he said: “[Lt] Gen [Henry] Tumukunde knows that in Uganda, the election cannot cause change and bring about the announcement of a different person as president. If he wants to join the struggle for change, he should know that it will take more than canvassing for votes.”
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | As the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries in the USA gather momentum, candidates have made healthcare a central issue in their elect-ability. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have made it their swansong.
How our government built and has now almost destroyed the country’s oil industry
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Uganda’s upstream oil industry is dead. Ok, let me admit this is a bit of an exaggeration. It is more appropriate to say it is in a coma and will be very difficult to resuscitate. This conclusion is paradoxical because Uganda has spent years painstakingly building the best and most patriotic institutional and oil policy infrastructure in Africa – and one that meets best international practice. How can an ‘A’ student in institutional and policy design turn into an ‘F’ student in turning such advantage into a viable business?
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | On January 1st this year Peter Otai, the former minister of state for defense in the second Milton Obote government, died in London. On January 25th, a memory service in his honor was held in London. Then his body was flown to Uganda for burial in his ancestral home in Soroti on Febuary 1st. His family had initially refused to bring it to Uganda. I am reliably informed they yielded to his wish to be buried next to his mother. His life, death and burial tell a powerful story about the political development of Uganda, the personality of President Yoweri Museveni and especially the intricate connections of its political leaders.
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | We are entering an election season and many things are going to go wrong in this country. President Yoweri Museveni will not initiate anything serious fearing its implications on voters. But he will enter a spending binge where loads of cash will be given to individuals and groups that he knows represent particular voter segments. So the State House budget is going to be huge next financial year. Then we are going to hear a lot of rhetoric from opposition politicians promising to build bridges where no rivers exist. To counter them Museveni too will make many wild promises.
How sustained economic growth influences health through nutrition and better living conditions
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | In this column last week I argued that economic growth, in spite of its many limitations, remains the most important driver of improved wellbeing. A key measure of wellbeing is increased life expectancy at birth. People who feed poorly and live in horrible conditions are prone to diseases and would, therefore, die young. Infant/child mortality has the biggest impact on life expectancy. For instance, life expectancy at birth in Uganda is about 65 years, compared to Japan at 84.5 years. But life expectancy at 15 years in Uganda could be nearer that of Japan. This shows that after overcoming the health challenges of early childhood, most people live longer.
Evidence of how GDP growth has led to improved wellbeing of the majority of Ugandans
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | Critics have been accusing me of being simplistic by focusing on economic growth as a major success of President Yoweri Museveni’s administration. Uganda has sustained an average annual rate of growth of nearly 7% over the last 34 years. Some argue that the country could have done better by comparing us to China, which had a growth marathon of over 10% per year between 1978 and 2008. Yet China is different from Uganda; especially when we look at factors that drive rapid growth such as a shared national consciousness (leading to high levels of trust), the existence of a strong state, high levels of human capital, diffusion of technology, and access to the sea and proximity to large markets.
The pros and cons of the President’s long rule and what they portend for the country he has rebuilt
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | This week, President Yoweri Museveni and his NRM celebrate 34 years in power. Museveni inherited a country whose state had disintegrated and economy collapsed. The country had been plagued by political instability manifest in military coups and civil wars. In the seven years between the overthrow of Idi Amin in April 1979 and Museveni’s take over in January 1986, Uganda had seven presidents, an average of one president per year. Uganda was so ungovernable the legendary Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore once said it could not recover even in 100 years.
How the president’s intervention to halt the procurement of Kampala-Jinja expressway is a disaster
THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Last week, I had a meeting in Mukono, a town only 20km east of Kampala. The meeting was scheduled for 2pm. Knowing the heavy traffic on Jinja Road, where Mukono is located, I left Kampala City Center at 1pm. This gave me one hour to navigate the traffic jam. Jinja Road is a major artery connecting our landlocked country to the sea. It is congested with long queues of trailers that make traffic jams on that road a nightmare. But Wednesday last week was record breaking. I got to Mukono at 4pm.
How NRM politics have made Kampala a dysfunctional city and what cannot be done about it
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | As we enter 2020, Kampala has become a dysfunctional city. The heavy rains of 2019 have left most of the roads in a horrible state of disrepair. Most streets are filled with potholes, some even with craters. Motorists have to drive at the slowest speed. This makes cars pile behind each other leading to chronic traffic jams that have made movement around the city a nightmare. The only roads that have not been destroyed by the rains are those built under the leadership of Jennifer Musisi. This is not to blame the old Kampala City Council (KCC), which was led and dominated by the opposition Democratic Party (DP). True it was filled with gross corrupt and incompetent. But equally, it was grossly underfunded.
