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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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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