In Uganda, no one is sure of tomorrow. The rate of poverty is high, survival is hard. There are few people who can survive locked up in the house for a week. Our people are going to starve. It is the president, and his government to avert this looming crisis.
More than a year since Covid19 struck, there are people who believe locking down the country will avert the spiraling numbers of cases.
Covid19 is not going away soon. And it is important to start preparing our country and people with better strategies to fight Covid19 as a disease but also its consequences on people’s incomes and government revenue.
On Friday night, President is expected to speak to the nation about the covid19 situation in the country. Many believe he is going to lockdown for at least two weeks. This will be a big mistake – in my opinion.
Instead, the the president should strongly use this as an opportunity to improve systems in his government. Mr Museveni should know we are at this point because of the lapses in his government.
1. Both Government and people have no money. If the government locks down, it is upon them to ensure vulnerable groups access food supplies. Already we have a bad experience with the first round of food distribution in the first lockdown. It was shabbily managed. Now that government is already grappling with debt, and less production which leads to less taxation, we cannot expect the government to feed the already hunger-prone country.
2. Misuse of funds meant to feed or treat covid19 patients
Parliament passed money to buy food, masks, medical supplies. From the look of things, they were mismanaged. Some of the officials from the office of the prime minister already went to jail for mismanaging procurement. Whereas the fundraised money seems lost and vehicles donated to work in emergency used to chauffer big officials from different ministries, we lost the plot on day one. The government and its head, Mr Museveni should better devise other ways to managing this emergency.
3. Stop foreign arrivals
We have arrivals into the country which introduce new strains in the country. This is making it difficult to control further infections. The country’s resilience or herd immunity cannot be obtained with laxity and carelessness of that nature from Immigration departments. We are still wondering how a strain from India could not be stopped when the disaster had several warnings coming through but no efforts were made to stop the disaster.
There is a need to close the airport and borders to foreigners. Only residents should be allowed back, and should go through a month’s quarantine.
4. Kampala is going to be closed off from reach by the poor. The poor people had in the past made it impossible for land grabbers to occupy some prime parts of Kampala. Now with the Covid19 scare, anyone with less than sh5 million should find somewhere else to work from.
People with small capital have returned to the villages and it is said if our capital city has locked out the group that wants to pursue their dreams.
Where there is a disadvantage there is an advantage too. The time is going to come when Ugandans want to return to their places of work. This is going to create conflict as owners of kiosks will find KCCA has already taken them and new buildings raised in their places of work. This will increase restlessness in the city and across the country.
We are therefore likely to see crime increase, including theft, murders, prostitution and early pregnancies.
The author is a former contestant for Kampala Central Parliamentary seat
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