Two invents and two really sad speeches will set the pace for this second installment of looking at governments. This is what they said:
“…to the country, I would like to say, first and foremost, I am sorry… you have sent a clear signal that the government of the United Kingdom must change. And yours is the only judgement that matters…I am sorry…!”
– Rishi Sunak, PM of the UK
“I have reflected…and listened carefully to the people of Kenya…I concede. Therefore I will not sign the Finance Bill 2024. The people are supreme…
– William Ruto, of Kenya
After making that speech, a concession speech, Riki Sunak left No.10 Downing Street (UK’s kind of State House);and will probably never return there as Prime Minister. His party, Conservative Party (CP) was humbled at the polls so decisively that it may stay out of power for a long time.
We can’t blame Mr. Sunak for that landslide drubbing except that he blind- jumped onto an already sinking boat. But it was the stubbornness of his party that led to that eventual failure.
In part one we had a conversation on how reckless leaders can implement policies that destroys their countries indeed their own political careers. History’s graveyard is full of such leaders who thought they knew everything but, in reality, knew very little.
Then it was William Ruto’s turn to say his own sorry.
In part one we saw how President William Ruto wanted to create a model country in Kenya but forgetting who was the supreme in this arrangement. It is the “people stupid” and you can’t have it any other way.
True that he wanted to clear Kenya’s foreign indebtedness which is nearly strangling the country. It is also true that Kenya, like most African countries, is struggling in mitigating it’s financial obligations since the war in Ukraine took most of the western world’s time and cash.
If truth be told, no one has time for Africa anymore because of the infighting between Israel and Palestine. Israel to white people, is more important than the rest of Africa combined. And Arabs can’t forsake their Palestinian brethren.
Who is therefore left to baby seat Africa? None folks. So we have, as a matter of urgency, put our houses in order.
Especially we have to agree that we don’t have enough financial resources and are facing a cruel global economic system. Therefore we have to prioritize and become smart especially by living within our means. We can’t continue wasting our resources on opulence expecting other countries to clear the bills before us.
So Kenyans rioted not because they wanted to destroy their country, they simply wanted to send a clear message to their leaders: we’re not happy with the way you’re messing up our country.
The people of Kenya, who certainly love their country and are not fools for that matter, know that they need roads and hospitals; that the police and teachers have to be paid.They also know that those things need to be financed but there in not enough money to go around. So their government must find ways to finance its budget.
Instead Mr. Ruto came out with tear-gas because it has always been used so successfully in a neighboring country. Not in Kenya my friend. Those fellows have never seen a war so are all fresh and itching for one..
Now President Ruto has fired his entire cabinet in an effort to calm down the people’s anger. The order is what failed him. He was supposed to fire the entire cabinet first and the next day introduce those unpopular taxes. The people would have seen him as one of them and even cheered him on.
How about the reforms as implemented by that Rishi Sunak, an Indian man who got one of the rarest chances to become UK PM?
A lesson here is very clear for all to see: you don’t get voted and you turn against the people’s aspirations by doing own things. It also proves long-term rule does not guarantee political safety.
Friends, with the advent of the information age and now social media, the game of politics and governments has changed forever. With a cellphone and one tweet, a country can be turned upside.
Governments have no choice but to adopt and also deliver what the people want. Politicians have to roll their sleeves and soil their hands like everyone else.
The days of governments dipping their dirty hands into people’s pockets are fast disappearing into the horizon. Whoever hasn’t read those signs will face the same fate as King Solomon and our own ‘Kibuuka Omumbale’ faced. These two fellows ignored all warnings and just like that; fell at the hands of prostitutes.
What really makes God forever supreme and clever, is the ease by which humans fail. When it is time to fail, a child even has better ideas. It is like this mysterious force attacks you and washes your faculties of reasoning and thinking.
Ruto’s government had purchased tear-gas and water- throwing trucks but Kenyan GenZ were happy to “kutafuna ayo matiyagasi- eat that tear gas” a clever technique their neighbors haven’t mastered yet.
So all African leaders stand warned: deliver services instead of stocking tear-gas canisters; buy tractors instead of dirty- water cannons. Bullets will never be a perfect substitute to grains and military hangers cannot be compared to grain silos.
So you know, ploughing tractors are more important than military tanks to any country’s economy hence survival.
In 1983 to 1985, Ethiopia faced one of the worst humanitarian events of the 20th century, galvanizing the world’s attention to end widespread starvation and save lives. Ethiopia’s food shortages and hunger crisis led to an estimated 1 million famine deaths, according to the United Nations.
During that worst famine in Ethiopia’s history, the country had more than 2,000 Soviet- made T-tanks than tractors; it had more bombs and bullets than grains. And yet Col. Mengsitu Haire Mariam was overthrown surrounded by that gear.
Friends, to lead people, it requires exceptional common sense not luck as some people often think. I mean what kind of luck can you posses to survive famine and hunger when your country has nearly 250,000 armed soldiers and no single agricultural extension worker?
Every year African government puts up announcements looking for young people to join the police and army. For a change those announcements should be geared toward recruiting the youth into national agricultural brigades and instead of giving them guns and military boots, we give them hoes, axes and gumboots.
When my peers (kadogos) were sent to Mbarara Kadogo School after our liberation in 1986, I truly believed that our leader was going to transform them into agricultural-minded citizens. And later I thought, and I was once again wrong, that National Service (NS) was going to be introduced here.
I think some myopic fella advised our young leader that we can’t afford to finance NS because money was not enough. How about the future benefits indeed savings when we have a productive workforce?
Therefore it is always a question of prioritizing not resources.
I hear and it is true that cleaners in the corridors of ministries often borrow money to their bosses. It happens that as the bosses often leave for expensive lunches with colleagues and friends, cleaners seat in the corner eating simple lunch cooked from home. After 30 days, the boss has no money left from his or her salary of 3 million shillings but the clear has 250,000 still saved from her 500,000 shillings salary.
It is called being frugal nothing else. How do you think Tanzania and now Rwanda have been ble to finance their massive infrastructural developments?
The late Pombe Magufuli of Tanzania told the world that Tanzania built the SG Railway without borrowing any money. The total cost was US$ 3.15 billions!
In Uganda we can’t even put up the initial 15% normally required to have a loan from Exim Bank of China (we borrow mainly from China) not because we’re poor, but for the simple reason that our money is simply channeled into useless ventures.
How is taxation handled in Tanzania? I recall when Tanzanian revenue officials (TRA) used to come here to learn about revenue collections. It is actually Uganda which set up the TRA and also assisted Zambia with it’s own ZRA (Zambia Revenue Authority). We are even ashamed that we can’t even send Ugandans to benchmark with Tanzanians or Zambians. Ours are simply thieves and ignorant where as the other countries have “bamwoyo gwagwanga- Patriots” and thoughtful workers.
From this background we can now talk about government in Uganda.
Friends, I promised you to talk about our own government which has moved from being once the best-run government in Africa to the present disappointment it long became.
I can’t put my hands on that thing which is making President Museveni fail. This famous revolutionary man has always had a direct guidance from God but as things stand; probably God has also changed his mind.
President Museveni has purposely and stubbornly eaten his own “ensigo- seeds” forgetting to plant them for more yields. Sowing the Mustard Seed was a good idea but do we still have those seeds?
In another sense, this is called cannibalism or eating your own.
When talking about Uganda, it is unfair to talk about government as a whole. There is no government here. There is President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni here.
Normally a government has three or four arms if the press is also included. Actually it should have ‘five arms’ to separate the finance department.
President Yoweri Museveni is the head of all four or five arms curtsey of appointment proxy workers there.
Of course he runs the EXECUTIVE with with an iron grip. His brother (s) are in there including the son-in-laws; wife and daughters. Gen. MK, his prodigal son, commands the forces that keeps safe daddy’s country.
The JUDICIARY is run by Chairman Nobert Mao a man Museveni helped to become Makerere Guild president so many decades ago. His former wife, Naomi, was running Madam Janet Kataaha Museveni’s errands. Mao, as the current Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, supervises Chief Justice (CJ) Owiny Dollo, former private legal advisor to the president; the Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka formally working in private practice as a partner in Kampala Associated Advocates (KAA) a law firm he partnered with President Museveni’s son-in-law Edwin Karugire.
PARLIAMENT which Mr. Museveni found closed in 1986 and opened it with his CA (Constituency Assembly), now resembles his many cattle “bilaro- kraals” because it is run by two fellows. Speaker Anita Anet Among and her deputy Thomas Tayebwa. Both these Rt. Honorables were peaked from the opposition (FDC) and given those huge posts. You don’t have to be genius to know they serve at whose whom!
So the confusion you currently hear in Parliament comes exactly from that unholy alliance. President Museveni controls that house not from the four borrowed hands, but from 10 senior military commanders so-called ‘Army Representatives” the eyes and ears for him. He allows these MPs to take indeed steal whatever amounts of money they may feel they deserve from the national coffers just to balance the boat in an uncertain future.
The FOURTH ESTATE or the media is his and controls it through New Vision and Kin Kaliisa’s NBS. Then the other online medias and bloggers all; run through stringent state controls.
I have created my own “FIFTH ESTATE” an arm which controls the finances of the country. This one has four Ministers; a Secretary to the Treasury and a Governor of Bank of Uganda and the deputy including whoever runs National Social security Fund (NSSF). Uganda’s money is in Bank of Uganda and NSSF therefore don’t expect Mr. Museveni not to tightly control that arm.
Finance is run by his old buddy called Matia Kasaija a comedic fellow who would rather be enjoying his retirement after working for such a long time. The Secretary to the Treasury or PS, Mr. Ramathan Ggoobi is a former economic advisor to Affande Salim Saleh. Wherever you used to hear that President Museveni has sent the budget to be calibrated by Affande Saleh, Ggoobi was always the man behind those deductions and additions!
Should I add anything here to as far as government is concerned here in Uganda?
My friend, if you’re so thoughtful, you can already see why, in reality, the Kenyan GenZ stunt can’t happen here.
First and foremost Museveni’s government, in all intentions and purposes, is a military one. He has his son commanding the UPDF and all other auxiliary forces (have you read the UPDF Act 2021?) and his young brother, Gen. Salim Saleh through Ggoobi controlling all the finances (no substantive Governor Bank of Uganda) and revenues of the country.
So when you see those green trucks speeding through traffic, are either taking damaged notes to be burnt; felling new bank notes from Entebbe airport after a brief “coffee break” at the nearby ‘White House’ and then to Ggoobi’s vaults.
Some one told me recently that new police boss IGP Abas Byakagaba has a lot to prove to President Museveni. Forget about the often grinning Martin Okoth Ochola. This retiree, Byakagaba, is a man with a single mission: to stop all nonsense in the country. You stay in his way at your peril!
BY WAY OF CONCLUSION:
I understand that, as we grow up, things change and priorities shifts. But there is a standard; a converging commonality where we all agree to do something for the greater good of everyone.
For those of us who walked beside Museveni not for glory or self aggrandizement, feel betrayed by a group of cadre ship surrounding our leader.
We’ re insulted everyday when we see the folks driving on the other side of the road and with sirens blurring! First they drive red numberplates on white backgrounds (exemptions- no taxes paid).
But when we peep inside those darkened glasses; we see young girls and boys sneering at us. They really don’t understand why all Ugandans must share from the wealth God bequeathed beneath the under berry of their country.
Just the wastage in Parliament is enough to bring out people on the streets; nepotism and sectarianism in government is enough to bring people on the streets; shoddy work and corruption is enough to bring people to the streets.
We won’t come to the streets because we won’t see or know who our enemy is. But we have the power not to return all those tainted folks to Parliament in 2026 and at least reclaim that arm of government from Mr. Museveni.
LAST WORD: “The blind are blind because God never wanted them to see some things and then warn us!”
– My late father
Adam Kamulegeya
adamkam2003@gmail.com
0779194336
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