When I gaze at my country where my body will be laid when I am gone, where the majority of people are existing instead of living, I reminisce childhood games especially football where the owner of the ball determined who to play, took the strongest boys on his side, made sure he was responsible for penalities and free kicks whenever they happened and the most annoying of all was when he could end the game because he’s tired.
As this appeared rational, I grew up and started to contemplate it’s rationality and I notably deduced to two aspects; power and wealth.Those who have power can do anything and get away with it and similarly those with wealth can do anything and get away with it irrespective of irregularities embedded.
Relatively, when i look at different Institutions and structures in Uganda, it’s no different from an adage of football. Institutions do exist to either fullfil the legal mandate or to masquerade they are cooking something very important for the country which eventually ends up inside their bellies
If I may as well use an analogy of St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians (1corithians 12:12-27). “There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body” It is the same with Christ, he continued
Significantly for a country to develop, different Institutions, structures, Ministries and actors have to work together. The would be ideal situation here is that each performs what it’s set to do without contradiction. In our country there’s no such a thing what matters is that those who have should consolidate and achieve more at the expense of those who don’t have any.
Ceremonially, we have Cabinet ministers and Ministers of State who among many have joined the queue of safe guarding their positions at the expense of their ethical and prescribed duties. Yes! the Ministries may have better intentions and capable personnel but are they given chance to perform. If I may pose a question here, what’s the meaning of “Preparedness” as it appears in the Ministry of Disaster Preparedness and Refugees.
What kind of preparedness is that when the Ministry can not respond to disasters as they happen, when policies are formulated to help people cope up with adversities and end up at policy shelves, the recent being Mbale floods perhaps the Ministry has “done well” here to help Mbale floods victims!
If you have a country where the rights of the people do not matter because the institutions to guarantee and protect the people are being guaranteed by the “freedom fighters” What should an impoverished person expect?
If you have a parliament where legislators are not allowed to act Independently Instead lured cheaply using taxe payers money at the expense of National interest, those who stand against branded all sort of names and subsequently arrested and the worst when the constitution is being revised to clear the “stumbling blocks”. What is left for impoverished Ugandans?
A country where National Development Plans have shifted to target an election rather than the pathologies faced by nationals. No wonder right from NDP I to NDP III most programs have remained on paper. I am sure planners are noting the drawbacks to be stated when developing NDP IV because that’s what they have been limited to.
A country where the number of maternal deaths, poverty, unemployment do not matter when millions of money are being spent in a constituency to plan how to cheat a by election.
We are paying taxes but it’s discernible we are in “A government which robs Peter to pay Paul”
As a nation we are under siege for what belongs to us. Borrowings are being made and we and our children are the collateral security. Each time we struggle, institutions to aid us are made dysfunctional.
We must learn something and not to remain like the Bourbons who learned nothing and forgot nothing. It’s apparent the situation in the country is everyone for himself and God for us all.
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