The truncated debate over government rationalization of its agencies especially by members of parliament is not only diversionary but often made with scanty, compromised, self-serving, or no factual information at all, and in bad faith, but no so surprisingly by the usual unhelpful opposition largely concentrated in Buganda political region.
And the untold real story behind the bickering, many are shy to state publicly is that many of these agencies, initially formed with good intentions, in the disappointments with the old civil service, heavy indebtedness, and sometimes insolvency many parastatals were in, is that they have once again become easy cash cows for their managers, staff, ministers, businessmen and Boards, some of them without tangible value.
When President Yoweri Museveni calls them ‘parasites’ he means, and on very good authority, that they are conduits to hemorrhage of scarce national resources in connivance with MPs, officials at the finance ministry, and business people who supply them. As a starting point, for their budget to pass through parliament, one must speak to and oil the Budget committee, desk officers at finance ministry, and quite often the money released is way above their entitlements, and no wonder the huge backlash by a section of MPs, some who had never mentioned their names on the floor. The many agencies a ministry has, the more milking cows for the ‘parasites’, as they often prepare fat weekend envelopes for their bosses to go look after their ranches some of which hardly make any commercial sense.
The political picketing over the rationalization of the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), a government institution created in 1991 on the heels of World bank and IMF advise, is one such graphic example. It makes one think that it is probably a Non-Government Organisation (NGO), rather than part of government supervised by the Agriculture Ministry.
Buganda’s history shows that nothing new has ever been introduced and accepted without vehement opposition usually by those passing for leaders. Imagine, Baganda of old, opposing introduction of latrines as a public health measure. They also opposed terrace and contour farming against soil erosion. In 1959, 1961 and 1962 they opposed democratic elections to choose leaders in the runup to independence. In 1963 Mengo opposed Coffee Marketing Board (CMB) buying coffee.
Buganda elites allied to the then, and still a reactionary feudal Mengo establishment rejected and attacked proponents of universal elections burning down homes, cutting livestock, destroying agricultural farms and causing murders through wanton violence saying elections would undermine cultural institution archaic leadership and hegemony. It is disingenuous although surprising for a section of MPs and political elites to claim that the rationalization of UCDA is because government, or indeed President Museveni seeks to economically impoverish coffee growers especially in Buganda, and those in the value-chain.
They loudly spread falsehoods although Museveni has been the lead supporter and funder through regular budgets to the coffee sector, whose prolonged and sustained advocacy has today enabled coffee growing to expand beyond traditional Buganda, Busoga and Bugisu into to Teso, Acholi, Lango and West Nile regions now outperforming the historical enclaves. As politicians prepare for the forthcoming election campaigns which ‘their’ agencies must fund, Museveni appears to have poked his finger in the beehive which partly explains the lukewarm support ministries and agency managers are according him.
President Museveni has almost been left to fight a lone battle while many ministers are silent like graveyards because rationalization chops more than just fingers as they are destined to lose the much-abused power to appoint and supervise managers and boards from whom they invariably personally benefit. As the president drives rationalization, he should further conduct a surgical restructuring of the civil service, and political infrastructure including cabinet where he enjoys much leeway, and also trim the bloated parliament that is losing good flavour.
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