It is end of year, and 2017 is in sight.
Those of us fortunate to live through year-end must be grateful to the creator and celebrate the precious gift of life. But the end of the year presents a moment to reflect, to soul-search and rethink, to question our tightly-held beliefs and revisit our personal aspirations.
Needless to say, this space is not for your columnist to review his year and make New Year resolutions. This space is for modestly contributing to national debate and reflections on where we are as a country and what we face ahead.
The year 2016 was another year of ‘no-change’. Uganda is pretty much a country without a proper sense of direction and long-term strategic plan. Except for a few flashes of decent material wellbeing, the vast majority of our compatriots remain trapped in appalling social backwardness and economic misery. Little, if anything, was done this year to set the foundation for overcoming this structural trap.
After his rather fraudulent re-election, General Museveni announced that this was a ‘no-playing’ term of office. What did he mean in practice? Presumably, that he was intent on making government functional and effective, that critical public goods and services would be delivered to the citizens prudently and promptly, and that the government would perform highly in assuring public order and providing an enabling environment for private enterprise.
From a highly-questionable presidential election outcome, Uganda in 2016 remained on the same path of malfeasance in government, corruption scandals in the roads sector and lands department. Parliament was a theatre of unhelpful political theatrics and pursuit of personal perks. With State House leading the pack, the bloated cabinet and army of presidential appointees continued to exert a heavy and gratuitous cost on our limited national resources.
The capital Kampala offers a perfect microcosm for Uganda and illustrates both the perils and prospects for this country. Kampala is at once both a deeply-annoying, disorganised town and a joyful place, full of life and easy to get along happily with a meagre income.
Even a visitor and less-curious observer driving around the capital and its suburbs can’t fail to discern the potential for rapid growth, the industriousness of the people of this country, and the rudimentary endeavours of people at the lowest rungs to eke a living by being productive.
Yet in this year when a ‘no-joking’ and ‘no-playing’ term of government was announced, the capital city has fallen even further back as a decently-managed and orderly, modern city. Whatever little achievements at the behest of Kampala Capital City Authority and its executive director, never mind the problems of her line of reporting, appear to have gone into thin air.
The menace of boda bodas continued to sprawl out of hand. The commuter taxis remained a big nuisance on the narrow, potholed and poorly-planned city roads. And when the rains come down heavily any day, the flooding that follows and the traffic lockdown bespeak an endemic physical planning problem.
This only worsened in 2016 because new physical developments occurred yet arguably no one seriously lost sleep thinking deep about rearranging things and ensuring adherence to properly-approved physical plans.
In spite of the dysfunction of the Museveni regime, Kampala continued to show strong signs of a dynamic city, perhaps pointing to the resilience and sophisticated ability of many citizens of this country to fight on. The modest successes and progressive thoughtfulness at the individual level can tempt one to downplay the bigger picture – macro crisis we face.
There is no doubt as to the potential and ingenuity of individuals who surmount difficulty and adversity to excel and triumph. During very hard economic times throughout 2016, Ugandans continued to innovate to survive and to produce whatever little for their subsistence. Others, however, were not fortunate enough as they fell prey to hunger and starvation.
But unless there’s a sweeping land reform programme that can propel agriculture from traditionalism to modern, commercial and large-scale production, the few flashes of economic growth we see are nothing more than superficial. Until there is a big shift into manufacturing, with a big regional market beckoning to boot, the boom in services serves to benefit everyone but the average Ugandan and the economy as a whole.
Ugandans have to be disabused of the erroneous belief that government can bring about development, or that General Museveni and his military commanders and civilian handlers are leading an operation to create wealth.
But we also must appreciate that only the state has the reach and the resources to manage a desirable macroeconomic framework, to provide the infrastructure for individual productivity, and make critical strategic interventions for long-term transformation.
This is only possible when there’s some form of genuine accountability, not the dubious politics and populism hawked around. Shall we have an accountable government and prudently-run state in 2017? I can bet my very last penny.
Happy New Year!
moses.khisa@gmail.com
The author teaches political science at Northwestern University/Evanston, Chicago-USA.