President Museveni’s address to the NRM special organs conference at Namboole on Tuesday September 7, 2010 portrayed him more like a religious preacher to a flock in disarray and adviser to a government that has done a poor job than a president who has been in power continuously for 25 years. It is not surprising given the unprecedented chaotic performance in the recent (September 2010) NRM primaries for 2011 elections and the overall economic, social and ecological decline. The promised industrial and social revolutions and poverty eradication are nowhere in sight.
In Uganda, politics under the NRM is about power: how to get it, monopolize it and use it to become filthy rich relying on family members, relatives and friends. Knowing full well that democracy would not secure him the presidency, Museveni chose the military option and became president in 1986 and has no plans to retire soon. The army and other security forces are used more to silence dissent against his regime than to keep peace and stability as Museveni and his foreign backers would want us to believe. The demonstration by unemployed and unarmed citizens in Kampala was met with disproportional military force resulting in many deaths and injuries.
Politics is also being used by the rich to grab the property especially land of the politically weak. Municipality expansion has become one of the methods of dispossessing the people. Contrary to what Museveni is preaching, politics has become a profession and that is why he has been president for 25 years and is vying for another five years. He calls political work sacrifice and adds that he has secured Ugandans the right to vote freely. Museveni knows there are many politicians in his party who are using millions of unearned money to buy votes. Museveni announced that he began political work 45 years ago to fight sectarianism and other political ills. The fact of the matter is that he joined politics because he realized that democracy following independence in 1962 had catapulted commoners into power at the expense of privileged minority group to which he belongs that had monopolized power since pre-colonial days.
The president vowed that poverty would be eradicated in 2017. However, realizing that it is not possible he has begun to look for an excuse. He noted that poverty has persisted because of subsistence farming, extensive rather than intensive agriculture and lack of diversification at the household level. But modernization of agriculture which was well funded from Uganda and foreign tax payers’ money was supposed to modernize agriculture and contribute to poverty eradication. Museveni also encouraged farmers to produce for cash rather than for the stomach to commercialize agriculture and put more money into the hands of farmers with which to end poverty. The government should explain where the money went since agriculture has remained at subsistence and extensive level.
President Museveni reported that Uganda is exporting milk because the internal market is saturated. He should have explained that the domestic market is small because of low effective demand. Because they are poor, many households cannot afford the price of milk causing many women and children to suffer from malnutrition. In these circumstances, the government has a moral obligation to supply free milk to schools to reduce malnutrition, keep children at school and improve performance thereby contributing to human capital formation. In Uganda, preference has been to earn foreign exchange by selling food than feeding Ugandans properly. Uganda continued food exports during the 2007-08 food shortages when many households were starving.
It is curious that money to the tune of Uganda shillings 160 billion is being withheld from NAADS (agriculture extension agency) at an election time. It has been reported that the minister of finance has also threatened to withhold money from line ministries for not producing development plans even though her ministry has responsibility for coordinating the preparation of these plans. Suspicions are up in the air.
Finally, sectarianism has gotten worse on Museveni’s watch. In order to address it without fear of prosecution, the anti-sectarian law needs to be revoked. Public servants who are hired through sectarianism know they cannot be judged on performance and their supervisors cannot do anything about it, contributing to a high level of inefficiency in the public sector. The rejection of many current MPs during the NRM primary elections is a clear vote of no confidence in the NRM government.