Press statement
1. Eighty cabinet members: ministers (32) and ministers of state (48) is a luxury Uganda can’t afford. Administrative costs are going to eat deep into development funds leaving insufficient resources for development. The faces or names are the same. This is a cabinet that serves political and not development purposes.
2. To be effective and efficient ministers should be assigned to ministries for which they are qualified. Many of the ministers are qualified and experienced but are in wrong ministries, compromising their performance.
3. The Vice President should have been given a full ministry to engage him visibly and reduce size of the cabinet.
4. At a time when the economy is in trouble, an experienced economist in public and private partnership should have been among the top three. Two lawyers and a political economist or political scientist at the top is not the right mix.
5. Planning and economic development should have been split from finance in view of the Five Year National Development Plan (NDP), leaving finance to mobilize resources to fund the Plan. In the present setting planning is a junior partner to finance.
6. It is difficult to reach decisions with such a huge cabinet unless the head of government simply dictates decisions.
7. The way the cabinet is structured, it will be difficult to effect inter-ministerial and intra-ministerial coordination. We live in an interconnected environment and compartmentalization as shown in the cabinet reshuffle is out of fashion.
In a globalized world, countries that have capacity to negotiate and influence deals in national interests will survive. The cabinet line up doesn’t give that impression right away.
Eric Kashambuzi
Secretary General & Chief Administrator, UDU