Tag Archives: until

MOU lacks transparency, participation and accountability

Until we receive copies of the MOU we shall continue to ask questions because this is a public, not a private, issue. It is also an issue that goes beyond the interests of Buganda. As they say when Buganda sneezes, Uganda catches a cold.

The MOU apparently signed by the Kabaka of Buganda and the President of Uganda has raised many questions largely because little is known about the process involved in its negotiation and signing.

We understand that negotiations regarding the return of Buganda kingdom began between Museveni and Mutebi during the guerrilla war when the two met in London and again somewhere in Uganda and continued thereafter until about five years ago when everything came to a halt because of fundamental disagreements.

But these discussions regarding public assets have remained shrouded in secrecy. There are stages in the negotiations when things have to be kept secret. But when secrecy becomes a permanent feature or the public is given information that is hard to swallow then suspicions begin to emerge as they have regarding the MOU. This exercise has lacked transparency and participation as well as accountability, the three elements that mark good governance.

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Uganda’s development needs a different approach

There are things that we shall keep in the media until solutions are found. One of the senior officials at the United Nations in New York replied to a question that conferences on the same subjects will continue to be organized until solutions are found. I agreed with him then, I agree with him now. And that is what I intend to do with Uganda until solutions to the questions raised are found. Ugandans and other readers are urged to make constructive comments on what we write in order to reorient Uganda’s development path. The purpose of development is to end poverty. Economic growth rates while necessary are meaningless unless they lead to poverty reduction. Poverty can only end by addressing dimensions that create it: illiteracy, disease, poor diet, poor housing and clothing, low productivity and value addition etc. Buildings, referenda and constitutions are necessary but not sufficient. Pass or fail depends on how much poverty has been reduced. You may have sufficient revenue and skilled people and yet fail to reduce poverty because of the way resources are used. Why has Uganda with adequate resources and skilled human power failed to address these dimensions that have kept over fifty percent of Ugandans absolutely poor? Here are the principle reasons.

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Why Bahororo were unknown until recently

Since I began writing about Bahororo in Uganda’s history, politics and economics, some people who have visited my blog have asked me to shed some light about why Bahororo were not known until very recently.

Bahororo are Batutsi people from Rwanda who founded Mpororo kingdom in northern Rwanda and parts of southwest Uganda. The kingdom was established around mid-1600 and disintegrated in less than one hundred years from internal causes. The people in Mpororo kingdom were called Bahororo (Bantu people who were already there and Batutsi new comers who founded the kingdom).

After Mpororo disintegrated the parts in what later became Uganda were taken over by Bahima under Bahinda ruling clan. As Chretien observes “After the fall of Mpororo, the take over of the Nkore dynasty on the western highlands was accompanied both by installing armies and by reinforcing the power of Hima [Bahima] lineages over the rest of the population, labeled Bairu” (Jean-Pierre Chretien 2006). According to Speke (1863) Bairu means slaves. Therefore by labeling all the people in former Mpororo kingdom Bairu, former rulers of Mpororo (Batutsi from Rwanda) became Bairu and therefore slaves. To avoid being labeled Bairu, inter alia, Batutsi who remained behind adopted the name of Bahima but deep in their hearts remained Bahororo. According to Samwiri Karugire although Mpororo kingdom disintegrated and went out of use and did not figure on any map of Uganda … “her people, dispersed as they were, have tenaciously remained Bahororo in everything but geographical terminology whose absence does not seem to have made any impression upon them” (Karugire 1980). Bahororo maintained their Nilotic identity because their men do not marry outside of their ethnic group.

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The second African star has fallen

On April 19, 2010, President Museveni launched a five-year development plan in Uganda with a focus, inter alia, on full employment and state intervention, reminiscent of Keynesian economic model which drove the post world war economic boom until the second half of the 1970s when a combination of stagnant economic growth, rising unemployment and inflation (stagflation) rendered the model irrelevant. It was replaced by the Washington Consensus or stabilization and structural adjustment programs (SAPs). Unlike the Keynesian model which focused on creating jobs and promoting state participation in the economy, the Washington Consensus focused, inter alia, on macroeconomic stability through inflation control and private sector participation in the economy as the engine of growth under the guidance of the invisible hand of the market forces and a trickle down mechanism.

In Africa Ghana was among the first countries to embrace the Washington Consensus. A combination of factors which included excess capacity, the return of Ghanaians from Nigeria that boosted the numbers of cheap labor, generous donations, good weather including adequate rainfall, favorable trade conditions, guidance from the IMF, the World Bank and prominent international development economists as well as a committed government under the leadership of Jerry Rawlings, Ghana registered rapid economic growth and per capita GDP. It became a “star performer and success story” to be emulated by other developing countries.

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