Wednesday, 25 November 2015

WHAT MISSION IS MUSEVENI PROUD OF FOR UGANDA?




President Museveni alleges that his competitors Dr. Besigye and Hon. Mbabazi have no mission for Uganda.  Museveni is the type who decides to nurture the army (UPDF) a dependent institution at the expense of viable development pillars, and what do we see? An army of unemployed youth who graduate yearly but have nothing to do as resources are wasted into consumption more so among other things institutionalized corruption, the huge Parliament, the ever increasing number of districts just to satisfy his ego to remain in power at the expense of viable development initiatives!

Having presided over the forces that were greatly responsible for instability and insecurity since 1972, Museveni has managed to ensure security for a bigger part of Uganda for as long as he has stayed in power (30 years), though in the northern part of the country, insecurity has been ‘enjoyed’ for 2 decades.  It is unfortunate that his unwillingness to leave power when he is seen as a tired man given the challenges of the day is fertile ground for throwing the country to chaos and instability.

Museveni indeed had a mission as he is convinced; however, there are too many negatives to his mission or ‘is it the one man vision’ which in the final analysis qualify him to be a tired, exhausted man whose increased input into the management of the country will simply lead to more diminishing returns given Uganda’s circumstances.  His mission involving UPDF operations out of Uganda boundaries into DRC calls for a payment of US$10bn an astronomical sum of money, which keeps increasing due to interest, and there is least effort seen in form of positive negotiations to see the matter settled without Uganda having to foot the bill. If majority of Ugandans were literate enough, they would qualify him into not getting any audience for his rallies given this blunder.

His mission which gives priority to recruitment into the UPDF whenever there is opportunity is no asset to the country where majority of the people are employed in agriculture with no technical people that can help their initiatives, instead, the people just gamble.  The other time he was defending his UPDF distributing seeds and other planting materials; the question is: Do these people have the ability to advise the farmers on innovations in agriculture, etc?  He now talks about putting shs 1trillion into NAADS if he is elected President in 2016, however, he forgets that NAADS is just a component in the Plan for Modernization of Agriculture (PMA), in which case, the wise thing to do is to put such money into the planning hands of the Ministry of Agriculture so that they see strategies that can boost the agricultural sector given its sorry state today where technical manpower in the field is lacking, the marketing infrastructure, post harvesting just to mention a few.

Go to our Social sector.  It is pathetic.  In a number of schools, cheating to pass national examinations has been the norm.  When Fagil Mandy wanted to address the problem as chairman of UNEB, the wise thing to do was to show him the exit.  The plight of the teachers is at its lowest.  Many in the health sector are having it rough to serve, and it is no accident that the low morale of the practitioners in the health Sub – sector is leading to loss of lives that would otherwise have been saved.  When complaints are made as regards low pay to workers in the social sector, Museveni tells the people that his priority is infrastructure development, and mind you, in the infrastructure, procurement there is associated with scandals that would be list expected of the country at Uganda’s level of development.  

Museveni’s governance is happy with the Auditor General’s Office that keeps on reporting about the loss of substantial funds, but has no ability to redesign the role of the office so that it can intervene before the funds are lost, instead the story goes on and on as people steal the money, build everywhere to show that the country is having substantial development.

In his campaigns now, he is giving hope to the NRM cadres who failed in the party primaries that they should sit back and wait for employment prospects in which case, they should not stand as independents.  This patronage where quality manpower is compromised can surely not be part of a worthy mission given Uganda’s state as compared to its potential.

I can go on and on without seeing the mission that is worth the challenges President Museveni has put Uganda into.  

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