Corrupt officials deserve harsh punishment, says Mafabi

The State of the Nation Address precedes the Budget and is meant to provide political direction to the national priorities.
Unfortunately, this year's State of the Nation – again - misses the mark and does not meet even the minimum standard expectation of policy review and direction to re-shape and re-cast the future of a nation in dire need of political, economic & social re-configuration.

As a reminder, in his 2011 address, the President made certain promises as follows, among others: Commit to the rule of law in the management of public affairs, Transform three million households from subsistence agriculture to commercial agriculture; from hand hoe to mechanised production; and from production for household consumption to production for export, Increase farm production and productivity through use of fertilisers, improved seeds and animal breeds, Increase milk processing capacity from 463,000 litres to 710,000 litres per day, actualise the phosphate fertiliser production at Sukulu Hills in Tororo, build storage capacity for food commodities at the farm level and sub county level, establish 18 regional trade information centres to undertake market information dissemination, build and commission 19 rural electrification schemes by November 2011, refurbish and restock the Jinja fuel Storage Tanks, reduce the teacher-pupil ratio to 56:1 in all government schools, complete and open Muni University by August 2012, progress on Kasese Airport Development Project and the Terminal Building on Masindi Aerodrome, set up the National Data Centre, complete the National Land Information System Centre by the end of 2011, legislate and operationalise the Uganda Land Commission as a Statutory Body, publish the Judicial Commission of Inquiry Report on the burning of Kasubi Tombs, Constitute a Committee to investigate political leaders and public officers implicated in corruption-related scandals.

This year, we expected the President to advise us on which of the above priority areas he had delivered, and if not, what needs to be done. We believe that the President, having realised the embarrassing nature of the chain of false promises made year-in, year-out, avoided giving a report on the touchy undertakings made last year, on which moneys were appropriated. This would have painted a picture of a nation that is getting worse and raised questions as to whether there has been value for money or whether money was actually spent on these areas.

The State of the Nation Address also came at a time when a major report, the “Poverty Status Report 2012” had just been released by the Ministry of Finance, in May 2012. I want to interest the Hon. Members to read the report before you debate this year’s budget. It makes important divergent revelations between what the political elite or appointees in the NRM superstructure say or promise and what the situation and the recommendations of the technocrats are. We will highlight only a few of these in the section on the economy below.

Our success as a nation is NOT measured by how many years we have governed, but by the quality of life in the citizenry, and you will agree with me, that most of our countrymen and women, especially in rural areas, live a destitute life - a life of indignity, condemned to humiliating poverty amidst the celebrated economic growth figures of over two and a half decades.

Rt. Hon. Speaker, an old woman in Kanungu or Pabbo, for example, who does not understand the fundamentals of economics, can only be smiling if she can put food on her plate. But when you start telling her that the shilling is doing well compared to the previous months, she will ask you what you are talking about given that she sleeps early because of darkness, and pays for medicine because there is none in the nearby health centre.

Rt. Hon. Speaker, my constitutional duty today is to respond to the President's speech and point out the omissions in the content that should constitute Statehood as we know it in our generation.

The political and legislative arena

In his address to the nation, the President talked about security of both persons and property, brought by the NRM, and in particular, the discipline of the NRA/UPDF. He went ahead to congratulate police for successfully stifling Opposition party activities. In this he was encouraging the Police and Military to mete out more brutality onto the Opposition. However, he did not address himself to the recent killings of business people and prominent Muslims in Kampala. May I remind the President that sustainable peace is not achieved by suffocating dissenting views and/or simply stationing policemen at every locus. It is achieved through respect of people’s liberties and equitable allocation of resources.

While the 2005 referendum changed the legal framework for political parties, the envisaged political space has been highly patronised and only utilised for the sole favour of the NRM. Revival of multiparty democracy without the required will from the ruling NRM party to abandon its negative attitude towards other parties still undermines the merits of the multiparty system in Uganda. That is why Government has even refused to operationalise the law for funding Political Parties.

We do not expect the President to heap praises on Opposition, but the Constitution commands him to guarantee unfettered political space for party activities. All he has done is to misuse state power by curtailing multi-party activities, and to also suffocate and intimidate his own NRM members, for purposes of his regime longevity as opposed to the well-being of Ugandans.

The NRM legislative agenda for the 2nd session of the 9th Parliament prioritises the passing of the obnoxious Public Order and Management Bill to legitimise police murder and brutality, further curtailing political party activity and the enjoyment of our constitutional fundamental rights and freedoms. I wish to reiterate that Uganda is effectively under an undeclared state of emergency since the 9th September 2009 Buganda riots. "Preventive Arrests" have become the preferred choice by the Kayihura police. While we could use the numbers to pass this unjust law and let the NRM compel the Opposition to obey, this in itself does not make it binding.

We must remind the House that Grace Ibingira who once championed the infamous detention without trial law (Public Order and Safety Act) was indeed the first victim of the same law he championed. We now remind and warn you that any such draconian laws will definitely catch up with its architects.

We already know that President Museveni, doubtful of the loyalty and discipline of the police, has kept them under constant surveillance and more directly under his control. This has made police act like an enemy force towards civilians, brutalising every opposition move to organise, instead of securing lives and property. This shows that we are treading on the path where police is a master card to subdue citizen discontent.

As long as there is repression that is sustained for a long time, that pent-up anger explodes. The ground is certainly set for that explosion.

Uganda’s history is rich with experience that the exit of any oppressive Government begins with the decay of the core principles on which it was founded. However, for such a Government to exit, some people must first say publicly and loudly, like we are doing now, that something wrong is taking place. Our resolve is that we must rid our nation of all those people who think that anything that offends them should be removed. In doing this, we are energised, by the words of Martin Luther King, who said “our lives will begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

No amount of force or brutality from either the police or any other force will stop us from exercising our inherent rights. We shall not allow wolves to take over our motherland! Our advice to the police is that they should not accept to be used to commit crime on anybody’s behalf, for they will be individually liable for crimes against the citizenry.

The infusion of State structures with NRM Party structures is a distress. Civil Servants, RDCs, Police, Army, Intelligence, Electoral Commission etc are all State Structures NOT NRM Party structures. These should not be abused by the NRM. The Electoral Commission should operate as State Structure not NRM structure. We advise State structures to serve all Ugandan citizens equally; otherwise it will boomerang on them in the near future.
President Museveni is abusing public funds especially classified expenditures using it for NRM activities, he protects corrupt NRM officials for selfish interest; this should stop.

I intend to present to this August House the following legislation by way of Private Members Bills. They are; Constitutional (Amendment) Bill; Presidential Elections (Amendment) Bill; Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Bill, Local Government Elections (Amendment) Bill; Electoral Commission (Amendment) Bill; Police Act (Amendment) Bill;
Uganda People's Defense Force (Amendment) Bill; Universal Education (Primary & Secondary) Bill; Tertiary Education Loan Bill; National Agriculture Development Bank Bill; and a motion for a Resolution to Disband Privatization Unit which is wasting tax payers’ money.

The political events of the Great Lakes Region are a big threat to the security and stability of Uganda as a land linked/locked nation. However, the State of the National Address makes no mention of the geo-politics. As we play host to refugees and internally displaced persons, we note with concern that the international security obligations in Somalia and the situation in Southern Sudan, DRC and Rwanda calls for an addendum to the State of the Nation Address.

The current role of the American Africom Programme calls for debate in this House as it distorts our sovereignty. In addition, proliferation of small arms in the region with Uganda becoming a transit area for a growing illicit arms and natural resource trade. The nation needs to know the safeguards to such external threats with the discovery of oil precipitating anxiety, but with no assurances coming out clearly in the State of the Nation Address.

The state of the economy

The Ugandan economy returned bad news, and its performance is a source of great worry to every household and business. Inflation has remained a double digit figure at 18.6%, economic growth has declined from 6.7% to 3.2%, and Central Bank lending rate remains high (BoU has since cut this down to 17 per cent from the previous 21 per cent) as a constraint to private sector to access finance. This level of growth performance is far below the sub-Saharan average of 5.1%; it is also below the world economic growth average of 3.9%; and it is of course below the Rwandan growth for the same period of 8.8%. This is the balance sheet of President Museveni’s first year of 5-year in his 6TH Term in Government. That is the bad news summary.

It was very surprising, that instead of unequivocally announcing the bad news, the President chose to skirt around and avoided a direct announcement as his Government continues the same cosmetics to fight inflation.

The President found solace in blaming it on the Leader of Opposition yet he said this was a high sounding title that has no effect on the economy. By so doing, the President confirmed that he doesn’t take any advice from us, legitimately made for improvement of public services. He did not take our advice to make good Basajjabalaba’s Shs169 billion, CHOGM Shs500+ billion, Dura Cement’s Shs42.5 billion, Danze’s Shs150 billion, ID Project Shs200 billion, State House over Shs200 billion yearly budget, CMB coffee stolen, grabbing of public land, Loans borrowed in trillions to date, Shs50 billion stolen in Banana Project in Bushenyi, over Shs200 billion stolen in NAADS, fake compensations by Ministry of Justice of over Shs500 billion, UCB and NYTIL give-away, the list is endless. This stolen money could have been used to make an impact in agriculture, health service, education as well as tame inflation.

There would be no secret State House scholarships, no wasteful jets and no devastation from the nodding syndrome and preventable diseases. To that extent, the President was right because he has ignored our calls for his Government to hold accountable all those who abuse public funds, which would have caused great impact in the lives of ordinary citizens, who pay taxes to run the government.

The NRM Government has collected the highest revenue in Uganda compared to the past Governments, (i.e. over Shs11,000 billion per year compared to Shs5 billion by the past governments); NRM has ruled longer than the other regimes i.e. over 26 years; however, it has performed poorly in terms of development coupled with poor service delivery.

We take comfort in the fact that the NRM Government is aware of the gravity of the economic decline and its impact on peace and stability. The background to the budget (BTB) rightly confirms the grim shape of the economy. It notes, “this disappointing performance is the result of a remarkably volatile year…unusually high levels of inflation and exchange rate volatility had particularly severe implications for the real sector, by undermining business confidence in the industrial and services sectors” (BTB, pg 20); and “the temporal lapse in macro-economic stability that characterized the 2011 calendar year was the most important cause of the disappointing growth performance” (BTB, pg 25).

Which Sector should we focus on?

The so-called industrial growth fell to 1.1% in 2011/12 from 7.9% the previous year and services growth fell to 3.1% from the celebrated 8.4% of the previous year. Agriculture, instead, returned from a negative growth of 14.6% to a positive 7.2%. The downward spiral and sluggish reversal in Agriculture growth is the result of policy failure in Agriculture and deliberate refusal to listen to our appeals to sink money in the sector as a first priority for an agro-based economy like Uganda. This would in turn address the chronic unemployment problem in the country.

Despite Government’s belated realisation of the importance of agriculture, they still pay lip service to the sector. While the proposed budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector, which is touted as the backbone of the economy, has increased in nominal terms from Shs434 billion to Shs585.3 billion, but in real terms, it has reduced from 4.5% given last year to 3.8% this year. The combined Agriculture, Water and Environment allocation will also drop from 7.3% last year to 7.2%.
Why should such an important sector which employs over 80% of our population, earning nearly ½ of the foreign exchange earnings be continuously underfunded, fluctuating between 3% – 5% in the last 2 decades? Is it still sustainable to continue blaming poor performance of this sector on drought?

Why should Uganda continue to be a net importer with a widening current account deficit, currently amounting to -11.95%, up from -8.1% of GDP in 2008/09? Unless and until we increase our annual budgetary allocation to over 10%, agriculture growth will continue at snail’s pace. It is high time we took a leaf from Rwanda which has increased their budgetary allocation to agriculture to over 10% in line with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) MOU, otherwise, this will deny our smallholder farmers access to market and maximum returns.

The success of the agriculture sector was in the past driven by the cooperative movement but this was badly destroyed by the NRM Government. Whereas the United Nations has named 2012 as the International year of Cooperatives, our Government is only paying lip service. Even then, the remaining Cooperative Union, Bugisu Cooperative Union is under threat from Government. We recommend that revival of cooperatives be put high on the agenda to assist rural farmers in marketing their produce. The citizens prefer to see results rather than documents.

Uganda must re-tool and re-skill her young population to be competitive in the labour market. In order to move Uganda from the boda boda and roadside chapatti economy it is now, to a vibrant agro-based economy. We therefore recommend: Implementation of youth-oriented agriculture development with agriculture policies that target the youth, improvement of traditional methods to attract youth to agriculture through use of mechanised agriculture and appropriate technologies, and integration of agriculture in education to change the mindset of our youth to motivate and encourage them to explore untapped opportunities in the agriculture sector.

The World Ease of Doing Business Report has consistently ranked Uganda poorly. For 2012, Uganda has been ranked 123rd out of 183 countries, down from 119th last year, and below Rwanda’s 45th position. Our deteriorating position results from 4 major weak criteria: Starting a business, dropped by 7 point, Resolving insolvency, dropped by 5 points, Getting credit, dropped by 3 points, Enforcing contracts, dropped by 3 points

Sometimes I feel a little embarrassed that we now have more lessons to learn from Rwanda than they have to learn from us, given our known history. Our small businesses collapse at the same rate as they are formed. We should stop the habit of promoting foreign investors like Mehtas instead of equipping our own local investors. These so-called foreign investors take out profits made in Uganda while locals re-invest it here.

Corruption and Budget indiscipline continue to dog this country. What we see is a net effect of irresponsible fiscal stewardship over our money. That is why I appreciate the Hon. Minister for Finance – on being able to say it the way it is. Members, you have to believe her when she says “recent years have seen inadequate budget discipline… increasing trends in supplementary expenditures, additional cash limits, intra-year reallocations, delayed releases and the accrual of domestic arrears”. You must believe and support her to clean up this irresponsibility, irrespective of which side you sit.

The main challenge we have in Uganda is not lack of funds but rather lack of accountability. When Government doesn’t deliver on its promises, a teacher or health worker does not show up for work, or an unscrupulous middle-man tricks farmers out of their money and nothing happens, people get angry but no action is taken as they have learnt to expect nothing different. To our citizens, the NRM Government has become like rain: when it rains, they are grateful, and when it doesn’t, there is nothing they can do.

Transport infrastructure is one of the critical catalysts of development as it facilitates access to economic and social services in any country. Road Transport in particular, remains the most commonly used means of transporting goods and services. However, the road infrastructure countrywide is in a dilapidated state calling for an urgent review of the much hyped Ten-year Road Master Plan. For a land-linked/locked country such as Uganda, a well-designed, maintained, linked and developed road network is a vital necessity to reduce the cost of transport and bring down the cost of doing business. It is an essential pre-requisite for being competitive in the market place.

Most of our rural roads, however, remain impassable with heavy vehicles stuck in several feet of mud, and passenger vehicles wading through brown stagnant water. In most rural areas, such as Karamoja, Elgon areas and Kanungu where the Prime Minister comes from, most bridges have been washed away and farmers cannot take their produce to the market, with transport fares sky-rocketing. While 1,855.9km of tarmac is proposed for 19 roads countywide, it still refers to the same roads that were on the priority list of the last State of the Nation Address. The question to ask is “Will Uganda ever expand Its tarmacked road network at this speed of the NRM?” What happened to the budget for these same roads passed last Financial Year? Who mis-used/ate the money?

This Parliament passed the Uganda Road Fund Act, 2008 which was aimed at assuring funding for road maintenance. In particular, Section 23 (3) of the said law provides that the “road user charges shall be remitted directly to the Uganda Road Fund (URF) on a monthly basis”. The URF is a “Special Account”, separate from the Consolidated Fund Account, as provided for in the URF Act and Public Finance and Accountability Act, 2003. The URA collects all these levies for and on behalf of the URF.

We recommend that before passing this financial year’s budget, Parliament should put in place measures that will ring-fence the road user charges and specifically require that they be remitted to a specified Road Fund Account in Bank of Uganda, managed by Uganda Road Fund, a fully-fledged body corporate lawfully created for the purpose. The Minister for Finance must be tasked to table a statutory instrument or bring an amendment to the URA Act, to make it conform to the law and spirit of the Uganda Road Fund Act. An account of all fuel levies collected since commencement of the Uganda Road Fund Act should also be laid before Parliament for scrutiny.

The last transport train functioned two decades ago when the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) wound up its service to the nation. The Rift Valley Railway Consortium (RVR) remains a hoax and continues to systematically strip and vandalise the national URC assets. Further, the last Uganda Airlines plane graced the skies twenty years ago. The state of aerodromes and airfields in the country is not mentioned in this year’s State of the Nation Address, neither is progress reported on the Kasese and Masindi projects. Uganda is the only country in the East African region without a national carrier. In addition, the last ship to sail on our lakes, MV Kabalega, sunk ten years ago without replacement leaving Uganda, as a country with numerous water bodies to only operate modern rafts that it calls ferries.

With Uganda Airlines, Uganda Railways, wagon ferries and the Road Fund already cannibalised by this Government, doing business with Kampala will largely remain mirage. There is an ongoing battle between conscience and self- interest but at some point, we have to take sides because the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.

Poverty

The recent Poverty Status Report 2012 is a revealing document, and vindicates us over what we have been saying here over the last ten years plus.

The poor are those who are in category 1. You may also wish not to get confused by the nomenclature “non-poor but insecure”. This still means poor, because, according to the report, “they are able to meet their basic needs but remain insecure and vulnerable to falling into absolute poverty”. So, these are not really different. The nomenclature was created as a cover, to portray declining poverty, in the same way “public sector management” was created out of “public administration” to try to portray that big government was no longer a big problem onto the treasury, whereas it is.

This extract shows that the number of people wallowing in poverty has increased from 15.5 million (89.8%) in 1992/93 to 20.7million (67.4%) in 2009/10, indicating an additional 5.2 million people over the seven-year period. This happened as the economy grew in the 6% range over the period. In our view, this is the litmus test for NRM’s stewardship over the economy. Declining economic growth and rising poverty are very good indicators of what is happening in the Human Development, Infrastructure and Job Creation and Livelihood Sectors. It is the Lowest Common Denominator of all our actions.

While the country’s poverty rate has halved over the past decades, in terms of sheer numbers, more Ugandans now live in poverty than in 1986 when President Museveni took over power. These technical revelations now serve to disprove fervent denials by politicians over the past. Poverty is the reason we are here on behalf of our communities. Now, this has returned a negative result. What other story does the President have to tell?

Social Sector
Health

This August House will recall that the NRM health policy was to provide a Health Centre IV at Constituency level bringing the total to a minimum of 215 Health Centers IVs countrywide. The policy also provides for a Health Centre III at every sub-county making a minimum of 1,000 Health Center III facilities. District Hospitals should total 112 with Regional Referral Hospitals.

However, their common feature is; inadequate funding, no water, terrible sanitation, no drugs, under-staffing, low morale of health staff e.tc. Our women continue to die during child birth at an average of 16 women a day, both at home and at health facilities. This is clearly evident from my recent oversight visits to several health facilities upcountry, including Kabale, Iganga, Gulu, Tororo, Mulago, Itojo Kasese, Fort Portal, Kisoro, Kanungu, Mbarara, Pader, Atutur, Bugiri, Arua among others.

The health infrastructure lacks preparedness to deal with any health disaster or emergency. Nodding disease in Northern Uganda is a living example of this lack of preparedness. The readiness, durability and resilience of the health infrastructure do not meet the growing health needs of the country.

We recommend a universal health system where: Every citizen enjoys financial protection from prohibitive health care costs and; Everyone is able to access good health services when they need them. This is possible; it is a matter of commitment by Government.

Education

Government must stop paying lip service to this sector, and proceed to adopt and implement the comprehensive recommendations and proposals the Opposition made in our last year’s response to the State of the Nation Address.
It is sad to note that all the good old traditional schools like Ntare, Mwiri, Nabumali, Tororo College, Vurra, Boroboro, Nyakasura e.t.c have been destroyed in this regime. The private schools which have bombarded this country in the name of “development” can only be afforded by the few privileged against the majority poor.

Some important references made

In his address, the President also chose to blame the media. It is not acceptable for the President to call the media a “corrupt, irresponsible and unprofessional group” without naming the people he is particularly angry with and thereby “grouping” the media as a whole and tagging them as such.
Is the media the “group” the President spoke about, when he reportedly told the President of Rwanda that Uganda is full of thieves? Are the media and DJs the ones always implicated by the Auditor General and IGG over massive theft of public funds? It is unfair for the President to engage in diversionary tactics instead of tackling the grand corruption exposed in Government involving high ranking officials. We, therefore, recommend that the Leader of Government Business, on behalf of the President, retracts this unfortunate statement and assault on the media, to pave the way for democratic development.

The President also lamented on the rising prevalence of HIV/Aids, and blamed it wholly on promiscuity. All the gains made so far are starting to get lost, primarily because of the loss of focus on the matter by our leaders. The reason this is happening, in our view, are the mixed and confused messages the President and his advisors are sending to the population. At one point, he tells them to produce as many children as possible; after all, China has over 1 billion people, yet is developed. At another point, he tells the youth to rush and get circumcised en-marse, suggesting to them that there are greater chances of surviving HIV infection when exposed, if one is circumcised. With all this mix-up, Rt. Hon. Speaker, what do you expect?

Circumcision has always been a matter of customs, traditions and religion, just as it is in Bugisu, Sebei, Kasese and Islam. It has been practiced long before HIV/AIDs came to be known. If circumcision were such a wonder gimmick for HIV prevention, why is there HIV/AIDS in Bugisu, Kasese and Sebei regions? Even if it were that effective, you cannot package the circumcision message in such a dangerous manner. So, someone is misleading the country to commit mass-suicide by enticing the youth into circumcision as a means of surviving HIV. This is murder, and we recommend that the President must get back to the drawing board as the chief PRO.

Conclusion and way forward

Someone must decide to put 10%+ of the budget funds into Agriculture for this year. Universal Health Insurance must start yesterday. Someone must punish harshly, or allow to be punished; those caught in corruption acts, and stop scape-goating and delaying this.

Decency must be restored onto the public treasury. We want to see that public funds are spent only for economic rewards for citizens, not for political expedience. People must be allowed to say and do their will as provided for by the constitution of Uganda. We demand recommitments and political reforms now, to guarantee that space for Ugandans, and put in place a framework for an independent Electoral Commission. We need to operationalize funding of Political Parties as per the Law.

The way forward for this nation, is to re-cast her priorities and remove the political, administrative and budget distortions, inconsistencies and contradictions, corruption and waste. Otherwise the 2012 State of the Nation Address can only be characterized and rated as a Moses Golola performance, much hyped and yet non-performing; simply empty talk.

Steve Jobs, an American businessman, designer and inventor had this to say: “Your time is limited, so do not waste it living someone else’s life. Do not be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Do not let the noise of others’ opinions draw out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

The Opposition is a strong advocate of Parliamentary independence and autonomy. We will, therefore, continue to do all in our power to ensure that the constitution is respected; that Parliament is respected; that the media is protected to play their professional role as a 4th estate; and that the people’s voice is allowed space to thrive.
I thank you so much – God bless you all.

FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY
NATHAN NANDALA-MAFABI, MP
LEADER OF OPPOSITION