NRM needs Tyson’s punch

Instead, Ugandan business is languishing under the deadweight of punitive taxes as many local commercial establishments are shuttered and their prospects shattered. 

This fiscal dispensation speaks to an economic context free of originality.  Let me explain. 
On May 8, 2019, Mr Museveni presented a paper themed, ‘Four sectors and the seven ways for wealth and jobs creation’.

In this paper, Mr Museveni highlighted commercial agriculture; industries (big or small); services (hotels, transport, professional services, shops, etc.); and information and communication technology (ICT) as the four pillars of wealth and jobs creation. 

This plan was and is largely copied from the Four Modernisations polices of China. 

These modernisations were goals formally announced by China’s first prime minister Zhou Enlai to strengthen the fields of agriculture, industry, defence, and science and technology in China. 

They were adopted to revamp China’s economy in 1977, following the death of the country’s founding father Mao Zedong. 

Deng Xiaoping’s tenure as the paramount leader of China further bolstered these modernisations. 

However, Uganda is reaping the distortions of blindly copying and pasting from China. 
For Mr Museveni’s government preaches ICT, but practices the imposition of bludgeoning excise duties on the sector. On commercial agriculture, the government promotes the same as 81 percent of the population is engaged in rain-fed subsistence farming for food and cash income.

As for services, corruption takes hold. 
Take real estate, for instance. This subsector is prime when it comes to money laundering as loot is “washed” by bald-faced government bigwigs shorn of any patriotism. 

Again, the intermittent power supply, increased cost of electricity required for production and exceedingly high poverty levels which atomise the purchasing power of the domestic market have conspired to hobble our industries. 

However, although the government’s unoriginality is the bane of our economy; it may serve as a boon to our politics.

That’s because the government, as a revolutionary instrument, has previously extolled the virtues of a protracted war in echo of Mao’s military strategy, which culminated in the Chinese Communist Party coming to power in 1949. 

Interestingly, Mao argued that a protracted war implied that all wars waged by the Communists were on the right side of history. 

This means the Chinese Communist Party could do no wrong, which is why Mao endorsed the party’s coordination with putatively reactionary forces. 

Mr Museveni’s government should also assume that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) is beyond reproach. And thereby presume that even when it works with the Opposition, it is correct. 

This partnership should be done on terms set by both parties, the NRM and the Opposition.  

Such a partnership would carry the overriding benefit of elevating NRM above reactionary politics to secure its ascendancy by shocking us all. Indeed, such a partnership would be like Mike Tyson’s “unseen punch” in boxing. 

To be sure, Tyson’s arching uppercut has been described as the most devastating unseen punch in boxing history. 

Similarly, NRM should employ such ‘Tysonic’ shock power by meaningfully partnering with the Opposition, thereby co-opting its shocked followers.

Phillip Matogo is a professional copywriter  
[email protected]