Mr Charles Tweheyo
Our traders must be oriented that in the modern global political economy, trade is an instrument of international war. If not consciously and deliberately used to develop your national economy, ‘China’ will use it to its advantage even when you are the capital owners.
When Ugandan importers/abashaki of majorly consumer goods – herein referred to as traders, conflicted with a revenue collection system: EFRIS, they closed businesses in Kampala, and later sought to meet the President on the same and a number of other issues. The President accepted and May 7, 2024 was the day. However, in the meeting, traders appeared technically not prepared on language usage, agenda setting, and interests.
From a political-economic perspective, a meeting between traders and a politician is a platform for an interplay of political and economic interests because the two are sine qua non for State transformation. They are inseparable. But it doesn’t stop there. Their inseparability is embedded in the implications they impose on each other. So, for one to succeed in the contest or comprehension of interests, there must be a clear dissection of the coexistence between politics and economics no matter how complicated this might be. This is what traders appear to have ignored.
On the other hand, the President’s address implied that he anticipated a mixture of political and economic interests by traders. At a certain point, he even had to invoke their consciences that they had not been at Kololo to threaten him: “Temuzze wano kunkanga”. Clearly, this signified incomplete interdependence between economic and political interests.
Well, probably one should say that traders, or maybe their leaders, intended to use this platform to declare their political over economic interests and perhaps abilities to unseat some politicians…. In this context, we can predict why they threatened to join politics in rebellion against “oppressive policies”. But was this an appropriate platform? Not sure! So by concentrating on these diversions, traders missed out on a number of would-be valid issues.
They ought to explain, for example, how EFRIS affects the chain of distribution by exaggerating the costs of trade, hence discouraging consumption. This ought to be broken down in simple economic language showing how it distorts economics. At the same time, traders had the opportunity to make an input in the national policy on import substitution and export promotion.
They ought to explain how the State should assist them develop into manufacturers of what they currently import - a demand the president has actually always shown an interest in meeting. But away from this, our traders must be oriented that in the modern global political economy, trade is an instrument of international war. If not consciously and deliberately used to develop your national economy, ‘China’ will use it to its advantage even when you are the capital owner. This is the nature of the war Uganda is fighting, and they are our frontline battalions. Now, we have a debt to put a definite end to the consumption of every import and exporting raw materials. From there, we can discuss excessive tax holidays & exemptions, parasitic investors, and others.
But did traders have to meet the president in the first place? I assume that traders thought so much about the inevitable history of their businesses in the national economy and gave limited thought to an economically sustainable future and the inevitable role/influence of politics. They seem to have got stuck in the comparative advantage of import trade and undermined the strengths of economic nationalism. They put economics much higher than politics. However, while economics is the major highway on which politics is often driven, the economy can’t thrive under political unpredictability.
So, whereas economists can influence politicians, it’s always politicians who create an environment in which economists operate. Now, back to that meeting, this was not the right time. Traders should have negotiated, in an economic language, with the policy maker (Parliament) and implementer (URA) first because they would foster a more symmetrical engagement than they presumed at Kololo.
Lastly, traders’ choice of language to condemn EFRIS sounded extremely political. But somehow, the President gave them a chance to rectify everything. They just need to get the basics right!
Mr Charles Tweheyo is a social scientist.
