Prime
The Dead Sea projects of our beloved motherland Uganda
Writer: Phillip Karugaba. PHOTO/COURTESY/FILE
What you need to know:
- Blinded with hot love for value addition in another beverage, government has forgotten its old faithful.
As a young lecturer, I was intrigued by the behaviour of a particular group of my students.
They always sat together to the left of my lectern. There was never a sign that any of what I said had any impact on them.
Not principles of law, not jokes, not jests, nothing at all. And certainly no hands were ever raised in that zone. Whether my fault or theirs, I don’t know. I named it the Dead Sea.
I was reminded of this by the sad news that government had again allocated millions more dollars to yet another dubious private sector project.
One of those much vaunted projects, covered in a lot of high sounding English mumbo jumbo, that it sinks more and more monies in, but which like my students, never shows any impact. A Dead Sea project!
I get the whole thing about the South Korea model of the state investing in carefully selected industry champions and stuffing their pockets with tax dollars in the hope of creating future drivers of the economy. Yes I can see the Hyundais, Daewoos and Samsungs.
If this is Uganda’s strategy, why are we making such a hash of it? From over-priced or downright dubious projects, to enterprises with track records shorter than my pinky finger, or none at all.
Some of the beneficiaries of taxpayers monies have unresolved audit queries raised by the Auditor General from their failure to account for earlier disbursed public funds.
It was tragic to see the Ministry of Health claiming work was finally underway at our $156 million site. In the picture with the tweet were a few men and even fewer bags of cement lying around.
What really gets my goat is that for some of the projects, the industry professionals can clearly see the lie for what it is. Why do we take this “blind acceptance of abuse”, if I may borrow the expression from lawyer David Mpanga?
Don’t the statutory bodies charged with the sector regulation, promotion and development have men or women of mettle who can reason with the Executive and advise against these bad decisions that cost Ugandans so much?
When a project swallows a $150 million-plus, is years behind schedule and has nothing but a few shacks to show for it, where is the outrage? Where is our recourse? Who is fighting for us?
It was embarrassing to watch the Leader of Opposition in Parliament begging a lowly police officer through a peep-hole in a gate for access to one site.
Shockingly, within minutes several security agencies showed up in force and armed to the teeth, to prevent the Members of Parliament from accessing the site.
The dismissal of a case asserting the right of Ugandans to have a direct say in the allocation of public funds was disheartening.
I am sure you and I could come up with a dozen projects more deserving of public funds.
Take the crashing tea price, and the enterprises and families that are now in free fall because of it. This an industry that has supported Uganda since time immemorial.
Blinded with hot love for value addition in another beverage, government has forgotten its old faithful.
It will end in tears and by the bucket, unfortunately not for those making these poor decisions, but for us paying for these decisions.
My greyed haired coffee-loving friend with a running problem loves to say, “We are on our own”.
And it is true, help isn’t coming.
*The writer, Phillip Karugaba, is lawyer
@PhillipKarugaba
