What a contradiction: Architect of Uganda’s economy dies abroad

So last Sunday, January 30, former governor of Bank of Uganda Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile was laid to rest in his ancestral home in Kabale District, western Uganda. According to his personal doctor Ben Mbonye, Mutebile succumbed to multiple organ failure precipitated by Covid-19 at a Nairobi hospital. 
Mutebile had a very interesting life history. He is one of very many young Ugandans then that former president Apollo Milton Obote nurtured and mentored in political leadership and statecraft. This included former prime minister Ruhakana Rugunda, whom in the early 2000s, president Obote through the Andrew Mwenda Live radio talk show on KFM, revealed he was mentoring for the presidency of the country.
Through the support of Obote, Mutebile attained a good education and later joined government to work as an economist during the second reign of Obote in the 1980s, through the military junta regime of Gen Tito Okello and eventually in the NRM regime. 
He did, however, gain prominence as a serious government economist in his service of Obote’s arch political opponent, Gen Museveni’s government, eventually becoming governor of Uganda’s central bank in 2001.
After his demise, Mutebile received so much praise for his professional contribution to Uganda’s economy over the years. Regime apologists have variously lauded him for reviving Uganda’s economy and cultivating fiscal discipline in the management of the central bank and Uganda’s economy generally. President Museveni in his eulogy at Kololo Independence Grounds attributed the successful control of inflation in Uganda’s economy and execution of the privatisation programme to him. 
Furthermore, while saluting Mutebile’s contribution to Uganda’s economy, Gen Museveni characteristically spewed rosy economic growth figures. He said at the time they captured power in 1986, Uganda’s GDP was $1.5b but it has since grown to about $40b and GDP per capita was $260 and currently standing at $900. However, like Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” 
Gen Museveni’s rosy economic figures are not reflected in the material well-being of the people of Uganda. There may be economic growth but certainly there is no development. If the economy was robust as regime apologists want us to believe, it would have built, among other accomplishments, a modern and competent healthcare system to take care of Governor Mutebile, its architect, in his hour of need. The governor would not have died in a hospital in a foreign land. 
This is a big indictment on the ability of Uganda’s economy to take care of Ugandans and a contradiction of gigantic proportions to the shiny growth figures. What is the meaning of glowing economic statistics when Ugandan citizens can’t access medical care in hospitals, good and affordable education in schools, eat a balanced diet, sleep in decent houses, pay utilities or get justice in courts of law? It’s all vanity. Meaningful GDP and economic growth figures should be tangible and ensure economic well-being of the general population.
In the 1960s, 1970s and part of the 1980s, genuine architects of Uganda’s economy designed an economic system that worked for every citizen. That is why in 1969 when president Obote was shot in the mouth in an attempted assassination at Lugogo Indoor Stadium, he was taken to Mulago hospital, treated and recuperated from there. 
In Kenya, Daniel arap Moi died from a local hospital, so did Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu in South Africa. What then is the meaning of Mutebile’s celebrated contribution to Uganda’s economy? 

The writer is a politician, trainer and writer
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