The passing of a special friend

The passing of Keith Muhakanizi on April 13, 2023 took from us yet another very experienced and very honest policy economist of our time; a very hard-working man who loved his country so much. When I told Keith that I was going to work for the UN in South Sudan, he told me he would not take a job outside of Uganda under any circumstances. He was also a very kind man.

He was an unflagging and exciting debater especially on economic policy choices. He was forthright, and did not shy away from stating his views. As a consequence, he sometimes made enemies because of his straight-from-the-shoulder sincerity. At one point in his service to the nation, he was persona-non-grata to Uganda’s Parliament. He had, it is alleged, been rude to our legislators. He endured.
Keith joined the then Ministry of Planning in 1982 when I first met him. He and Mr Damoni Kitabire joined the Planning Department which was responsible for Macroeconomic matters in the department that was headed by the late Professor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile as the Chief Government Planning Economist. 

With the help of their boss and mentor, both were sent to Warsaw Poland to undertake further training in National Economic Planning at post graduate diploma level.  Three years later in 1986, Keith and Damoni were again sent  to undertake further training at  Masters level in Macroeconomics at Manchester and Strathclyde University respectively. Their initial training in approach to economic policy formulation was, I believe, influenced by the late Professor Mutebile. 

Keith was the first of these two policy economists that began their professional life together to be elevated to prominence when he was appointed Secretary to the Presidential Economic Council (PEC) in the early days of the NRM Government. PEC meetings were often long and indeed often ended late at night. I recall that the Ministry was forced to buy him an official vehicle to facilitate his movements at night. I also recall that his work as PEC Secretary often put him in trouble, most probably because he proffered unwelcome advice to PEC members. And at one time, it put him and I together in one of such frequent troubles, when the then Prime Minister directed the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning to have us sacked from the civil service. It didn’t happen.

But PEC meetings served a very useful purpose in those very early days of the MRM Government. PEC meetings provided a fora where the President got to hear and sieve the views of all our policy makers of the time. It is my personal view that PEC meetings provided a fora out of which the decision to merge the then two Ministries of Finance on one hand and Planning and Economic Development on the other was conceived. Keith, the late Tumusiime Mutebile and the late Mayanja Nkangi were some of the key persons in providing raw material from which the decision was made.

Indeed after the decision was made in early 1992, Nkangi was appointed Minister and Professor Mutebile was appointed PS/ST. Keith was appointed Economic Advisor. To be very honest, up until then, Uganda’s economy was in a very bad shape. These gentlemen turned the economy round in record time. In seven years after 1992, Uganda’s GDP more than trebled.  He played a major role in achieving and maintaining macroeconomic stability, liberalising the exchange rate and trade policy. As secretary to the Treasury, and in partnership with Bank of Uganda, which he also served as a director, he has been involved in reforming the financial system, liberalising the financial markets and strengthening prudential regulation. These are, of course, only some of the concrete achievements to which he made a vital contribution.

Keith is an Ntare School alumni. He lived in Bugolobi flats during the early 1980s.
During our interactions socially, he exhibited a penchant for daring and fearless characteristics at a time when our political divisions dictated a lot of carefulness. He never consumed alcohol until the1990s when the late Charles Twinomusinguzi and I, literally forced him to at Kampala Club.
He  was daring, often fearless, but a positive personality who lit up any group in which he participated be it political discussions in the Middle East, in the boardroom at work, in Parliament or indeed in Kampala Club. 

I am very grateful  I met Keith. He warmed up to many, and was very generous. He did for me anything I requested him to; but I also know that his no was final.
We will deeply miss the brilliance of his insights, and his challenges to conventional political and economic thinking - but most of all, his friendship and the pleasure of his company. He did his last lap with his devotion to public duty undimmed. For those of us who were close, he made us very proud. Our caps are doffed as we cherish his memory.
Fare-thee-well my friend and rest in peace Keith.

            Authored by Francis Tumuheirwe