Lobbying expenditures hurting Uganda rather than helping it
Sometimes one would think that given the 'overwhelming' popularity of the Movement and its leaders, there would be no need to "burnish" its reputation. On paper, Uganda has an open political system, with regular elections; a constitution written after two years of deliberations, a free press, and a host of institutions fighting corruption and improving governance in Uganda.
Millions of dollars have been expended on Uganda's most pressing needs, education, infrastructure, healthcare systems, economic reforms and governance systems. For years, Uganda has been the darling dissertation topic in development economics explaining the flow of aid, and All Weather Offroaders that ply our crumbling infrastructure. The electoral margins delivered by the electoral system have come at a huge cost.
The story about hiring Hill and Knowlton; global lobbyists represented by UMC Africa in Kampala headed by Andrew Wandera to lobby or to borrow Museveni's lingua; to "okusavuwaza", or white-wash problems with his record is contemptuous of Uganda's status as a sovereign state.
Uganda's issues thus far are not intractable. Most of the accusations against the government like corruption, mismanagement and political manipulation can be addressed in the local realm. A few others like human rights violations may realistically be addressed with a change in government.
But given an opportunity, the government has walked away from any serious dialogue on the country's political future preferring to deal with the powers that be that reside in foreign capitals. It is a very sad testament to the notion of liberation and independence that dominated the political propaganda of the first years of Museveni's rule that the only voices that matter are those of persons outside Uganda.
Lobbyists have come to Uganda only to be shocked at the relative dysfunctionality of the economy. There are a few functional areas of government, which are close to appropriations or greased by donor activity and vast sectors of indifference, and number fudging.
Even much lauded programmes like UPE, introduced with donor intervention, have turned into cash cows for a small cabal close to the occupants of State House, by blood, marriage, or sycophantic link, and are used as reverse pipes to skim donor funds that are pushing Uganda's debt burden to the roof to enrich a few individuals.
Hill and Knowlton are also going to confront a difficult rap sheet regarding records of the top regime cronies as they go about their work. Some of previously headhunted lobbyist firms declined to take up the assignment after physically visiting Uganda and unable to sign off the promotional material that was proposed.
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