The Monitor, 3rd December 2002
Kampala �mansions�product of hard work
By Tingasiga Tasiga Ntomi
Dear Muniini:How nice to link up again after a long time. Your letter, What If Matembe Interested Herself In Kampala Mansions? (The Monitor, Nov. 18) was excellent reading, not only to your usual readers, but also investors in the construction industry.
If Bagumira ba Muhende, after arriving in Kampala, hired an internal flight, or better still a car, and flew over or rod around Uganda, he would appreciate Uganda�s natural beauty, which prompted Winston Church Hill to name it �the Pearl of Africa.�
The verdant vegetation of Central Uganda and the lash plains of the North are good. The undulating valleys and plains of the East are superb while the mountainous South West, interspersed with national parks, rivers, forests and grasslands are fascinating.
These are the natural endowments that attract thousands of tourists every year. It is from such tourism that Uganda now earns some foreign exchange that is so badly needed to afford our import requirements.
During Idi Amin and Obote II�s reigns, many Ugandans such as Bagumira ba Muhende, went to exile. The failure of the UNLF experiment, the Obote II regime and the Luwero Triangle guerrilla war reduced Uganda�s economy to ruins. Not only did people lose their lives and property, many more went into exile whence they could not develop their country. All sectors of the economy, including the construction industry, suffered.
Following the 1980 rigged elections, Yoweri Museveni, with another 26 colleagues, launched a protracted war against dictatorship until they captured power in 1986. For the next decade and a half, Uganda enjoyed considerable peace and stability in the largest part of the country, including Kampala. Therefore, the most important factor that has contributed to the development of �Kampala mansions� you alluded to in your letter, is a protracted period of peace and security, which no other regime, except the colonial one, has enjoyed. There are many other positive factors that have led to th e fast development of the housing sector.
During the colonial era, public servants and employees of parastatals and other organisations were provided, inter alia, with free housing facilities. This meant that these employees had no motivation to build their own houses like it is the case today. They worked until they retired to their respective upcountry homes. This situation remained the same after independence. With the advent of the Movement government and its macro economic policies under the aegis and auspices of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), there was massive retrenchment of civil servants. The policies of liberalisation, privatisation and decentralisation compelled organisations to be leaner in order to survive. Retrenchment packages were quite attractive. Government sold pool houses to the retrenched employees. Many of them sold their houses in prime places such as Kololo, Nakasero, Muyenga, Mengo, Bugolobi, etc. and bought or built houses in other suburbs of Kampala.
Muniini, the original seven-hill Kampala is now thirty (or more)- hill Kampala! Entebbe, Mpigi, Bombo, Gayaza and Mukono are about to join Kampala. When Idi Amin, in his madness, expelled Asians and other foreigners in 1972 and many Ugandans went into exile, they were replaced by Ugandans in business (trade, industry, services, agriculture, etc). Although they lacked entrepreneurial and managerial skills to do starling business, these Ugandans acquired more valuable experience, which they would not have obtained if they had remained dominated by Asians, Britons and Arabs. Because of insecurity, they could not invest into houses but they accumulated money some of which they banked outside the country. Most Ugandans who went into exile came back after 1986. Ugandans like you who remained outside and have been joined by many economic, as well as political, exiles do regularly send back money to buy or build the �Kampala mansions�. Today, foreign remittances from Ugandans leaving and working abroad bring in m ore dollars than coffee, or even other Ugandan exports put together.
What does all this mean? Is it corruption or is it a social revolution of human needs that has engendered the level of development in the housing sector?
Let us look at corruption. President Museveni�s Movement government has put anti-corruption institutions in place. These are the Office of the IGG, the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity, Vice President�s Office, Public Accounts Committee, the Police (CID) and the independent judiciary. Even if some are accused of inefficiency, definitely, they do quite a lot of work fighting corruption.
Besides, not many persons can afford to be corrupt in an institution. The corrupt are often quite limited � usually the chief executives and their chief financial controllers. There is no evidence that everyone in any one organisation is or can be corrupt and get away with it.
Many analysts have suggested that most of the developments going on in Kampala are a result of hard and honest work. While corruption cannot be denied, it may, perhaps, be unfair generalisation to suggest that, while some illiterate business persons can afford to build or buy mansions all over the place, some politicians, public servants, managers and other professionals cannot and should not afford to build a house for fear of being labelled corruption suspects by envious critics.
Finally, neither Bagumira ba Muhunde nor Miria Matembe or Julia Sebutinde need to take heed of your advice because Jotham Tumwesigye, the indefatigable IGG, has taken care of that under the Leadership Code in which every leader has to declare his or her wealth and how it was acquired. In my humble opinion, the way forward should be to build strong democratic anti-corruption institutions with a mandate to fight corruption, raise societal levels of moral and ethical consciousness and promote reconciliation, peace and stability. Above all, we should promote a vibrant construction industry, inter alia, instead of continually demonising entrepr eneurs.
So long.
December 03, 2002 01:12:27
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