We don�t hate M7, we only love Uganda more
Betty Kamya Turwome
DURING Radio One�s Spectrum talk show on which I was hosted last Tuesday, an audibly angry person named Bakashabarwamasha phoned in to say I couldn�t see the �visibly great� things President Yoweri Museveni had done for Uganda since 1986.
He ended by quoting a Runyankore saying; �Entasiima eba sitaani (ingrates are devils).�
Bakashabarwamasha listed the number of FM stations in the country, the wonderful new buildings on Kampala�s hills, the supermarkets, shops, mobile phone companies, availability of consumer goods and private schools as some of the things that Museveni had done for this country.
He ended by saying that me and my kind were extremists blinded by hate and jealousy because we were failures who had been thrown out of the Movement.
I know that there are many Ugandans, even senior people in the
Forum for Democratic Change, who, like Bakashabarwamasha, often say that there is no denying that Museveni has done a lot for Uganda. This article is written to help them broaden their views on performance and therefore performance appraisal and evaluation.
Any illiterate villager who employed someone to plant beans on an acre of land would evaluate performance according to input (cost), time spent and quality of the job. A worker who spends three months on the job, breaks three hoes, uses 10kg of beans and does a shoddy job would not get a pat on the back, particularly when his/her predecessor spent one month, used one hoe, five kilogrammes of beans and did a good job.
During the first 23 years of Uganda�s independence (1962-1985), Uganda borrowed a total of $1.8b from international lenders and by 1986 internal revenue collected was valued at about sh40b per annum.
Using this revenue, Entebbe International Airport, Sheraton Hotel, Nile Hotel, International Conference Centre, Amber House, Bank of Uganda, Uganda House, well-facilitated hospitals in each of the 23 districts that formed Uganda then and Bugolobi and Kiira Road flats, were built.
Uganda had an airline, railway and public bus service. If I was allowed more space, I could go on to enumerate the developments which took place during this period but this list serves to make my point, yet, at the end of each deposed President�s reign, they all went to live in exile, on charity, as paupers.
Compare the above with the 19 years of Museveni�s reign during which Uganda has borrowed $3.8b and collects internal revenue valued at sh2,000b per annum. I want Bakashabarwamasha or any other person to list what is there to show for all this money. What easily comes to mind is that
industries have been replaced by supermarkets, since all industries were sold and no one knows where the proceeds went.
important infrastructure on which the economy of this country depended have either been dismantled or let to go to waste. I would not like someone to show me UPE and AIDS programmes because these are supported through grants, which do not come out of the $3.8b debt or the sh2,000b internally generated revenue.
The FM stations, mobile phone companies, new buildings in Kampala and supermarkets are private investments which are not a result of the $3.8b debt. I want to see what Museveni has to show for $3.8b which he borrowed on my behalf, not what the private investors have done with their money.
We are told that 7.3 million Ugandan children have enrolled for the UPE classes, yet only 436,000 sat for PLE in 2004, which means the dropout rate before
P7 is over 50%. Moreso, only 59,000 students sat for O� levels which implies a 700% dropout rate before S4.
Is that what the Bakasharwamashas call performance? We are not Museveni-haters, we just love Uganda more and know how to watch our pennies.
The writer is an envoy of the Forum for Democratic Change party
Published on: Sunday, 6th March, 2005
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