Museveni post-war reconstruction plan lacks vision - Don
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We need Green Revolution
By John Muto-Ono p'Lajur, Gulu
Gulu University: Dons rap Museveni's much hyped Peace, Recovery
and Development Plan for Northern Uganda as visionless.
GULU University Economist, Charles Okello Ayai has said the shs623.2 billion
Peace, Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP) for Northern Uganda, which was
launched by President Yoweri Museveni on September 20th 2006, lacks vision to
transform the country into a first world country.
It has a golden opportunity but it stops at the surface. The vision is not
clear on turning Uganda into a first world country. That is where the President
wants the country to move.
Okello-Ayai made the remarks while giving a public lecture on the 79-page
P.R.D.P document at the Gulu University Main hall on October 3rd 2006.
He said the kind of money budgeted for can cause what he termed Green
Revolution if planning was initiated by the community instead of being imposed
on the government by the World Bank.
How do you plan giving the people going back home hand hoes? This is like an
insult. Only backward people use hoes. We need real revolution, green
revolution, like it happened in Japan, Asia and Germany after the wars. We
should be thinking of giving tractors to every sub counties. We want to harvest
three or four times out of what you plan or in an activity you undertake. We
dont want status quo. We want development.
The plan seeks to consolidate peace and security in all the 32 districts,
which has been affected by insecurity caused by rebel activities and cattle
rustling in northern and north-eastern Uganda for a period of three years. It
is based on the assumption that peace talks between government and the LRA
would be successfully concluded.
Uganda's Prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi at a Kampala press
conference announcing the Billion shilling plan.
Shs231, 187 billion out of shs623, 232 billion, representing 37% (percent) of
the total amount, will be spent on consolidating state authority in the
region, which is largely opposition stronghold. Police enhancement will take
19.5%, Prison and community services will take 3.5%, local government will
consume13.7% while peace implementation will take 5.3% of the total votes under
strategic objective of consolidating state authority.
The rest of the money will be used for emergency assistance, resettlement of
IDPs, community recovery and development, production and marketing,
infrastructure and rehabilitation, environment and natural resource management,
reconciliation and demobilization and re-integration.
This is a very good example of a very bad vertical programme. I dont
believe that these shs623 billion will arrive on the ground. It would be lucky
if shs50 billion would come to the villages. One of the discussant, Dr.
Freddie Oyat said.
He also complained that the police was taking a whole shs121 billion yet
important components like health is allocated a mere shs83 billion and water
and sanitation is allocated only shs28 billion.
Well meaning programme dissipates in thin air yet on the ground there is
hardly anything. Why do we need all that money for the police yet important
sectors like health is allocated little money? He question.
Another discussant, Charles Odora-Oryem observed that the north has never had
peace to consolidate in the first case. He said the money allocated for prison
was too much sine the only crime in the north is defilement.
What peace do you want to consolidate when we never have had peace in the
last 20 years? Why do we need more prisons when we have only defilement cases
in the region? May be parliament need to look at the law again so as to
decongest the prisons.
Odora-Oryem said the region need proper planning so as to use the River Nile
waters for irrigation so as to turn the war-ravaged area into a food basket in
east and central Africa.
Another discussant, Charles Okwakalwak complained in the planning coverage
yet the war has only concentrated in a small area. The area under the programme
are categorized into three: Post conflict areas are in the West Nile region,
the on-going armed rebellion in the Acholi and Lango sub-region and the
lawlessness and underdeveloped region of Karamoja and Teso sub-regions.
The coverage is too large. Pallisa is put at par with Gulu yet it has not
had much problem. It is unfair to put such a district at par with the districts
in Acholi sub-region.
He said the planners have not considered those who were displaced by the war
in town centers.
MP Aswa County Hon Reagan Okumu (L) has laughed off the
government plan. (R) Typical family in abject poverty of IDP camp.
In the meantime, at the political level, Aswa county MP Hon. Reagan Okumu has
laughed off the said government plan to rehabilitate Northern Uganda using 18.6
billion Shillings (about 7.8 million Euros).
Hon. Reagan Okumu contends that the 18 billion shillings can not even
rehabilitate one sub county in the district of Gulu, given the level of
destruction inflicted on the region by the war.
He says that Government is merely using the plight of the People in Northern
Uganda to mobilize the funds from Donors for its corrupt officials and
party-hangerons.
The prime Minister Apollo Nsibambi un-veiled a much hyped 6 month
rehabilitation Programme for Northern Uganda costing 18.5 billion shillings.
[ENDS]
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