<
http://www.africaw.com/major-problems-facing-uganda-today> Major problems
facing Uganda today
10/09/2014
69 Ministers, 327 Members of Parliament, 278 political appointees who
include 80 resident District Commissioners and assistants, 75 presidential
advisors and 43 private presidential secretaries and their deputies. This is
just a picture of Uganda's over-the-top public administration. Pearl of
Africa as commonly known is argued that not only is it a sleeping giant but
also an over-governed and unproductive country.
It has many administrative units; 45,000 local councils, 5500 parishes, 1026
sub-counties, 151 counties, 18 municipalities and 80 districts. All these
structures have executive 10 man executive officials. So, the total number
of officials is 10 times the number of every administrative unit.
How does this nation manage its servants? Uganda's expenditure is very
enormous and abnormal.
A presidential advisor and his deputy earn 908.5 million Ugandan shillings
enough to pay 378 primary school teachers a salary of 200,000 Ugandan
shillings a month.
Private presidential secretary and his assistant earn 7.5 billion shillings
enough to; support 2,077 primary schools with 800 pupils each, buy drugs for
890 health centers, construct 935 classrooms or pay 37,500 primary school
teachers. Members of Parliament altogether earn 57 billion excluding the
allowances, the 69 ministers have all sorts of allowances and only
government expenditure on Ministers vehicles fuel, oil and maintenance in
2006/07 was 92 billion Ugandan shillings.
In 1986, the National Resistance Movement came to power. It collected 84
billion as revenue. Inflation was at 240 percent. It worked tirelessly and
revived the economy reducing inflation to 0.3 percent. The present
government collects 4 trillion as revenue but sectors like education and
health which used to be very vibrant are now in shambles.
This nation (Uganda) has 31 million people. According to the ministry of
health, there's one doctor to every 300,000 people. Surprisingly, there's
one administrative leader to every 6 Ugandan. Uganda has one of the poorest
administrative structures in the entire world. The poor administration can
and only provides poor services to its citizens. The government at times
makes good policies but it's very hard for them to be implemented leading to
all these and many other deficiencies.
Policies like the decentralization policy to help distribute resources
evenly, minimum health package which puts all health centers under a
structured organization, Medium Term Expenditure Framework that makes the
government budget and expenditure known after every 3 years, etc. are
examples of some good policies which do exist only on paper but not in
reality. Such good and "efficient" policies have been made by the government
on paper yet over 600 billion Ugandan shillings go down the drain without
any trace almost every single year.
The main reason why such good policies cannot be implemented in Uganda today
is due to nothing but the government's huge expenditure on its top leaders
and the very poor wages paid to its civil servants. This has led to
absenteeism, lack of morale, etc. as most of these poor public servants do
other jobs besides their regular jobs just to make ends meet.
It is quite sad considering the fact that Uganda has produced one of the
brightest people in all of East Africa with prestigious institutions (such
as the prestigious Makerere University) but has the lowest productivity in
the entire region. The truth of the matter is that, Ugandans keep juggling
at their available natural resources to the point of stuffing all their
leaders to the brim like holiday turkeys.
Another major problem facing Uganda today is the problem of "let's pass new
laws". Uganda has this "barbaric" culture of passing laws to solve all
problems. This has led to nothing but a big country full of laws but
lawlessness. Laws are being passed every single day yet the ones present are
neither effective nor implementable. For example, Uganda has failed
miserably at implementing the traffic and productive laws yet Uganda has
passed yet another law to gag the media, limiting public participation in
governance and locking up journalists with dissenting views (a clear
indication of an extremely failed government. Dictatorship in this case)
Pundits say that, for the country to develop, it needs to reduce its
administrative leaders, get more serious in enforcing its policies and laws.
The administration is the main cause of the government's huge expenditure,
leading to lack of funds in other sectors and nothing but extreme poverty
and hunger across the entire country. Uganda as a nation needs to be serious
in economic transformation and development by getting its priorities right.
The first step of which includes getting rid of this highly bloated but very
unproductive system of administration. Don't forget Uganda still houses one
of the worst leaders in the world today.
Civil societies, great donors, private sector experts and political analysts
have all raised numerous concerns over the governments expenditure on its
administration but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Uganda as a country
not only needs a budget discipline but also in great need of getting its
priorities right and starting from the top seems like the most sensible
thing to do especially at this time.
By OSCAR OTINDO (Africaw Group Member)
The writer is a Kenyan volunteer and activist based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Received on Wed Sep 10 2014 - 18:51:31 EDT