We all know why all of a sudden all employees of Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) we’re fired, after scandal upon scandal where the prices per meter of road went into the imaginary and also the due diligence on the contracts of the roadworks wasn’t really done by the government institution. Still, resolving the matter with clearing the shop totally is more of a public stunt, than actually making it decent. The first culture of thieving, counterfeiting and all the matters lay in most of the government institutions already. That is being made from the top where the monies are spent on farm equipment for the president instead of pay-rise for the civil servants.
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has lost it. It is evident with the sacking of the medical personnel of the Nakawuku Health Centre III. This is proof of the wilderness of the Executive these days. As the hide and seek of professional manner from the top, down to the lowest civil servant. If the system we’re correct and the salaries made sense than the works would be done proper and the so-called laziness would not needing sanctions. The other reason for the laziness is the loose structure of the health-care and the systematic under-funded health care in Uganda. That is why there is not functioning Cobalt 60 Teletheraphy Machine for the needed Cancer treatment at Uganda Cancer Institute at Mulago Hospital Complex in Kampala. This is just the major proof of a degraded and worrying condition of health-care in general.
The elephant in the room is obvious, it is clearly not the laziness or the Health Care per say. It’s the structures, the funding and in the end the walking budget. The President, the Executive, the one man with a vision, the force of NRM. That man the elephant in the room is President Museveni. He has run the country for 30 years, by this time his vision and his play for making the country sustainable and steady progress should have made these problems obsolete. Instead he has gotten more land and bigger private planes, but not built proper institutions or procedures to check the government institutions. The laws and regulations of the government is loose. Because if it was transparent he could not get away buying giant and expensive helicopters while the hospitals are understaffed and the vaccine programs are only there because of donor-aid directly to the causes.
The reason for the fall of grace and the sackings is that he wants the respect of President John Pombe Magufuli. He has gone directly fired his minister for drinking while in parliament and also corrupt civil servants at the port of Dar Es Salaam not long after he was sworn-in. That perception is that President Museveni tries to get. What he forget his legacy is long sealed in the behaviour and knowledge of what the NRM really is. The Image of Museveni and NRM Regime is intertwining with corruption and embezzlement.
So the claims of fighting this and going against it are more a play of words than real actions. The times he does it is to save face and make sure the donors we’re happy in the end. That is why he has continued with what he doing and how he operate. The monies always end in ways where he manipulate and make sure the riches are around himself and his loyal cronies. So the service delivery is long gone as the NAADs and SACCO’s money all of a sudden disappear together with the steady pace of the all the other government funds that just vanish in thin air.
If you wait on and continue to wait for payment; if your boss waits for his salaries and the budgeted funds for procurement of needed technical equipment does arrive. And even if it comes, it is never on time and never allocated extra funds for the lost times and lost months as the back-pay are troubling enough. The system of this is in tatters as the government are more important for the close knitted staff around the ministers and the State House. While, the rest have to wait and live in oblivion for their service rendered.
With this in mind, the sackings are unfair as the Executive and his cronies have had 30 years to fix the system and build the government institutions. The Government institutions aren’t only the inherited ones from the colonial times and being a protectorate under the British. It has now been made in the image of Museveni. Therefore the vision and image of this laziness and the lack of supervision; is all in all his fault. It is his demeanour and his wish for weak institutions so he could beg for donor funds that is the reason for the lack of control of the health care facilities. It is the build off of poverty, so he can beg and ask for help from the international community. If the country we’re strong and had transparent institutions that worked on already government funds, than the NRM regime wouldn’t need the donor-funds and NGOs supporting the Ugandan Government. Something, President Museveni clearly knows well as he been skimming and eating of the plate for decades and hope for life at this point.
The sackings is the deepest approach of trying to action and act upon the words he sometimes utter to the public. No matter how right or wrong. He knows deep in his heart and in his soul that he is the one behind the massive need for restructuring and rebuilding the Ministry of Health and the Health Care in general. As the counterfeit pills from India and Pakistan isn’t what they say they are and not as effective as the grade A pills. That is something he knows as he takes what he can get and accept it because this make him wealthy and powerful. The legality and novelty of firing own men and woman for laziness proves the little common sense for the destruction of the institutions that knows very well about. But it is better for a few health care personnel to jump on their swords than the Executive. That is the key to this arrangement. President Museveni knew so very well and lives like it doesn’t exist because he is never the issue. The issues are always and will be somebody else than him. He is the one with the vision, the guiding star for all gracious men to follow. Therefore we are supposed to cherish and celebrate his actions. Instead of saying that this actions are really just a spark and proof of his neglect or inactions for decades, that isn’t welcomed; still it is the ice-cold proof. Peace.
MinBane 