UPC Statement: “Bring Down the Cost of Education” (08.02.2017)

Uganda: Fix the Disparities in Performance at PLE (18.01.2017)

UPC: A Reflection of the US Election in the Context of the False Narrative Peddled about UPC (16.11.2016)

UPC: Orginised Criminal Gang Cleared out of Uganda House (14.10.2016)

Opinion: 10th Parliament MPs proves that their Greed is more important than the Government programs and running expenses!

This is growing concern not because of the World Bank suspending loans and funds to the development projects or anything else. The ways the allocated funds and tax funds are used in the 10^th Parliament shows their level of reckless spending and no concern of accountability.

This happens on the week the Daily Monitor shows reports of 80% of Primary Teachers that teach who can’t read while being government civil servants. These Teachers are the ones learning their inabilities to the future. So the misappropriate funds for the Educational Sector comes into fruition. The Universal Primary Education is surely improperly balanced together with the mismanagement of buildings and salaries; if they get salaries that usually never on time, teachers can wait for months upon months to get their pay. There are enough fallen and depleted schools.

While the Education Sector is in shambles the Members of Parliaments are allocating more money for their private cars. So they can drive around like King-pins in their constituency. They can ride around in the Toyotal Land Cruiser Prado and feel special while their citizens they represent have teachers who can’t read and supposed to teach Vincent grammar. That is just so special ignorance of their duty those 30 years of the Movement should have had enough time to make difference and not make the schooling system weaker.

This is happening in the week that the imported Anti-Retroviral Drugs (ARDs) where National Medical Store (NMS) are distributing medicines, but they are sold more expensively locally than internationally. The Ugandan population are doing the same as Americans who pays an extra fortune for their EpiPen Auto-Injector. Together with the other issues around in the Hospitals like Uganda Cancer Institute and their breakdown of hte Cobalt 60 Teletherapy Machine. That still isn’t fixed and was the only one in the great nation.

While the Health Care and Health Sector are not as functional as it should be. While this is happening the MPs have allocated funds and bought Tablets or Ipad’s for a fortune for themselves. Because these MPs need tablets to write notes and such even if am not sure Prime Minister Dr. Ruhakana Ruganda or Vice-President Edward Ssekandi can even use one of them. So they spending a on this while medicines are missing or empty at a time or another.

The MPs salaries, the MPs Allowance and the MPs wish to exempt their salaries from Tax. Together with appropriating lots of funds for travelling for days to the United States and Boston for a Seminar; together with the extended funds for burials, this is happening so they can have an extravagant lifestyle into the casket.

This is happening while the government institutions and programs are weak or nearly non-existence. They have surely ghosts like the ghost SACCO Mzee gave to a non-existing organization. While the MPs representing their people are living like royals in the National Assembly with fancy cars and houses while the unemployment levels are still strong and the educations of their kids are made by teachers who can’t even write. This shouldn’t be happening, but apparently it is.

The Governance is not really happening. Because the government are not steering towards any place, they are walking on clouds and not taking steps to change the deteriorating state of education and health care.

This is happening while the Government are adding more debt and is by end of the year having over UGX 26 Trillion. This is happening while the Roads Development that been borrowed to Uganda National Roads Authority from the World Bank has been suspended. So the worsen economic situation together with lack of funds for fiscal cash proves the weakness of the economy and the national policies.

This is happening also while the Ugandan Government has to tackle more refugees in Adjumani and other districts towards South Sudan as the neighbour continues with internal fighting. This together with the fluid borders into Democratic Republic of Congo. This has been done with armies and guerrillas in the past to get resources something that has led to another expensive debt to DRC for the Ugandan State.

So the mismanagement and maladministration of the Movement that have had the time to fix it has apparently been more sucked into their own rich-elite oblivion instead of serving their people. That is why the MPs are so into fixing themselves up nicely while the other are living in midst of utter poverty. So the debt is rising and inflation is rising. So the value of shilling isn’t worth much while the imports are more needed. NRM Regime is not having a fiscal policy as they are loose with spending without having secured funding. While making grand plans without having the output to secure borrowing…

I am sure there more things that could be discussed, but this is more than enough for today. As the proof is in the pudding; the budget and the inflated expenses of the Parliament shows how little accountability and transparency of their acts are. This is with the knowledge of months after the General Election 2016… the State House we’re broke right after for those that forgotten. Since the State House had used it resources in the Campaign that cost fortunes and after the election they had to get funds to pay the running expenses.

You think the government should be carrying itself better after been ruling for 30 years, but they are not. They are running like lackeys thieving the little pieces they can instead of building. Therefore the MPs are running the mill like the ability is only counted for when they are pocketed. That is why the greed of getting brown-envelopes is coming when the Mzee needs bills to pass. They get both monies and valuable produce to sell after being in the National Assembly. So with this in mind, the Speaker Rebecca Kadaga should silence herself and take care of her people instead of blaming the media… because they account to the people and the MPs should be more careful spending taxpayer’s monies, instead they use the budget for their own sake and not for the citizens who bleed for this. Peace.

UPC directs Milton Obote Foundation (MOF) to Vacate Uganda House (17.08.2016)

Monetary gains over the citizens needs is the reasonable way for the Ugandan MPs

The level of arrogance that they have learned from the Executive, Chief Whip and Secretary General of the NRM comes to hunt the Parliament of Uganda. The Members of Parliament is set in their ways and used, sorry accustomed to monetary gains on the bills of the tax-payers already. The Income-Tax Amendment is just the new niche. They have already subsidized cars, housing, supported health-care and other add-ons that make their jobs easier and profitable.

As Reported in the Daily Monitor Today:

“Addressing a news conference in Parliament yesterday, Mr Peter Ogwang (Youth Eastern) and Mr Henry Musasizi (Rubanda East) warned civil servants like Mr Muhakanizi, who this week condemned their tax exemption deal, that they are also waiting for them in Parliament during the consideration of the Auditor General’s reports. “We cannot pass the budget until we are sure that our amendment to Income Tax Bill has been concluded,” Mr Musasizi said. “In case the President does not sign the Bill, it will still come back to the same people in Parliament. These are hard facts. We will still pass it without fear or favour.” The MPs also took shots at civil society groups which are raising public awareness over the controversy. “The public should be with us in the struggle to facilitate MPs. We need facilitation to go to our constituencies because a Member of Parliament without money cannot have confidence. But there is an option, if they want us to drop the amendment, the government should give us Shs30 billion in additional funding to cater for increased salaries and benefits for Members of Parliament,” Mr Musasizi said. Mr Musasizi, who moved the amendment to the Income Tax law, also revealed that what he did had the backing of the President.  “We agreed with the President in the [ruling party’s parliamentary retreat in] Kyankwanzi that we should not increase our salaries and benefits but tax on our allowances should be lifted to maintain the status-quo,” he said” (Mugerwa, 2016).

So certain ones are putting the budget on a stalemate in favour of getting more money and not paying tax as ordinary citizens as they are MPs and for some reason deserves more facilitation then the people of Kalerwe or Kaabong. The ignorance and arrogance is just learned by the Inner-Circle of the NRM. This is just the works of decades of decadence from the ruling elite and now the chicken comes to roost. The egg is ready to put in the basket and the MPs are ready to be paid their salaries without having income-tax.

The interesting is that the Kyankwanzi 2.0. that was recently and made implications to the doing of the Parliament, how it was practically empty as the NRM CEC and the Executive set the agenda for the next Parliament, the 10^th One. The tone of now more benefits for the MPs in general, no salary increase for the MPs; the Income-Tax Amendment is an increase of salaries as they will get all the monetary gain and not pay for their facilitation for being an Member of Parliament instead of secretary at the district office in Mbarara.

That the MPs want to stifle the voting for the 2016/2017 budget for the steady “progress” of the country proves what values the representatives of population have. They are in parliament to eat, get fat and get bonuses that would be out of reach in other jobs. They want to make their life splendid on the tax-payers salaries and not become a “tax-payer” as long as they are representing the tax-payers. Which in turn is ironic; just recently they passed legislation that was made to fix the budget shortfalls of 2015/2016 as certain ministries was broke after the economic maladministration during the NRM campaign. That was done in hurry to secure salaries of the State House and other positions of the state. So they can offer something as long as the Executive also get his cut. But now they are forcing the Parliament and becoming hostile to create a functioning economic climate in the sense of their pockets. That is what they are initially saying. The proud men and woman who is supposed to be representing the tax-payers are saying that does not deserve to be taxed by the state. So who deserve it then?

The ones representing the tax-payer should pay tax. The ones that levy new taxes and regulations should themselves get taxed on what they earn. It is over the edge to see the moment of monetary greed from the Members of Parliament in Uganda. Their act of disgrace and attitude towards fellow citizens is overbearing. But they have just learned from their Executive who has teach them how he runs the Racket and racketeering, so that the NRM elite and the inner-circle also want their goods and glory as long as the cost is not theirs. The same way the Executive get funded for cars, jet-planes, housing and cattle-farms. Now the MPs want’s the same as their master. Peace.   

Opinion: Who is really the “Empty Suit”? Who might it be the Empty Suit in the Ministry of Health Care or KCCA? As the recent unfolded operations of maladministration in the public view… henceforth somebody who is just nodding to the Executive for the brown envelope.

McNULTY: “West Baltimore is dying and you empty suits are running around to pin some politician’s pelt to the wall. Thought you was real police, brother” (The Wire Season 2, Episode 13).

There is in this day and age lots of appointed government officials, they work supposed to be diligent and with honour of the codes of their work, not work directly for the ones that appointed them. That cannot always be easy as the station and the position would not been opened or given to the person if the appointee didn’t give that extended hand or blessing for the job. When you have that situation you need a strong state and strict regulatory regime that counter the possible backhand and kickbacks to the ones that appointed them.

Why do I discuss this at this point? Because it is a vital part of our government regimes and is a question that can be asked in nearly all parts of the globe. As all jobs in the branches of government does not automatically goes to the most educated, relied on or the one person who has the most integrity in the position. Instead the man or woman who gets appointed is an “empty suit”.

What some of them might do?

“What typically saves the empty suit is the tenuous relation between what he or she does and any actual business results. This may be a function of the job he’s in: a staff post, with lots of power to nix others’ initiatives but no responsibility to make or sell anything. Or a pocket of avoirdupois in a still-too-fat corporate bureaucracy, the kind of position that causes underlings to scratch their heads and wonder, ”Gee, do we really need all these vice presidents?” Or the empty suit may have come up through a system that rotates fast- trackers through a new job every 18 months, even though the effects of his tenure don’t become evident for two to three years. He hardly had time to get any grounding in the work his people do, and he may have royally screwed up the few decisions he was compelled to make, but when the chickens come home to roost, he has flown. If somebody has the bad taste to try to assign responsibility, the suit can easily fuzz the matter over by suggesting that the blame rests with his successor or former subordinates” (Kiechel, 1989).

There certainly similar like the ones described in our time in every department, every corporation and every single institution we know of. This might be the Electoral Commission of Uganda and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission of Kenya. As much as the regulatory chairs of the banking industry of Kenya must feel like empty suits these days as the confidence at that is low-key as well. The Chase Bank, The Imperial Bank and National Bank of Kenya have fallen from grace. The most likely selling of the Barclays Bank African Group might also make the fragile banking sector into more disarray as the leading regulators seems like the extra board-members instead of people who uses their position and chair with care and uses the mandate to make a difference and even square.

The situations are different when the appointed is not hired for their knowledge of their field, but the loyalty of the regime or government that is running in the country. The likes of Ministry of Health in Uganda for the moment where the hospitals are creaking and the machines are criss-crossing between life and death. Electricity and other cases of depleted. As the missing extra blood for surgery, the copy-medication and the loss of necessary equipment; that shows the lack of management and reasons for empty suits. The highest empty suit for the moment must be State Minister for Health Hon. Dr. Chris Baryomunsi who seems to be more concern with catching checks then doing his job at this point. This point comes with the correlation of Minster of Health Hon. Elioda Tumwesige and the State Minister for Primary Health Hon. Sarah Opendi Ochieng. One of the three must generate a valued pay-check and makes sure that the NMS delivers the Global Funded projects and the other government funded health care, but either Chris, Elioda or Sarah, one of them or more must be a hired “empty suit” as the three of them are put into ministerial position working for initially the same thing.

It is just like the same mess with the KCCA where you have KCCA Executive Director of Jennifer Musisi. You have Frank Tumbewaze who is both Minister of the Presidency and Kampala Affairs. Then you have the third person who got a mandate the Presidential Advisor for Kampala affairs Mr. Singh Katongole what he does is surely only him and the Executive of Uganda who knows, since his appointment in December 2015 his silence must mean a envelope and letting Hon. Tumbewaze and Hon. Musisi does what they like. To make it more hectic you have the actual people’s elected through the ballot who supposed to run the Kampala Capital City Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago. So you have hon. Musisi, Hon. Tumbewazi, Hon. Katongole and Lord Mayor Lukwago. All of them are supposed to central people in the running of administration and regulate the divisions of Kampala politically and create policies that builds and secure the functions of KCCA. That must be hectic one of these men and woman must be a empty suit. Unless Hon. Katongole who I haven’t heard a word from since appointment is an ear-to-the ground and talking or addressing letters directly to the Executive or Head of State as his role has still not been served. As the accountability of the NRM-Regime is not strong they prefer keeping people in the dark.  Hon. Tumbewaze seems more to be the ones who was appointed to turn opposition Lord Mayor on his knees and therefore also gotten a permanent Executive Director in Musisi to shut down the elected person. But the end-game is that one of them must be an “Empty Suit” as the basic needs cannot be that big, and one of them is catching the brown envelopes without doing anything.

There are certainly more empty suits in the system as I started with the appointed men who is not educated for the position, but are there for the loyalty not because of the office is needed or there for a general purpose. That is the same as extra board-members in a corporation who is hired to vote for the general consensus in the board, but not to generate profits in some sense. They are there because the Corporation and LLC need useful idiots to be paid to follow the remarks of the stakeholders and shareholders, not the common-sense of their position.

We can all question the value of these leaders and honourable men-or-woman in a representative or appointed position by the President for instance. The level of credible men and woman and the need for expertise in the government organisations, into the department and the civic care from the road-development to the health care facilities need men and woman who knows the trade. As long the men does what is needed for the President or for the Stakeholders. The ones that lose are the ordinary person, employee or civil servants as they will either work under them or have to pay them tax-money to keep them. As they have to be paid an envelope to be the empty-dress. The person who is an empty dress doesn’t become that for free. Somebody has to be charge to keep him there. Most likely it is me or you. We can just ask ourselves. Who of the appointed leaders in government is an empty suit? Who in the corporate world are the extras?

Lastly, why does the Minister Without Portfolio. Hon. Abraham Byandala gets away and is not questioned by the opposition or anybody else. Why is this man the free-man the invisible creature in the parliament that does not have scruples? This since this position is the epitome of a Empty Suit. He is a MINISTER, but does not have an OFFICE, Department or a MINISTRY to run. Hon. Byandala can do as he pleases and still get paid. You cannot check his ministry or running government portfolio as it is non-existence from the get-go. The Government Official without any oversight and anything to initial control or say in other words the official Minister of Nothing (MoN). Hon. Byandala is running the Ministry of Nothing. The Minister of Hot-Air and the checking the chapattis’ in parliament is fresh enough for Hon. Oulanyah’s taste.

Well, what do you think? Are the somebody you feels are an Empty suit? Somebody you question or wonder if really have anything more than pay-check from the Tax-Payers money, but does not use it’s office or even delivers anything. Then that person might be an empty suit who just nods the head to the Executive and the general leadership without exercising power or determine the future of the government institution, department or ministry. Even if the person is really doing anything in the boardroom or a needed voter for the stakeholders; if it is only the needed majority to follow procedure then the scheme need a check or reform.

There will certainly be more stories and the existence of similar men and woman who can be described as “Empty Suits” and be stooges needed by any administration and corporations as they viciously need structure to control the citizens and the policies without questions from the inner-circle. Even if that means not procurement of needed medicines, fuel, transformers or building bridges to easier access the missing Okor Bridge in Kumi District: “This project was intended to connect Nyero and Mukongoro sub-counties in Kumi district” (MoFED, March 2015). A bridge that does not exist or is built by now so the sub-counties is not yet connect because of the altered situation and have to run long roads around the area than crossing straight over the river. So a project like this says there some empty suits as in 2009 as company was hired to build the river, by December 2012 the works by the river had stopped. Even if the departments to UNRA gave reports of progress of the project was last monitored in 2014 and by 2016 there not been done more to build the bridge since the monopoly of the Chinese Contractor have stifled the progression and in the end wasted government funds into a building a bridge who does not exist. Just like the Ministry of Nothing Hon. Byandala.

Think that is enough for today! Peace.

Reference:

Kiechel, Walter – ‘HOW TO SPOT AN EMPTY SUIT This breed of modern manager looks good and gets along splendidly with the brass. But is he contributing anything?’ (20.11.1989) link: http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1989/11/20/72761/index.htm

Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development – ‘NATIONAL BUDGET FRAMEWORK PAPER FY 2015/16’ (March 2015).

Why are the leaders of our time so hooked-on Power? And some theories for why they don’t leave the Executive Power to somebody else..

We are living in a day and age where leader’s doesn’t leave from their office. You have likes of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo who is making himself ready for another election in his country this year and he has been in power since 1979. You have the likes of President Paul Biya of Cameroon who has been the President since 1982 and was in government since 1970s. In Zimbabwe the President of the day President Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been the Commander in Chief.  And the list goes on.

We have the third term phenomenon of President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, President Paul Kagame of Rwanda both of them have changed the laws or used Courts to allow them to stay in power. So the leadership roles are sufficient to stay. You have the likes of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni who has been in charge since 1986 and stayed ever since, changed laws again and again to linger in power and is rumored to fix the age limit to stay passed his 7^th Term.

So with this in mind, I will discuss it today. It is not a new phenomenon or a new change of guards. There are always leaders who linger and overstay their time in power. As President Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda took power with a coup d’état in 1973 and was in power until his plane got shot down in 1994. Just like the overthrow of first President Patrice Lumumba of Democratic Republic of Congo in 1965, who by foreign powers supposed to install Mobutu Seko Seko Kuku Ngebendu Wa Za Banga who was born Joseph-Desire Mobutu who was the President of DRC from 1965 until 1997. So there are leaders of the past who has not left office and is now long gone.

The issue with this is the way we build society around people instead of institutions and government structures. The Structures of government is kept weak and is not strong with procedure and predicated work for the civil service. That is why the leaders can linger and the way they keep it is fueling resources away from the government structures and institutions, keeping the progress weak and keeping the circle around them tight knit. Instead of having inner-circles with wits, knowledge and people who wants to succeed in their field; the leaders around the president is instead hungry men and woman who works for more and better civil service for the citizens.

That is because the leaders who circle all of government around themselves are not interested in great policies or deliver the promised pledges to the communities since then they have to give away power. When a leader tries to strengthen the power all around themselves then the necessary leadership is not about the government, but about the person who rules. The ruler set the standard ,not the laws of the state or the laws of the Parliament. As the Executive can fix the Supreme Court, Constitutional Court, can rig the Constitution and make draconian laws that issues more help for the Executive; instead of the Constitution and the Parliament representing the citizens and for the citizens it becomes for the Executive.

That is why the Executive or the Ruler, the President doesn’t want to leave power since the whole state is built around the one person. The One Person who has in his image or her image built the government around themselves. And when they have it all for themselves they don’t have to fight for anything else then themselves. That is what matters, if he schools is depleting, health care is non-functioning, roads have bigger potholes then the ones on the moon, the government loans are worse than the subprime-mortgage and so on. That doesn’t matter because the situations doesn’t hit the Executive, because the government funds goes directly to him instead of the ministries, departments and sections of government than really-really need it!

The Power that starts with personal movement of fights and liberation, the ones that are personalized towards the one man who saved them all and then doesn’t leave is that the EGO and used to be center of attention. To have the voice of being right, so they can’t do things wrong in their own mind as they risk to lose their wealth and strength if they are out of office.

Some of these leaders have lived on the strength of the loyalty to foreign powers as they need their alliance in a region to secure peace in the neighbor country or during the cold war as the Americans did whatever they could to control the world and not lose nations to the Soviet communism. Therefore they fall of Said Barre of Somalia and the struggles of the Ethiopian Dirg of the 1970s. As the Cold War complex policies dissolved and built governments with influence of American and Russian strengths of the time. Take the example of President Mengistu Hailemariam who kept the Power from 1974 – 1991 with the Soviet influx and the Communist agenda that made the result of Somalia invasion with support of the Americans in 1977. So he himself had taken power in 1969 in Somalia the army fueled government of Said Barre as his power-play internally to keep the power together with the back and forth from the leadership at the time led to his fall, as he also had long-term squabble with Ogaden and Ethiopian neighbor after the tried invasion there. This the fall after 20 years might be because he circulated all power amongst himself and not in the powers of structures and department to delegate the powers.

That is the problem with the leaders who get fueled with power. They circulate all power and decisions are under the Executive. So with this in mind instead of building institutions and government structures, they build the armies and police force to enforce the Power of the Executive, not only to enforce national security, but to secure the Power of the Executive. Therefore the first to get payment are the armies and police officers before the teachers and other civil servants.

The Rulers and the Executives keeps the ignorant yes-men around them to secure that they don’t get to opportunist or wanting to get the Executive position. Therefore they elite around the Ruler get lots of perks, tax-exemptions, cars, housing and servants while the rest of the country can’t afford that. Unless it is foreign investors in businesses owned by the Party Elite or the Government elite that belongs to the inner-circle of the Executive; as the license and openings happens on the watch of the Executive and the Power not the legal justice system or the society binding corporate bondage towards the procedures of setting up business in the country. So the way the Executive get drunk on power is set on the fact that they having everything at nearly no cost.

The Presidents who are drunk on Power have centralized all powers around them and not the government structures and the decrees and the policies are made to keep them in power; not to build a grand state who offers their citizens what they need. Therefore the laws becomes for the MPs and the Elite that fuel the money and Power towards the President, then the President delivering to the People.

The remains of Mobutu’s Palce

So with the Inner-circle finding ways to support the President instead of serving the citizens as a government is supposed to do. Why are the Executive and rules high-on-power you asked?

That is because all of the Power, all of the resources and all of the goodwill of the nation is determined by the Executive. As the Power is resumed and determined by the Executive there is hard to leave that, as the knowledge of the system given to coming new leader can take away what the Executive already have built around itself. Therefore the security of having the power instead of giving it the next; that is why the lingering Executives and Presidents are like alcoholics!

Let me explain why the similarities are there. An Alcoholic has the hunger and need for another drink and beer. They do whatever they can to get another drink and beer, at all means and steal if they have to get that fizz. So the Alcoholic is so used to the alcohol that the feel of it weaken and needs much of it to feel it. The Alcoholic just need another brew and another brew. And never stops taking in the alcohol. In the beginning the alcoholic never think that they would end being so, and the same with power-hungry individual. It just became a habit. The alcoholic needs the alcohol, just as the Executive is drunk on power and needs some more drinks. The Executive gotten so used to and the habit of getting their will and generating the funds out of the governmental funds; so if they don’t get more the donor-funds or the Bretton-Woods Loans to their nations then they feel something is missing. They need the spotlight to be the king of the nation and the supreme ruler.

So the drunkenness and needed attention, the needed judgement and decision rate from the Executive that lingers in powers while they build the government system around themselves and weakens the people around them. So they are more needed and so that ambition gets squirrelled around them. There can only be one vision, one leader and one nation under God. That is the usual factor and the events that unfold as the dissidents and opposition get harsh treatment without any cost spared. Something that happens because they crossed the territory of the Executive and the rules of set-up by the President and the predicated actions are seen as violations of laws and constitution; that apparently been rigged in favor of current leader. Therefore another bottle of beer for the President as the sufficient drunkenness of power is staggering. Suddenly change would be hard and taken with haste. Because the drunken leaders will with force and madness go all-inn if they all of sudden loose it, they will be become bush-warriors or stealing elections to continue their Presidency. As we have seen through 2015 and 2016 that is how far these leaders goes to get the shot of power and not stop drinking from the fountain of government power. Peace.