Museveni Corruption Now Out In The Open

Why 'Unwanted' Donors Won't Leave Soon
Simwogerere Kyazze
The Nation (Nairobi)

COLUMN
May 8, 2005
Posted to the web May 9, 2005

Question: If Ugandans are to a woman, man and child fed up of donors and their money, why can't these good people leave the poor country alone? Answer: Because they can't.

Or at least not just yet, is another possible answer. The donor community, it seems, doesn't have many friends in Kampala these days. The media and academic types blame them - with good reason - for nurturing such an unsustainable level of dependency that if they were to suddenly withdraw their dollars and euros, the Ugandan economy would likely suffer cardiac arrest. Politicians of all shades are also fed up of the donors, but each group has its reasons.

Inside government, donors have been demonised for constantly running interference with Uganda's internal affairs. Just last month, Britain suspended a 5 million Pound Sterling (Sh 490 billion) loan facility, citing Kampala's failure to stick to its own targets concerning the transition to multi-party democracy.

Tony Blair's government has come under intense domestic criticism for hobnobbing with pseudo democracies like Uganda, and this could be a one-off event to reclaim some credibility. But viewed in the context of similar comments from the US and other development partners, Britain' criticism of Uganda's lack of commitment to democracy has taken a definite pattern. President Museveni was so upset that he penned one of his usual missives (this one started as a May Day speech read for him by his deputy and ended up as an opinion article in the major newspapers).

The president boasted that the Uganda Revenue Authority can now collect enough taxes to dispense with "these so-called donors."

"If we achieve the tax/GDP collection ratio of 24 percent," the president said "we shall not need the ignominious practice of dealing with the so-called donors whose meddling is partially responsible for the perpetuation of terrorism in Northern Uganda, the present load-shedding of electricity and the removal of tax holidays for investors that somehow affected our investment tempo."

The politicians who want to take Mr. Museveni's job can't stand the donors either. They blame the World Bank and IMF for basically helping the government to perpetuate itself in power by subsidising such expensive undertakings as healthcare and Universal Primary Education. By unburdening the government of these money-guzzlers the opposition argues, donors allow Mr. Museveni to pour domestic tax revenues into wasteful expenditure and on shopping for more sophisticated instruments of coercion. These guys would also like to see the back of the donors.

But the the long-suffering peasants is probably the reason why some of these donors stay. I mean look at Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe has been demonised everywhere and he has demonised everyone back over his land-grabs, strident demagoguery and his anti-democratic stance of recent years. Yet world bodies like the World Food Programme have just issued another appeal to Bwana Bob to allow them back into the country so they can feed his starving countrymen and women. Indeed, the entire African continent is dotted with small, disparate but vital pockets of foreign expertise in healthcare, civil engineering, nutrition, education and other areas where people do some amazing things for Africans whose names they cannot pronounce, in exchange for abstract concepts such as heaven.

Uganda has a few of such fellows. But like Ghana in the 1980s, Uganda is also so wrapped up in the mythology of donor-driven growth and development that our friends in Britain and the US cannot afford to see it fail. With Flt. Lt. Jerry John Kwasi Rawlings riding roughshod over colleagues and minions in the West African country (once even boxing his very old and frail vice president), Ghana had the 'fastest' growing economy in Africa in the 1980s. The World Bank and IMF helped Rawlings & Friends set up a string of white elephant projects and for a while, there was a measure of growth.

President Museveni is just a latter-day Lt. Rawlings-a dashing soldier-cum-politician with the donors' ear whose country has done marginally better than others in similar situations, but whose policies make sustainability impossible. When he talks about expanding the tax base for example, the president is not really going to use some of that money to establish a social security system that gives a stipend to Ugandans without jobs. It is not to buy hi-tech heart equipment at Mulago Hospital, or for a massive adult literacy campaign.

Indeed, the profligacy of Uganda's political class has grown in proportion to the amount of money collected. When Uganda's coffers were empty, way back in 1986, Mr. Museveni said he did not need to shop from Europe or North America and suggested he would wear a sack-cloth if his wife chose it for him. Revenue collections soon picked up, and the president's wardrobe likewise improved (no doubt Janet Museveni was now shopping at Harrods and Saks Fifth Avenue). He now has some expensive toys too (including at $38 million presidential jet, spanking helicopter and soon, a brand new state house).

He also jacked up a personal bureaucracy that serves at his beck and call. His personal bodyguard is now the size of a small national army, his ministers are over 60, the parliament has over 300 MPs, the districts are 56 (they have been sub-divided so many times that most are unviable), he has a cortege of Presidential Advisors, District Resident Administrators and security chiefs all paid from the public purse. Add on officials from the politburo-like Movement secretariat, and you have one of the most wasteful public administration systems in Africa.

Has the president pledged to cut down his own profligacy to finance a Medical Aid scheme for Ugandans over 60? Instead, not too long ago, he ordered the Bank of Uganda to pay off the debt of a local businessman whose biggest claim to fame is a gaudy spendthrift lifestyle. Cost: U Sh 20 billion (Sh 800m). He also decided (on his own) to pay the school fees of his former vice president at Harvard University at the incredible cost of U Sh 2.5billion (Sh 100m). And these are the 'chits' we know of.

Of course the donors tolerate this because Mr. Museveni (and Uganda) is still riding the same triumphalist wave Ghana rode 20 year ago. But as Baba Daniel arap Moi found out in 1992, these donors can be as mean as snakes. They cut him off without a penny, and set in motion the events that eventually propelled Mwai Kibaki into power in 2002.

Mr Museveni should be careful what he wishes for.

He might get it.

Urbane Analysis: This from Kenya. And when stated plainly in this way, is absolutely galling. It clearly demonstrates the enormous depths of corruption and greed in the Museveni regime. As noted earlier, Britain has "called the question" on Museveni's severe addiction to the rake. When are we going to hear from Condoleeza Rice about how the U.S. will respond to this situation - we need a coherent policy that "kneecaps" corruption, yet avoids untoward harm of the fragile food lifeline, health care infrastructure, and education initiatives (no one can call it a system in Uganda). American initiative is needed that does not inflame passion or violence, but taking a chance on violent outbreaks while doing nothing is an option that the U.S. cannot afford. Uganda is next door to Rwanda, after all. As this report from the National Defense University states:

Coping with Africa's disorder and stagnation will usually be attempted through active diplomacy and assistance for long-term development, but from time to time, sanctions and at least the credible threat of force will be required.

The U.S. has "propped up" the Museveni regime with more than cash: many years of Special Forces military training adds to the burden of managing responsible outcomes. The war on terror means Africa cannot be relegated to some "minor" problem desk deep in the State Department. As Colin Powell has adroitly noted on many occasions, the outcome of our struggle against radicalized jihadist Muslim extremists is no more (or less) a function of how well WE (the U.S. and Europe) partner, and succeed - against war, illness and malnutrition - particularly in Africa, where conditions are worst. Killing bad guys is tactically important, but a strategic side show. Defeating conditions that allow bad guys to look like heroes is the real challenge. Now, when can we finally get started? Pulling out the props on Museveni, without further delay, is job one.