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--- Begin Message ---What is Museveni's vision for Uganda?
By Andrew M. Mwenda
Jan 18 - 24, 2004
For sometime now, President Yoweri Museveni has been arguing that any discussion of a possible transition from his leadership to his successor should have a "vision" as the central element.
By claiming to have a vision for this country, and accusing his opponents of possessing none, Mr Museveni has set the terms of the debate.
Thus, all responses to the president that I have read or heard of carry an underlying theme that Museveni has a vision for Uganda, and should (for his supporters) continue to lead or (for his opponents) let others to organise under political parties in order to generate their own vision.
For me however, President Museveni's claim to have a vision just begs the question: what is the president's vision for this country? Where is it articulated? How can one find and read it?
The president has referred us to other visionaries like Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammed, Karl Marx and Adam Smith.
Jesus' vision is outlined in the New Testament of the Bible while Mohammed's is in the Koran. Marx's vision is in the three volumes of Capital and in the Communist Manifesto while that of Adam Smith is in the Wealth of Nations.
Is President Museveni's vision articulated in the NRM's Ten Point Programme?
How much of this is his thinking?
Is it in his autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed?
The book is statement of a personal search for political power. Is it in his series of speeches published under the title What is Africa's Problem?
The speeches attempt a diagnosis of a problem and hardly offer a solution. Is the president's vision to be found in the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP), a policy framework through which government intends to eradicate poverty?
That is a product of a process in which the president's input is least. Or is it in a series of speeches, comments, discussions, etc - that he has given at rallies, press conferences and interviews?
I have been a keen follower of the president's ideas - expressed in his writings, speeches, interviews etc since my childhood. I harbour a private admiration for the man inspite of my criticism, but frankly it is difficult to discern a clearly articulated vision for Uganda.
A vision is an image of one's future.
What is President Museveni's image of Uganda's future?
He often says that he wants to see Uganda transform from a backward, "pre-industrial" society into an industrialised nation.
Well, Milton Obote, Idi Amin, even Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire, and Samuel Doe of Liberia said the same.
Obote, in the 1960s, said Uganda's problems were poverty, ignorance and disease, and that the solution was socialist development through Import Substitution and Industrialisation to a future of "freedom and prosperity." The reference is the Common Man's Charter.
Idi Amin's future of Uganda was a wealthy military super power built around indigenous capital - hence the chasing away of Asians and Europeans.
If vision is a mere projection of a future, then even James Rwanyarare and Ken Lukyamuzi - politicians whom I take least seriously - have a vision for Uganda.
In this respect, merely stating that he wants an industrialised Uganda does not set Museveni apart from this brand of politicians in Uganda and Africa.
If we are to take President Museveni seriously and set him apart from Samuel Doe, Siad Barre, Jean Bokasa, Daniel Arap Moi, etc., then we must critically assess the relationship between his "vision" (i.e. industrialisation), and the institutional and policy framework he has put in place to reach that destination.
In other words, we are moving the discussion from mere desire to industrialise (which every politician on the street, every tomato vendor, pick pocket and peasant in a village can and has said about Africa) to crystallise the robustness of a vision backed by a strategy to achieve it.
The Ten Point Programme seemed to suggest that Uganda would be transformed through import substitution industrialisation (remember "building an independent, integrated and self sustaining economy"?), a state-led mixed economy, and through barter trade?
Unlike Prof. Dan Nabudere who says the president abandoned this vision, I think Museveni got the NRM only to change their strategy.
Through influence of the World Bank and the IMF, the president now believes in export promotion industrialisation, through private sector-led growth.
Does Uganda's current macro-economic policy framework provide a foundation for export promotion and industrialisation through private sector-led growth?
Does Uganda have the requisite institutional structure to support such a process?
Do state institutions in Uganda relate to the private sector in ways that promote its competitiveness? Does President Museveni's political management style promote the building of the kind of institutions that can propel Uganda towards industrialisation?
We must remember that desire which is not backed by the right policy environment, appropriate ties with private sector actors and the necessary institutional capacity is meaningless.
Development experience from Europe to North America, and now to East Asia teaches us that industrialisation has been achieved through selective industrial policy.
However, Uganda's macroeconomic policy framework promoted by the IMF/ World Bank, and supported by the core bureaucrats at our Finance and Planning ministry are opposed to this.
The United States (refer to Alexander Hamilton) and Germany (refer to Friedrich List) would never have industrialised if they had not protected their infant industries from the cold winds of international competition - from British goods.
The latter was the first country to undergo an industrial revolution.
This same experience has been replicated in the Nordic countries and the newly industrialised nations of East Asia. While tariff protection was the basis for industrialisation of the USA and Germany, late developers like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have relied on subsidy.
However, in all cases, we see one common pattern: selected and targeted interventions to restrict foreign competition and promote local industry; building strong and autonomous state institutions - where recruitment is based on professional merit rather than tribal, religious or political grounds; state policy makers linked to private entrepreneurial elites through relations that promote productivity.
Which institutions has Museveni fostered in this country with the discipline and capacity to make targeted interventions in the economy to promote industrialisation?
What relations exist between the state in Uganda and nascent entrepreneurial groups that are structured to reward and promote private sector productivity?
The recent debacle concerning Apparel Tri Star, which got cheap credits, loan guarantees and other state subsidies from government worth Shs 17b, clearly demonstrates that Mr Museveni presides over an institutionally incompetent and politically predatory state that cannot be an agent of industrialisation.
- Continues next week
© 2004 The Monitor Publications
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