>From a Nation to a Predatory state Now that the new districts have voted in their women mps our parliamentary members population is coming to something like 400 people! We now have more than 70 districts. Heavens forbid if this middle class can and will ever redeem this country!
Three months ago, deeply involved in studying Ugandas institutions, I come to shocking discoveries, and how Uganda as a nation state has virtually collapsed. Ill not go into details of all the most important people in this country Ive personally interviewed or interacted with in my line of duty. As a badly drunken person without clear direction, the nation staggers on to nowhere! A highly experienced professor of politics has confided into me that indeed a nation can collapse but yet still exist I forgot the terminology. He adds, such a state will be accompanied by set of very disturbing events among which is; primitive accumulation, disrespect of the law, blatant corruption etc,. Going by the violations of the law by the very state custodians, from the executive to the powerful at bottom scale, predatory patterns state of governance is well established. I now highly doubt if Uganda has a future. Matter of concern, is how a country can correct irreversible damage NRM has done to it. Really, if Idi Amin was a buffoon, so illiterate, I would like to question you to let me know why under his tenure none of the institution given below, were sold and he kept them in functioning state albeit dismally? I am prompted to interview the directors who managed these entities under Idi Amin and seek their version and opinion. 1. Nation Housing Construction Corporation now a limited company, is presently owned partly by Libyans in a debt swap accrued from constant wars that Uganda failed to pay back. Notice that over 90 of Ugandans have no proper housing facilitation. Wouldnt National Housing Construction Corporation have transformed into a construction engineering company involved in dam and road engineering? 2. Uganda Airlines (Idi Amins creation), efforts I hear are being made revive it through different channels including with the help of VIRGIN boss Mr. Branson, who was here on a short visit for the same purpose. Ugandans flower export including fresh items like foodstuffs to Europe is in millions of dollars. Fresh fruits brought in us $ 12,000,000 million last year according to new vision business page of 15th march 2006. 3. Uganda Railways Corporation is a ghost entity and during Idi Amin it never stopped to work only when the war caught up with it. It is under a concession to wrangle filled South African company. If a kilometre of a road cost ug shs 250,000,000 million how could Uganda Railways Corporation be a non-profit making entity? And if the facts were such that the modernisation of agriculture was a really tool for development not a gimmick would Kasese have become a hub (Kabale, Bushenyi, Mbarara) for agriculture export to Kampala? 4. Uganda hotels, I remember had the best utensils I have ever seen clearly marked (UH) Uganda hotels. Now interestingly Uganda hotels operated all along the 70s but the tourist population was so lower to imagine UH profitability. Wonder how such an entity could be sustained without a profit and yet employ so many Ugandans. 5. Uganda Cooperative Bank collapses during the revolutionary era of the 80s not because it had no clear-headed organisation and supervision work, which NRM can only explain. Why the cooperative bank never went down in the seventies where there was no vibrant modernisation of agriculture is still a mystery to me. 6. Uganda Transport Union with all its property is now but a past dream. I remember clearly how these entities worked during that period without a hitch. Explain to me how it went under during the revolutionary era. 7. Uganda Commercial Bank (Stanbic) a well-facilitated bank with priceless assets with a concurrent cumulate value, were first stolen in the bush war and even then it never went down not until the revolution brought it to its knees. It is amazing that a fool that Idi Amin, never stole money from the bank to buy weapons or to invest in his military personnel and aides. 8. Uganda Electricity Board an entity to provide cheap power to the citizens is as well a dead entity with its internal decentralisation of core provisions; generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity is a well dead entity. In its place we have rural electrification agency and power regulation authority the provision you can imagine UEB could not provide. In the electricity act 1964 there is a provision for private power production. 9. Uganda Transport Company was replaced by the metal matatus owned by of course by the middle class. With their fuel consumption now slated at over a ug shs 100,000,000 per month, it is has become one of the states lucrative income earner. Pity that we do not know how to solve the fuel impasse that is clearly destroying the environment. 10. Uganda TransOcean was dismantled during the war only be replaced by what I do not know. 11. Uganda Development Bank it has been discovered is a necessary tool in development now it is being revived by state capitalisation! Laughable isnt it? Was the Uganda Development Bank propensity not hinged on a vibrant private sector? 12. Meat parkers could not be saved by the pastoralists despite the fact that Uganda is mobilising for meat export via the modernisation of agriculture. It will be flown out of the country and the cheapest means railway transport go to the dogs 13. The Lint Marketing Board could have been transformed into Agoa but then Agoa came to late when the game plan was all over praise the spirited investors. 14. I started writing this article a few days ago on today I have read this in the New Vision about Kategayas Book the necessity to retire is even more so in our situation where state institutions are not firmly functional and decisions are taken on almost a personal basis. What is in place? Where is the state? B. in Kampala, Uganda. Bwanika ________ http://www.idrconsulting.com --> for your consultancy needs _______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list Ugandanet@kym.net http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
