How Ugandans Ended into Servitude There are two remarkable advertisements running in Uganda media these days. One is invitation for prequalification for provision of consultancy services for the proposed BEAUTIFICATION of Entebbe-Kampala road corridor.
Among others in the advert is the - Demolition of unsightly kiosks, stall and latrine replacing them with organised ones. - Proper and hygienic market premises - Patterned grass and tree planting - Renovation and painting of road side structures - Wise use of wetlands - Stop rod side trading, jua kali etc, - Relocation of billboards - Establishment of good agricultural practices. If the government feels embarrassed with the grotesque scenery why not relocate the Ugandas Capital City to Mbarara for example? What is meant with the establishment of good agricultural practices along Entebbe Kampala road? Mulching, irrigation, large scale farming, hybrid farming?! Our people should really be worried. Already land along that road had been sold off to flower farmers without due regard to environmental concerns. The government is very silent about it. Flower farms are known for their excessive use of herbicides and pesticides. In the Soviet Russia, the state due to its impotence, could plough miles and miles of land plant it with Irish potatoes or cotton farms, without scientifically analysing the consequence of such acts. Diversion of water from Amu Darya and Sry Darya to irrigate cotton fields dramatically led to a near demise of fish rich Aral Sea. It had never recovered and the cotton fields turned in salt rocks! Potatoes could rot in the soil, as there were no mechanised systems to harvest them large farms on time. Sometimes, the state could bring in the army recruits to harvest 10s of kilometres of potato farms but with a miserable success! Russians nearly starved! Exactly as with the National Resistance Movement Regime in Uganda, the Soviet Russian intentions were overtly political and emotions of the ruling class rather than socio-economic needs and environmental concerns of the society. Reading through a set of things the ministry wanted a consultant to do, I realised they could have been done by a district physical planning department in Wakiso. Not least Entebbe municipality, which is a planning authority in Entebbe together with their counterparts in Kampala City Council, at a low cost to the taxpayer, could do a better job. In fact such things would not be strange to them as they are today. Imagine gross ignorance i.e. where renovation and painting of roadside structures. How many are they? It were to be done in a better-organised manner, imparting skills into our citizen, certainly there would be proper planning, organisation and hygiene. The government as a primitive entity that it is, its ad hoc acts, thinking today, of something they would have done years ago compounds the socio-psychology of the ruling class in Uganda. One cant delink ones upbringing with ones way of thinking it is a fact of cultural sociology. Rethinking over the issue I could not fail to laugh at national resistance movement mannerism. Entebbe Kampala road is 38 km. Except for the common wealth meeting here in Uganda due next year, the African has seen a necessity to beautify and even plan the entire corridor as a major gateway out of this country. Beautification is for the foreigners, an act not so important for Ugandans. What a colonial mentality?! Last night Saturday 9th 2006, I went to Karelwe and passed through Wandegeya, the conditions at that market place is deplorable. Tears filled my eyes as men, women and their children were involved in what appeared to be brisk business-on the surface. That was past 8.00 oclock in the evening. I could not comprehend the darkness into the market area, munaku tadobba (paraffin tin lamps) giving a faint lease of light behind stalls of merchandise. Looked like a midnight street candle prayer. A sea tramping into the mud knee high was quite disheartening. All over this country, it is the same despicable and unsightly scenery. Our people have become a social disgrace, at their own peril, a situation they surely cant do nothing about. Reports allege powerful politicians and army officers have made efforts to grab huge chunks of miles of land along the road including Kisubi school land. Second advert coming only weeks after the first one, is to construct a road to Munyonyo! Ill look for the details. As norm suggests this one too is to construct what is going to become a common wealth road to a Multimillion Munyonyo resort beach. So far Nakasero is UTV or hospital has been earmarked for a 90 million dollar hotel that in addition to Shimoni primary and teachers college hotel rated to be in billions of shillings. Heres where antediluvian emotions override common sensuality and rationalism. Nakasero hill will soon have more hotels than the rest of Uganda. What more can one say? Even the colonialist never went that far! Revolutionary rhetoric and verbosity; self-integrated economy, swine, aah what a contradiction! Europeans built schools in appropriate location now being relocated by revolutionaries to serve their own political egos. What is left for Uganda to be called a nation state? Dairy Corporation or Uganda Railways? No! If you were not in the bushes of Luwero, were so many perished for reasons their knew nothing about then you do not share in the booty. A new colonialism has started in earnest by a revolution. Once Ugandans were discovered to be terribly backward and so primitive to even manage a latrine today donated and managed by NGOs and CBO foreign funded entities, their ability to do anything by themselves has been phased out. It is sickening to a shocking degree. Bwanika in Kampala 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. ---------------------------------------
