The Ugandan press reports that the Public Private Partnership Bill 2014 has for the second time been sent back to Parliament for amendment. The main contention appears to be a clause where parliament will be mandated to approve all Public Private Partnerships (PPP). To put it bluntly, a PPP is a business deal between government and individuals who front their privately owned companies for projects. But the bill is now caught in turbulence caused by two conflicting interests: 1 - Fighting Corruption: The main reason why parliament wants oversight on PPP approvals. 2 - Attracting Investors: The executive claims to want to ease foreign investment thereby requesting for the removal of hurdles (parliamentary oversight) on PPP's in the bill.
While both sides appear to have a noble cause, governments endemic corruption record is well known. Under the privatization program, it was alledged that government companies were sold to serving officials who then cut deals and obtained contracts with government (basically themselves). To put our ethical standards in their right perspective, remember the recent case where Hon. Minister Sam Kuteesa couldn't get his current UN job as General Assembly President until he first resigned as ENHAS director. The UN is a client to his ENHAS company so he would have been vending his service to himself using the UN where he works. This situation would have been outrageously scandalous for the United Nations had it been discovered later that he owned the company. Uganda's ethics standards are obviously below what is acceptable because such conflict of interest by our senior officials is politically approved here. The same gentleman has been a serving Foreign Minister for years and the government he serves has deals with his company. When it was said that the entire Diary Corporation of Uganda was sold for one dollar in the late 90's, it is too easy for citizens to imagine some government official attempting to sell the company to him/herself on the cheap. >From that perspective, the privatization policy appears as a scam by a state click to defraud the nation rather than a substantial project by patriots to build the country. I have previously argued that Uganda's current economic model can be termed as "Theft-Based Development". Its basic rule is that if officials can "eat" from a project (get kickbacks), then that project will see the light of day. The official will also then invest the "eaten" proceeds in mansions, private land, businesses and/or latest 4WD vehicles. Therefore the so-called development we see. But before unscrupulous individuals took charge in the 80's, there had never been a single government company that collapsed. That is a verifiable fact. So if todays government already disqualified itself previously from business at the time they lainched privatization, (actially admitting that they were incapable) how come they aré interested again in business just a decade later and aré now even insisting that the watchman (parliamentary vetting) be removed? This U-turn that I have written about, could confirm widely held suspicions that privatization was just an excuse for looting the state with a certain groups self enrichment as the main goal and their servants picking the crumbs while the nation gets nothing. Sadly, isn't opportunism rearing its ugly head here? Because only a person with ill intentions removes the States safeguards. Hussein Juruga Lumumba Amin Kampala
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