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LoP Joel Ssenyonyi taking oath at parliament last month
Dear comrades in opposition politics – especially in parliament – you must have seen my face as I watched you swear in for office.
You were all smiles. In a poor country, you should have worn overalls, accompanied with battle-hardened faces. There should be nothing to celebrate. Many Ugandans frown at parliament: a house of 550 legislators designed for 180, taking home obscene perks (Shs 4.3bn a term) for doing almost nothing.
Our biases and disdain aside, you are already in that house, and no one can change that fact. While your numbers are small, you can actually change things. My friends, Nkunyingi Muwada, Ana Adeke Ebaju, George Musisi, Oneka Lit, Kaps Fungaroo, Francis Zaake, among many others, this appeal is made to you.
First, any promise to end the reign of Gen. Yoweri Museveni is simply selling Uganda a pipe dream. Museveni defeated us. And while promises of the struggle sound good, we don’t seem to have a solid plan for it.
If Museveni decides to stand again in 2031, he’ll retain the presidency. Look, beyond our collective dislike for it, I am not even sure we –– including myself –– are organized at all to stop his son from becoming the next president.
But despite this seemingly bleak picture ahead of us, there are things we can do to improve our lives in Uganda. To this end, I am appealing to legislators to take a shot at building a legacy. Parliament ought to be an activist platform: Lobby, raise awareness, draft private members bills, insist, fight!
Define the agenda in very strict terms – and leave kulabisa to CSOs, activists, and media. Instead of sitting back and waiting to respond to Museveni’s proposals (which will always pass), set the pattern. I’ll briefly touch some examples:
MINIMUM WAGE
Ugandan workers need a minimum wage. Companies and employers in Uganda are extremely exploitative. It’s worse among foreign companies. With a minimum wage, employed Ugandans would then have enough to spend, and employers would not be making a killing. Someone ought to lead this movement.
PUBLIC COMPANIES
Ugandans are toiling under the weight of taxes. We pay the biggest amount of tax in the region. In the case of PAYE for example, it is not even about double taxation, but being taxed for spending.
After one has paid PAYE, even withdrawing what is left from their accounts is taxed. If sending the same money over which one paid PAYE via their Mobile Phones, another tax is collected! With all our technological advances, why aren’t we able to track money against which PAYE was paid already?
There is an even bigger point for me. During the Mabira Forest protest of 2007, we learned in a New Vision lead story (April 12, 2007) that Mehta Group (which includes SCOUL, UGMA Steel and Engineering Ltd, Cable Corporation, Tea Estates and Luwala Tea Estates) are 51 percent owned by government.
But the books of this company have remained hidden since 1980. Why are we not collecting revenue from this company? Many other companies have Ugandan majority shareholding but their books remain unknown. Who are they and why are their books hidden? Instead of suffocating Ugandans with taxes, we have uncollected monies here.
PEARL BANK AND UGANDA TELCOM
I am an advocate of many small banks across the country. This is the German and Japanese high-growth model. Many small banks, with local context specific legislation. Why do laws governing banks for wealthy Kampala borrowers get to be applied to poor farmers in Masaka or Kotido?
Pearl Bank Jinja branch
Why should it be the same amount of money to start a bank for both Kampala and Bukedea? Why don’t we have a law compelling all public servants to have their salaries paid in the only available public bank, Pearl Bank (formerly Postbank)?
Why not support our local bank by channeling all public money through it? Why open it to competition with private foreign banks? Why not extend a similar favour to Uganda Telecom, where all government institutions are directed to use the only national telecom?
PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SERVICE – CONFLICT OF INTEREST
I am forever disturbed by how Uganda missed passing a core legislation when we entered privatization: an absolute conflict of interest, which has entirely undermined public service delivery.
It is only in Uganda where one finds a doctor at a public facility (such as Mulago Hospital) doubling as a private investor in the health sector with a pharmacy or private clinic. It is only in Uganda that one finds a headteacher, a minister, or commissioner of public schools in the ministry of Education, also doubling as an owner of a private school.
Under such conflicts of interest, there is no motivation for a doctor or commissioner of education to ensure public hospitals and schools work. Today, even the private sector services are so poor because there is simply no competition.
RESIGNING JOBS TO STAND FOR OFFICE
For political contests, one of the most damaging legislations happened in 2005. Far more damaging than the lifting of term and age limit legislation is the requirement for public servants to resign their jobs three months to nomination for elective office.
If one sat down to break down the implications of this legislation 20 years on, it is that our politics has (a) been left to the worst of us as we locked many able Ugandans out of politics. Relatedly, (b) political participation has become a do-or-die affair.
Once one decides to stand, they have to win by all means. (c) Politics ceased being patriotic public service, but rather a job to extract as much public funds as possible. No wonder, many former MPs and politicians fall on bad times after leaving office.
My sense is that even NRM legislators are unaware of these things and given the chance of exposure, they might find these issues collectively beneficial – and will support any motions.
yusufkajura@gmail.com
The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University.
Related
, https://observer.ug/viewpoint/what-would-an-opposition-legislative-agenda-look-like/
