Publication date: Monday, 16th May, 2005
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MULTI-SKILLED: Matthew Okai, former chief agricultural economist, gives his views on the economy and the youth |
By Denis Ocwich
HE speaks like an economist, reasons like a professor, dresses like a diplomat and physically looks like a retired senior public officer. At 67, he looks 10 years younger — probably because of good feeding and keeping his brain active in the international scope.
With 35 years of his professional work rotating around agricultural economics, Prof Matthew Okai, has mastered his trade.
After nearly 30 years living overseas, he is now back home to lend his skill to enhance economic development in Uganda. President Yoweri Museveni recently appointed him a member of Bank of Uganda (BOU) board of directors.
So, from his standpoint, how is the course of Uganda’s economic development?
“Having been monitoring Uganda’s economy from outside, I would say the growth we are recording at the moment is what I would term ‘recovery growth’. It is not yet real growth,” says Okai, who, in the 1970s, was the government’s chief economist at the ministry of agriculture.
Although he acknowledges the miles covered over the last couple of years, he believes the economic development of today is still below the graph of the 1960s.
“In the 1960s things were growing very well...” recounts the father of seven, who holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics. He says in 1980/81, the World Bank said it would take Uganda 40 years to reach the level of income it enjoyed in 1969 — in real terms.
Whereas some people blame the Idi Amin government (1971-79) for ruining Uganda’s vibrant economy by, among others, hurried expulsion of the Asians, Okai thinks otherwise.
He says the chasing of Asians was not Amin’s brainchild but a “move-to-the-left” strategy started by Obote to indigenise the economy by shifting monopoly of business from the Asians to Africans.
As a chief planner then, Okai and his minister of agriculture Felix Okware, were the architects of the Cooperative Day speech (in 1972), in which Amin dropped the bombshell against the Asians by giving them only three months to quit Uganda.
“After reading what we had written that the Asians had been milking the cow (Uganda’s economy) without feeding it, then he (Amin) said, ‘I am going to expel them,’” Okai recounts.
What followed was the setting up of a six-man committee of technocrats to sketch out the economic roadmap in the aftermath of the Asians’ departure.
“The term of reference was: How are we going to run the country after the Asians have left,” he says.
Thank God things never flew out of hand, the shortage of some commodities notwithstanding. “So we said it would take Uganda sometime to produce its own skills,” he says, adding that today, Uganda beats many developing countries in a number of social indicators.
The first things which dazzled him on return to the country were the sprouting permanent houses across the country, the epicentre of it being Kampala with many glittering storied buildings.
Similarly, he is impressed by the liberalisation of education. Unlike his undergraduate student days at Makerere (1961-64), when less than 300 students used to graduate from Makerere in a year, the number is more than 10 times today at Makerere alone.
He, however, sees the need for the universities to extend to marginalised areas, other than being clustered in the south.
He further observes because of scarcity of jobs, graduates today walk out of university without getting jobs.
This contrasts sharply with the past when fat-paying jobs would be waiting for graduates just as they leave campus.
“So, to have a competitive edge, don’t just take one skill (course) and say I am now a graduate, no! It has no meaning now,” he argues.
“You must have multiple skills.”
Although Okai is thumbs-up for the improved transport and social stability of the country, two other things worry him: The radical nature (lack of discipline) of the youths, and the poor state of roads.
“You find a road is resurfaced, and after probably only a year it is already falling apart...” he laments.
“Now that there is a (national) planning authority, these are the things that the government needs to carefully study and take into account.”
From his new vantage position in the BOU, Okai’s experience in planning and development will, hopefully, come in handy.
At least he will no longer be just the passive observer; he will put his vast experience to good use, to help shape Uganda’s economy in general.
Ends
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