Uganda needs leaders who are wealth creators

Oct 10, 2005

<b>Paul Busharizi</b><br><br>The Independence day celebrations came and went with little fanfare except around the Kololo airstrip. Blame this apathy on a post-colonial leadership that has failed to translate political independence into meaningful improvements in the lives of its citizens.

Paul Busharizi

The Independence day celebrations came and went with little fanfare except around the Kololo airstrip. Blame this apathy on a post-colonial leadership that has failed to translate political independence into meaningful improvements in the lives of its citizens. It is an indictment on our leaders that there are people who still hunker for the colonial era when service delivery was efficient and one had to look up the spelling of corruption. So what went wrong?

Answers can be found in how leaders chose to win and hang on to power as well as the confusion about which model - capitalism, socialism or a hybrid of both that would deliver the goods.

Under the present regime a deluge of “goodwill” by western donors has rehabilitated basic infrastructure, restored social services and driven an economic rebound that sees us back to pre-Idi Amin era levels.

So assuming October 9, 1962 was today what would be needed to take us to the Promised Land?

Governments are as legitimate as their ability to create the enabling environment for the improvement of the people's living standards.
In justifying a suspension of political party activity in 1986, the NRM was right in its analysis that it is near impossible to graft a text book democracy on a predominantly peasant economy.

That in the absence of across-the-board national economic classes, political contests can only be disruptive.

External pressure more than anything has forced this government to capitulate and revert to multi-party politics. However the issues of economic stratification and the ensuing sustainable politics have still not been resolved.

When you have a political class that has or represents no economic interest beyond parasitic consumerism, the scope for progressive policy is limited. It is the reason why the eastern highway can fall apart, as none of our politicians are exporters, importers or manufacturers to be concerned about the resultant delays of a shutdown.

It is the reason why we still have frequent power outages, as the only discomfort our politicians suffer during load shedding is the few minutes of darkness when they cannot find their beer bottle.
In neighbouring Kenya legislators have just passed a Bill that will make mortgage payments tax deductible.

This will boost the construction industry and ensure political stability, because after all, who will go to the bush when he still has 13 years to go on their mortgage? In Uganda, it is asking too much from our political class to deliver us from poverty and disease when most of them are not wealth creators, cannot compete in the job market and have never been formally employed.

The writer is Business Editor
New Vision

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