The government must stop giving free things to the public

Apr 22, 2013

I recently heard that Members of Parliament during the Kyankwanzi retreat asked the President that the Youth Fund be withdrawn from the commercial banks and be distributed through districts and the sub-counties.

By Mwesigwa Silver

I recently heard that Members of Parliament during the Kyankwanzi retreat asked the President that the Youth Fund be withdrawn from the commercial banks and be distributed through districts and the sub-counties. The main argument is that the banks require so many conditions to meet before the money is accessed.

I personally believe this will be the worst mistake, if such a proposal is adopted. Ideally, this money is supposed to support enterprising young Ugandans who are already involved in small scale businesses or can convince the lending institutions that they have viable business plans/proposals. The low interest rate given by the government on the youth fund should be the only motivating factor to the borrowers.

Some of the best government programmes that have failed or are bound to fail have been victims of the mentality of the programme implementers and beneficiaries that services must be for free. Take an example of NAADS, which in principle was supposed to be an advisory service provider, but has ended up supplying goats, cows, banana stems, cassava cuttings, maize and beans seedlings, etc.  

At the sub county level, NAADs receives over sh80m annually while the road fund is between sh3-6m annually. For the last two years that I have been a community leader, I have failed to find a single family in the sub-county of Nyamuyanja where I am the area councilor, which has had a direct improvement in socio-economic terms as a result of NAADS intervention.

Yet on a sad note, recently, when I was in the village, I met farmers carrying bunches of matooke on their heads for over three kilometers of distance to the better parts of the road because the matooke trucks could not navigate the impassable roads; the traders were buying bunch of matooke at sh3,000 instead of the normal sh10,000 because of the bad roads. It is at that moment that I wished  that  the sh80m in NAADs had been given to us to improve the road network and our farmers would not be selling their hard worked for matooke for sh3,000 instead of the sh10,000.

I have used NAADS as an example but there are several programmes; we all remember the Entandikwa money, the Boona Bagagawale money, etc where we can not statistically trace the impact on the reduction of poverty in the communities.
The recent programmes that have fallen prey to this deadly syndrome of free services for all are the UPE, USE and the Health care system at the lower health centers.  

On one of the routine visits at one of the primary schools in Isingiro district, I found a Primary Four kid who had no school uniform and had never carried lunch to school as per the head teacher. When I followed up the case and met the father of the boy, he told me the president assured them that UPE was for free and, therefore, he did not have to do anything.

 I have so far visited 10 schools since mid-last year and in each school; there are at least 30 pupils who do not have lunch, uniforms, books and other necessities. Surprisingly,  on meeting their parents, all of them were earning not less than sh200,0000 per month, and were spending most of it on alcohol, roasted meat and pool table games as some of them admitted.

There must be several similar stories across the country. Most parents especially men in the villages have abandoned their primary duties of taking care of their families, they no longer do simple tasks like bulungi bwansi, simply because the Government will take care of everything. At a recent community meeting, some women asked us to pressure the Government to re-introduce graduated tax because they claim their men used to be productive and hard working during those old days of graduated tax.

A recent survey by the Isingiro district finance department found that about sh450m enters the district on a daily basis from the sale of matooke alone. Unfortunately, the number of trucks carrying sodas and beers entering the district is equal to the trucks leaving the district with matooke.

It is very true that most men and a few women in the village and towns have less motivation to work because on a daily basis, they are being reminded by politicians and RDCs that health care is free, education is free, infrastructure is free, and they live in the promise that even the key components like food and housing the government will soon provide. As a result, even the little they earn, they eat, drink and produce children nonstop, because the Government will take care of them.  

There is need to deliberately tell these people that the Government will not bring free physical food on the table that the Government programmes, as good as they are, they must be cost shared and supported by the community. Billions of money that go to waste annually in community roads construction simply because the wananchi cannot open drainage systems because they believe it is the work of the Government.  

All countries that have developed like China, India, etc, have instilled a hard working culture among its citizens. No wonder most Chinese firms prefer to come with their workforce because they believe Ugandans are slow and lazy, yet very expensive.

 We all know how the Indians have turned around their businesses because of their discipline and hard work. I highly believe that over 50% of the poverty in the country is poverty of the mind perpetuated by leaders who continue to promise everything to the masses and ignoring the cardinal role of mobilising them to use what they already have to eradicate poverty.

As much as there is the good will by the Government to give every Ugandan a better lifestyle as has been stipulated in the Vision 2040, we must face reality that we need to call on every Ugandan both in rural and urban areas to work harder, save more and promote cost sharing culture in some of the public services like health and education in order to fill the gaps that the Government is unable to reach due to budgetary gaps. If we do not do this, opportunistic politicians, especially in the opposition, will take advantage of this idle yet potentially productive young generation against the same government that keeps promising and giving them free youth funds, NAADS goats, education loans and future jobs.

Lastly, we are yet to see a frustrated work force; as the government struggles to feed and support a very large population that is not taxable, it will continue to tax and over tax the few that work, both in direct and indirect taxes in order to provide public utilities and fulfill pledges and promises made to various communities.

Mwesigwa Silver  is the District Speaker Isingiro

 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});