Uganda - the great transformation from 1986 to 2015

Jun 01, 2015

One of Uganda’s local magazines has produced a 332- pages wonderful book on Uganda’s great economic transformation from 1986 to 2015. All Ugandans in all sectors of life must read this book.

trueBy Kavuma-Kaggwa

One of Uganda’s local magazines has produced a 332- pages wonderful book on Uganda’s great economic transformation from 1986 to 2015. All Ugandans in all sectors of life must read this book.

His Excellency President Yoweri Museveni launched it towards the end of April in Mutorere town, Kisoro, South West Uganda.

The people of Uganda have made this great economic transformation because of the 29 years of the steady political stability. This transformation is the real fundamental change which President Museveni talked about on January 29, 1986, when he was swearing in outside Parliament as the ninth President since Independence. He took power after NRM/NRA successfully fought a five year guerrilla war in the Luwero Triangle from 1981 to 1986.

Students and those in diplomatic service ought to read this book and organise meetings in their missions and invite tours organisers, coordinators and investors to visit Uganda’s tourist attractions. The book also portrays how the private sector- led economy spurs national development.

By 1986, when the NRM took power, the Government had 146 state-owned enterprises with 138 majority holding and eight minority state holdings.
Most of the 146 state-owned enterprises existed only in the register and most performed poorly as a result of the country’s violent political history and collapsed economy. They suffered from low capacity utilisation, large operating losses or low profitability and being illiquid and indebted.

Before privatisation and with the exception of 1988, the financial performance of joint venture companies returned an operating loss of sh72m ($36,000) between 1986 and 1988. Most were insolvent, illiquid and operating below 50% capacity.

The book covers how open trade policy eradicates poverty, the health sector and transforming the hospital referral system. The book shows the Government’s mineral policy to shape the sector’s contribution to Uganda’s transformation. Most important, the book shows the Government policy, which is intended to boost the coffee sector.

Coffee is the Uganda’s cash crop and earned this country about $415m for the period between April 2013 and March 2014, according to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, UCDA. We all know that coffee, for many years, and currently is the most widely traded tropic agricultural commodity for Uganda as a major foreign exchange earner as well as providing income for over two million households. Given the social and economic importance of coffee in Uganda, the policy must be critically intensified.

The book covers the four major indicators of Uganda’s great transformation, economy, education, health and industrialisation. It carries wonderful pictures of Uganda’s economic life. As they say, a picture worth 1,000 words.

In a two-page forward to this book, His Excellency President Yoweri Museni says “What then are the factors that can stimulate and cause to thrive the four sectors that can guarantee the prosperity of our families. There are three major factors that can do that. These are a critical mass of buyers and consumers of the goods and services produced by our families and communities; infrastructure to support the production and exchange of those goods and services (electricity, roads, the railways ICT and security of person and property in other words peace in the country”. Peace in the country, in the broader perspective, means the 30 years of Uganda’s political stability from 1986.

On economy from 1986 to 2015, It has grown from $246m in 1986 to $26b in 2014 and it continues to grow at an average of 5% per year as a result of Government policies of liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation. The Government portrays urbanisation as one of the best indicators of transformation.

The Government is of the view that the rate of urbanisation is 4.5 per year and up to 13% of Uganda’s population now lives in urban areas. The Government estimates that by the year 2030, up to 20 million people will be living in urban areas.

There is wonderful improvement in the field of Education. From 1986 to 2015, enrollment in Primary and Secondary Schools has risen from 2.2 million and 124,000 to 1.2 million students respectively. The Government introduced free Universal Primary Education (UPE) in 1997 and Universal Secondary Education (USE) in 2007.

In 1986, there was only one university (Makerere) in Uganda with about 5,400 graduates.Today there are 23 universities producing almost 150,000 graduates in various disciplines every year. The Government universities are Makerere, Mbarara, Gulu and Busitema. The rest are privately owned including those owned by religious institutions.

The health sector has also improved mainly because Ugandans have built more hospitals and health centres in different areas of the country. Recently, President Museveni opened an Ultra-Modern Hospital in Jinja, Nile International Hospital, which was built by the Turkish Community in Uganda. This hospital will help the people of Eastern Uganda a great deal.

There was also news recently that His Highness the Aga Khan who was here at the beginning of this year, had approached the Kabaka’s Government with an idea of building a huge hospital at Mengo most likely inside the Palace on the Kibuye side.
The Aga Khan said that once the Hospital is built with ultra modern facilities, there will be no need for Ugandans to go to India for specialised treatment which in most cases is not available in Uganda now.
 
Ugandans are now healthier and living longer. The life expectancy in 1986 was 43, but it is now 58 years or more. This has made the population to increase from 15 million in 1986 to more than 36 million people today.

The population of Uganda has increased due to many factors but the main one is that people feed well, they protect themselves against diseases, can afford good and quality medicine from Europe, India and China and they live in good and modern houses. They have quick means of transport to and fro their places of work. The “middle and high class” live in affluent life right from childhood to old age.

What is required now is to modernise Mulago Hospital as well as the regional hospitals to International standards so that Ugandans will receive specialised treatment here, instead of going to India, Europe and the US which is very expensive for the ordinary Ugandans and the bigger majority of people cannot afford it.

The Government should now upgrade the salaries of health workers. A nurse in the Government hospital should now be paid sh2m a month and a doctor should be paid sh15m a month. This will stop the brain drain to foreign countries where the starting pay for a doctor is reported to be $5,000.

Industrialisation has also contributed tremendously to Uganda’s great economic transformation. This sector has grown from 8.6% in 1996 to 28% in 2014.

Uganda has now 416,864 companies that are formerly at services sector comprised of the areas of hospitality (tourism), consultancy, education, health, transport, ICT, beautification (salons) and many more. These are employing 872,260 persons. The formal manufacturing sector has 32,410 companies, employing 153,495 people. Over the same period, the percentage contribution of agriculture to the GDP has declined to 23% from 44% in 1996 even as volumes of output have gone up.

It is most unfortunate that this wonderful book which gives a very good picture of Uganda’s economic prosperity does not include Uganda’s tourism and hotels industry that because the Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife did not want to participate in its production.

This book has been widely distributed all over the World. This was a big opportunity for the minister of tourism to promote Uganda’s tourist attractions worldwide.

Even if the ministry of tourism will produce a book of this kind in future, the fact remains that the more the World gets to know about what you are and what you are doing in this area of publicity, the better for you, especially when it comes to promoting your product, in this case Uganda’s tourism.

Finally, Uganda’s diplomatic missions should distribute this book in all areas which generate tourist business to Uganda. The goal is to generate a huge inflow of tourists into Uganda every year.

We must make Uganda one of the World’s biggest tourist destinations so that we surpass other countries in Africa because we have more and unique tourist attractions in all areas of Uganda than the rest of Africa.
The writer is an elder from Kyaggwe Mukono district     
 

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