Fewer can be better

Jan 05, 2002

I READ President Museveni’s New Year Address and, while deservedly applauding it for its wide sweep of events gone and to come, couldn’t help feeling sorry for the President.

I READ President Museveni’s New Year Address and, while deservedly applauding it for its wide sweep of events gone and to come, couldn’t help feeling sorry for the President. Mainly it was because I got the strong impression, and not for the first time, that often the President felt very much on his own when it came to putting flesh on to the bones of ideas. When he won his famous but expected presidential victory last year, this column suggested that for his last term Museveni would have to be absolutely ruthless in running his team. Let the broad-based principle take a back seat. Let cabinet decisions reached, after the usual consultations with Movement and other bodies, be expeditiously carried out. And let failure be met with instant punishment - in this case dismissal. That way the country would look back at Museveni’s last term and see clearly the road taken. It would be just reward for him, as well as Uganda itself. But to be honest, already in the last quarter of Museveni’s first year of his last five (therefore nearly 20% of the period), the road sometimes appears zig-zag, in need of urgent repair. Why is this? The first reason must be lack of funds. The President in his Address, covered in full in Wednesday’s New Vision spelled out many of the reasons for this. But surely in that case severe pruning is a must. How do you, with the best will in the world, run a sixty-odd government of ministers? And what do they do? The President has always explained the need for this overwhelming figure; mainly that with our primitive outlook every section of the country feels it must be seen to be represented. It is cheaper to grant that argument than to fund the putting down of disturbances which would otherwise accrue. But if anybody in this country can teach us to think differently, therefore to be less backward on this subject, surely Museveni is the one. In addition to the ministers, you have over 30 advisers in their various categories, as well as RDCs and their deputies and assistants; plus other bits and pieces. The money simply wont stretch. A good example is what happened in the President’s Office around November. It received less than a third of the expected budget - that budget had already been substantially pared down. My driver, poor little chap, was paid sh44,000 in total. Advisers themselves were left beating their foreheads in agony for more. I kid you not; and it will get worse not better. Parliament, and this column pointed out that parliamentarians were not overpaid even in their latest demands (a point emphasized by Kenyan and Tanzanian legislators) has a mammoth membership approaching three hundred. Cut them by half. Not many, if truth be told, would be missed. I am thinking of those like Hon Lukyamuzi, with his penchant for calling rallies on every subject under the sun; sometimes with the threat that he will starve himself to death. We live in hopes! It beats me why he does not starve over the terrifying rubbish dump near the police station at Natete, the area he represents in the House, and, you might argue, his closest responsibility. Interestingly enough, were he to pitch camp at the dump for his starvation to death, some Nateteians might decide to let him go. Would his body be discovered in all that rubbish! Anyway, with parliament halved, the difference, including overheads, could probably pay for 15000 teachers at their present miserable rate. Let’s do it! * * *Back to the ministers. And advisers. The President’s loyalty and consideration to those who work for him is rightly legendary. Using long knives on those he himself chose will give him considerable heartache; even assuming he might countenance such an idea; the more so if the victim had not done something directly untoward. But if by some good luck they were to offend, out should come the knife and then the trick would be for them not to be replaced! That could be done from the inside; a kind of musical chairs. Your columnist is not so dumb as not to know that this kind of advice is not far removed from fashioning a rope for one’s own neck. Ah well, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs! After the figures had come nicely down, some indeed at the fierce behest of nature, the President would be in the enviable position of giving those remaining a free hand in the administration of their departments. And to pay them better! Of course, those who failed this basic task would be added to the Out Tray. Also those awaiting the President to do their work for them. The greatest beneficiary would be Museveni, being enabled to stay out of the daily heat of the kitchen, and thus concentrating on the overall way ahead. What a pulse raiser! It is the first occasion your columnist has longed for the presidency, even if it only lasted a weekend. Meanwhile its true and only occupant, brave as ever, will soon hazard a trip northward to Khartoum; for what it worth. We have walked this route before, always to be let down. But Tourabi is quiescent, bin Laden probably on the run and the powers that be possess, belatedly, a new word in their armoury. Terrorism. Khartoum is hardly likely to want further association with Kony and the ADF. Over to you Gen el Bashir.

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