Former Botswana president advises on governance

By Francis Emorut

The former President of Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire has warned African presidents against bad governance as it retards development and causes violence.

“Bad governance doesn’t just undermine service delivery, it retards development, and it also drives violence,” Masire said.

Masire pointed out that poor governance manifests itself in many forms including abuse of state power, violation of human rights and lack of basic human freedoms, collapse of state apparatus, corruption and centralization of power.

“Corruption imposes heavy costs on the economy and distorts development policies. It hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development. It undermines government’s ability to provide essential services. It fuels inequality and injustice and discourages foreign investment,” Masire told guests.

Masire was speaking at the opening of the first international conference on governance and service delivery in developing economies at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala on Tuesday.

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The former President of Botswana, Sir Ketumile Masire, the Prime Minister Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda and other delegates pose for a group photograph during the opening of the international conference on governance and service  delivery

The conference hosted by Uganda Management Institute (UMI) and sponsored by UNDP aimed at coming up with new approaches to public sector reforms and development agenda for developing economies.

The conference attracted participants from academia, government ministries, researchers and scholars from 50 countries.

It aimed at addressing issues such as monitoring and evaluation, e-governance and anti-corruption strategies among others.

“African leaders should not be found wanting in aspects of governance if we are to build a continent we all believe in,” he said.

The former President noted that poverty can only be effectively tackled through the promotion of democracy, good governance, peace, and security as well as the development of human and physical resources.

The UNDP country director, Almaz Gebru in her speech read by Tony Muhumuza, the head of national economist strategy and policy unit noted that in order to achieve transformational change in the post agenda period 2015, new approaches and strong commitment by public service at all levels is needed.

She said this could be attained through vigorous well planned and targeted capacity-building efforts.

The Prime Minister, Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda commended UMI for organizing the conference as the deliberations would help in informing policy at organizational, national, regional and international levels.

He said UMI's efforts in empowering individuals and organizations would go a long way in enabling the government to achieve Vision 2040.

Dr. James Nkata, the director general of UMI, noted that the biggest problem of Africa is corruption as resources are squandered denying citizens’ access to service delivery.

He said poor governance and corruption reduce the quality of service and investment in the public service.

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