Obituary: George Alibaruho, the man with a big brain and an even bigger heart

Apr 08, 2016

I first met George in 1962 when I went up to Ntare School in Mbarara, where he was in Senior Four and, therefore, my senior by three school years. We lived in the same dormitory, Stanley House, and I got to know him, albeit at a respectful distance.


By Richard C. Ntiru

George Alibaruho, son of the late Leto and Katarina Mukwatsibwoha of Kyamuhunga, Igara, Bushenyi district, succumbed to cancer of the gall bladder on March 30, at Le Memorial Hospital, near Kampala, after a couple of months' illness. He was 71. He was born on January 6, 1945.

I first met George in 1962 when I went up to Ntare School in Mbarara, where he was in Senior Four and, therefore, my senior by three school years. We lived in the same dormitory, Stanley House, and I got to know him, albeit at a respectful distance.

That distance narrowed and the friendship grew, thanks to his approachable nature and over the years I got to know him better — as my economics teacher during my first year at Makerere; as my host in Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and finally as my neighbour at Lubowa, Kampala. It is from the perspective of an angle of elevation that I pen these thoughts of appreciation of his life.

The scope of a piece of this nature is necessarily limited, but one can speak of Alibaruho the scholar and academician of high distinction; the inspiring teacher and guidance counsellor; the dedicated mentor and role model; the resourceful technocrat and economic policy specialist; the industrious entrepreneur; the generous benefactor and the loving family man, loyal friend, supportive colleague and patriotic citizen.

George's high academic achievement is legendary and it is reflected in the fact that he was the first student to be awarded a first class honours degree in Economics at the University of East Africa, Makerere University College, in 1968, as well as his ability to earn a master's degree and a doctorate in Economics from the prestigious University of California at Berkeley in 1973 in record time, having studied under five Nobel Laureates.

It is worth noting that the dissertation for his PhD was on the "Effects of Marketing Board Policy Intervention on Prices, Output and Incomes in Uganda's Cotton industry". His areas of specialisation for comprehensives were advanced economic analysis and policy; monetary theory and policy; and international trade and finance — all of which areas of expertise and skills sets were - and continue to be — particularly pertinent to Uganda's economy.

Alibaruho's ground-breaking research and scholarship are reflected in the numerous papers that he published in revered journals, research reports and policy documents. It is much to be regretted that fate did not allow him the luxury of time to distill his professional experiences into a book-length publication and we are the poorer for that.

After a stint as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at Makerere University (1971-73), the early phase of George's career would take him to Kenya, where he was a research fellow at the University of Nairobi's Institute for Development Studies; to Tanzania, where he served as Principal Research Officer with the East African Community Management Institute at Arusha and to the United States, where he was a research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C.

The bulk of George's career (1979-1997) was with the World Bank, where he served at the multi-lateral Bretton Woods Institution's headquarters in Washington, DC, as well as, successively, in Ghana, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, in the last three duty stations in the leadership position of Country Economist.

From 1997 to 2005 George worked closely with the executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Dr K.Y. Amoako, as, successively, senior adviser, senior consultant and senior independent consultant, on various initiatives of tremendous importance to African economies. Incidentally, Dr Amoako is responsible for the "Uncle G" appellation and iteration: from the moment they heard their boss address George as "Uncle G", ECA staff's attitude changed from respectful or collegial to reverential.

Alibaruho's avowed professional objective was to build technical and operational capacity in economic sciences at universities and to provide technical and advisory services to governments, international and national development management, financing and regulatory agencies, so as to develop and implement effective policies, programmes and investment interventions in support of key public/private goals to fight poverty and raise living standards.

I am not alone in noting that it is as if George's whole career was in preparation for a major role for him in the management of the economic affairs of his country. However — and inexplicably — this scenario did not come to pass, as it indeed did in the case of many nationals of other developing countries who were his professional colleagues. He is probably the best Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development that Uganda never had!

After retirement from formal employment in 2005, "Uncle G" reinvented himself as a senior independent consultant and collaborated as a team member to set up the African Centre for Economic Transformation, headquartered in Accra, Ghana. Nearer home, he joined the faculty of Kabale University as Professor of Economics and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and was a major player in the successful effort to transform it into a public university.

"Uncle G" was also served on the boards of directors of Equity Bank (U) Ltd and Advisory Research Group International LLC.

At the time of his death, George had begun unleashing his entrepreneurial spirit. He had embarked on establishing the Centre for Integrated Policy and Investment Choices (U) LLP, with offices at Lubowa, Kampala and was looking forward to devoting his prodigious energies to his pet project, the family tea estate in Kyamuhunga, in Bushenyi district, upon retirement from Kabale University at the end of the current academic year. The challenge now falls on his children to realise these dreams and I have every confidence that they will rise to the occasion.

George was a munificent provider for his family, a loving husband, a doting grandfather, and a protective father who provided equal opportunities to all his children. (He once told me, with a deep sense of gratitude, that the God who gave him many children also gave him enough resources to educate them and take good care of them.)

He was a solicitous brother who took religiously the biblical injunction to be his brother's keeper; fiercely loyal to his friends; and inexplicably magnanimous to his detractors and those who, while outwardly professing to be his friends, went out of their way to make sure that they denied him a soft landing back in his country.

But you got the sense that the nobility and generosity of his spirit had an edifying effect on those detractors and their ilk and that they felt permanently rebuked by his integrity. He was also a supportive colleague and a generous benefactor with a mission to help people lift themselves out of degrading situations.

When his time came, at its inexorable pace, he endured his pain and suffering with dignity, serenity and grace, even as the emotional stress of watching a loved one go down was taking a heavy toll on his family. It is my fervent prayer that God will grant his wife Lucy the gift of graceful old age, so that she can live out the balance of "Uncle G"'s years. He leaves behind a wife, 10 children (one adopted) and upwards of a dozen grandchildren.

George exuded love — almost unconditional love — solicitude, compassion, generosity and forgiveness for people from altruistic motives. He was a patriotic citizen who cared deeply about this country and from the earliest days, was involved in efforts aimed at its liberation.

His family and friends should be immensely proud of his legacy of commitment to and investment in children, altruistic love of people, commitment to truth and social justice, and grace and tenacity to remain true to himself and to the values that he cherished. This friend, for one, is.

richardcntiru@yahoo.com

@RichardCNtiru

 

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