How Museveni will eat Kampala residents for Christmas after Musisi has fattened them As Christmas draws near, a lot of turkeys are being fattened for the big feast. The birds, not knowing the full story, are taking it as good fortune, and are probably busy praising their owners for being so generous with the food. In this fashion, many commentators are citing “improvements” attributed to Kampala Capital City Authority Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi to the appeareance of the city as a justification for the callous mistreatment Kampala’s popularly elected mayor. Like the turkeys, these commentators are confusing actions with intentions, and not asking what happened to the previous occupants of the bird farm. In my opinion, the aim here is more likely about acquiring undisputable control, as opposed to better service delivery. The current “improvements” are probably designed to convince us that many good things will follow if only the Presidential appointee is accorded full and unchallenged authority over city matters. Those supporting this are assuming two things: first, that the NRM regime has good intentions towards the city and all its residents and, second, that it has the capacity to deliver on any promise, given all we have seen over the last quarter century of NRM governance. With the callous looting of mosquito nets and child immunisation cash and the stealing of food, and uniforms from soldiers on combat duty, it is not logical to assume or expect that this leopard that has signally failed in service delivery in all key sectors all over the country will suddenly change its spots. Much as they also want progress, the ordinary city residents simply want to keep on being able to make a living any way they know how. To them, all questions of urban beauty –and even order- must be secondary to this question of survival. Only a responsive leadership –in other words, a clearly elected one- can remain sensitive to this balance of needs. In my view, the only thing today that can galvanise the NRM cronyship into resolute action is the opportunity of accessing large amounts of cash, and so the wider logic to this could well be a plan for the NRM bosses to make money out of the city, probably through selling municipal bonds on the global market. I first heard of this idea in 2000 when interviewing an NRM candidate for the Kampala Mayorship.These bonds are basically the municipal version of treasury bills. On the face of it, this could be seen as a reasonable proposal of a way to raise large-scale, development capital. For example, according to the News of Rwanda website, Kigali City Council realised some $3.5 billion through a bonds issue in April this year [It was government of Rwanda, not Kigali City Council, and they issued a $ 400m bond which was oversubscribed by $3.5 billion i.e. they got orders for $3.9 billion – Editor]. KCCA could hardly oppose such a plan in principle since clearly, even the most diligent and efficient revenue collection system imaginable cannot be expected to sustainably raise serious amounts of cash from a mainly poor populace. However, there would be a number of drawbacks to it. The NRM’s now legendary inability to control itself when handling public funds would mean that any such money would be stolen. Full-scale degenerative battles over bogus and overpriced tenders and the like are bound to ensue, much as we have seen NRM cronies congregate around NSSF, Electoral Commission, Defense, Health and other big public budgets. Like any professional person, Musisi must have taken up the leadership of KCCA in the expectation of being able to make a career-building positive impact on the city by rapidly transforming it, just as her friend and former colleague at Uganda Revenue Authority Allen Kagina has done there. However, URA is concerned mainly with collecting taxes and then passing the money on for use (or misuse) as government may see fit. KCCA, by contrast, will be concerned with also deciding and managing how city revenue it has raised is spent. This will drag anyone managing that budget into contact with those regime cronies interested in the spending part. This is unlikely to be beneficial to the city and its residents. Through some of her official statements, we can see that Musisi has already run into this crony problem. She once complained to a parliamentary committee about how a contingent of military police had blocked KCCA officers from preventing unknown persons from encroaching on a wetland. Now, the fact is that whoever those soldiers were, they are answerable to the same authority that also appointed her. This shows that if there is a conflict, whatever good plans KCCA may have will always have to give way to what the regime cronies may want. This will mean that capital may well be borrowed and spent, but the city will gain little from it, and be left with the debt. Also, if such cash was raised while a freely elected mayor is in office, then naturally such a Mayor would expect it to be put to the service of his plans. If it is an opposition party mayor, as is the case now, then it would only take the current conflict to a new and even more dramatic level. Therefore for all these reasons, the political will of the city’s voters –as expressed through the mayor they overhwhelmingly elected- must be defeated, so that the NRM regime may pose as Kampala’s legitimate “owners”. Since they have failed to gain electoral control, their only option is to try to eventually abolish an elected council, and impose technocrats on the city. This would take Uganda to a new level of “strategically structured” corruption, where legal and policy measures are designed to facilitate it. - See more at: independent.co.ug/column/opinion/8524-nrms-hidden-agenda-for-kampala#sthash.tvRJBjBx.dpuf
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 10:36:51 +0000
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