OUR UGANDAN LEADERS

 

I am excruciating because of the state of our country Uganda. One man said that when an eagle wants to eat its eaglets, it blames them for looking and smelling like chicks. These are leaders labeling some of us; agents of the conceptual west, the people we believe are bigger contributors to our misfortunes. They want us to blame ourselves for working with the enemy against our thieves. No, we hate both the imperialists and the thieves.

What if we lived without politicians, since they have failed to be Ugandans but rather demi gods that think know everything yet their freedom of knowledge and wisdom is manifested in their word?

I wish our African leaders would listen to us and come to terms with the African reality. They are supposed to serve us, but instead, they treat us as a European colony. Their policy is one of self-interest, and their objective is to enrich themselves at our expense. They award themselves baseless finances, yet the services we pay for are lacking. We are neither European nor American, and we should not try to be like them.

Our colleagues are on the streets demonstrating against corruption and you our leaders are labeling them a group of foreign-funded self-seekers. You are ignoring our message. The truth is “we are broken banange” I guess you have heard these words before. We are trying to grow small businesses that we hope they can develop later on but they do not make it to at least five years in existence.

We lack startup capital. This is known to any enterprising person that a salary is always a seed to be sowed and harvest finances that can pay my funds. In Uganda, our salaries range to as low as 100,000ugx but there is no formal business that can be made with such kind of money. If I were to start that business, I would need a fixed amount to pay to the government. For example, if I am in Kampala because it has the biggest market and most jobs, I will need to pay KCCA a trade license which they will determine themselves, pay a landlord who will also determine my rent, pay a certain company collecting garbage at a certain fixed price they will impose on you. All these prices are not negotiable. One, asks themselves why are we paying for a trading license? What role does it play if it cannot help to handle things like rubbish? What does that money do even the roads we are using spoil our merchandise

Now, I have earned 100,000ugx as my salary and the job in Kampala which means I will have to pay rent and it must be less than 100,000ugx because I have to eat and use some money for transport. The best available house for a person earning this amount is at 80,000ugx and one has to pay three months before using it. That means that as I come from the University or home to work in Kampala I should come with ‘capital’ to start living and working in Kampala. This means that he/she will start working on debts which they have to clear during the process. Now, how much can a person earning 100,000ugx living in a house of 80,000ugx with a small debt from the village save to start a business in Uganda?

It is absurd that you will always tell us to go and do agriculture in our villages. This is one of the parts where you really show how ungrounded and out-touch you are. My father inherited a piece of land and sold part of it for us to study thinking that I would get a job after graduation. Anyone who has been in the labor industry is quite conversant with the word ‘connections’ or ‘social capital’ which is more important than a person’s degree. Many jobs in Uganda (check your office honorable minister, Member of Parliament, civil servant, etc) are based on connections regardless of your profession. I have worked in Schools where a manager is neither a teacher nor an education administrator/manager but as he/she is working is taking a Postgraduate Diploma in Education Administration and Management and leading professional experienced teachers. They call this ‘learning on the job’ and one wonders, were there no qualified people to take on the position? Amazingly these schools are owned by our leaders. It’s not only in schools, but also check your other offices. With this kind of mentality, what will my degree benefit me? I have no land at home (which is paramount for agriculture) and I have no job unfortunately I know why I don’t have it. What do you expect me to do?

We have developed skills and are informed that the youth of these years are well equipped with skills and the best ideas to start and run any business in this country. Unfortunately, these skills and ideas to start these businesses are frustrated by the lack of support and exorbitant taxes levied on them. One person said that if you want ideas listen to a poor person, we are poor youth and we have the ideas. But can they materialize? I would say that the chances are minimal because of the problems I have just highlighted.

In this country, if I have an idea that I would like to fund, where do I go? You will answer that there are PDM, Emyooga, entadikwa, youth funds, UDB, and others that will be mentioned. Are there objective and clear ways to access these funds? No. Is this common knowledge to the youth such that we can access and fund our ideas? The answer is still no. Where are they? We see the custodians of these funds on the news that they have stolen the same money. Are these government funds? Those who have tried to access them have told the stories. So, I have big dreams and ideas whose proposals have been written down but the question remains, where do I get funds to develop it? Even the Agriculture you are talking about needs funds, are they available to be accessed? Can I walk with my proposal to an office and the government gives me an affordable loan? The answer is no.

That and more explains why we get angry when we see people awarding themselves service awards even when they are still in office and some of them receiving more than one service award. Imagine someone receiving retirement benefits and is given more than one kind of service award. What if that money was shared between the people corresponding to the number of service awards? What if we scraped them off because they are not a priority? Why would a president receive a service award of a speaker yet he is still a president? This kind of extravagance followed by explanations of having no money explains to us that you have your own priorities. These things and many more make us question whether we really need politicians. Imagine, for one to be a teacher, they require a degree but require a senior six to go and make policies that will govern degree holders. Let us wake up.

When we see this extravagance and what actually is happening in our lives, we question our intentions. You are taking away from us and then coming back with handouts to gain quittance from us. This explains why politicians never want an enlightened electorate. When you give our poorised (made poor) parents while trying to pay our school fees soap, they clap for you. This is because they have been made poor and we, their children are poor because we have no connections to jobs. They hail you and dance like mighty heroes. I call you opportunicians not politicians because you are always searching for opportunities to devour our hard-earned money paid to the government treasury.

Your dismissive submissions always put us on our heels wondering whether you are our leaders or just imposters. You lack knowledge of the people you lead but always want to talk to them. This is why in parliament you pass tax policies that are meant to raise revenue to the government, but never pass policies to increase the incomes of the citizens to increase the tax base. Imagine only three million Ugandans paying taxes because they are the only ones in formal sectors while others evade them. It does not require rocket science for one to realize that the effort should be to get more Ugandans to formalize themselves and so pay taxes. You can best do this by making tax policies and formalization processes favorable and reasonable for them. By the way, some businesses are informal because that is the only way they can survive. Imagine a trader in Kikuubo who does not manufacture anything busy paying Value Added Tax. What value has that person added? A business whose working capital is 300,000ugx pays a trading License of 180,000ugx amidst low returns. How and when do you expect such a business to grow? How will they comply when the taxes are as high as that? Our leaders please, be local. Make your policies that benefit the government while letting the citizens develop.

One thinker brought up the idea of questioning everything while searching for what he called indubitable truth. Indubitable truth is a kind of truth that cannot be questioned further because it is self-sufficient. Based on this way of thinking, I would like to question the relevance of highly paid and prioritized politicians. Do we really need them? Can’t a country be without a president and his/her ministers? This is meant for thinking about; I will come back with my findings.