Why Government Cannot do Business

Last week, the Vice President His Excellency Edward Ssekandi launched the Uganda Aviation School that was established in 2011 by Captain Mike Mukula.  Having been in the aviation industry from a while as the Last Cahir of Uganda airlines, I had time to learn a bit more about aviation and its challenges with a special reference to Uganda. It is possible that I am still a member of the Interim Board of the Soroti flying school. I am saying it is possible because I am not sure whether the interim committee was resolved. Soroti Flying School was one of Uganda’ s iconic institutions originally East African Flying School until the collapse of the East African Community in 1977. Like many of the companies that were owned by the East African Community, the flying academy rotted due to lack of funding and numerous management challenges. Kenya took advantage of the collapse of the community to grow its own institutions and indeed having taken over the East African Airways which transformed into Kenya airways, Kenya took a leading a position in aviation in the region. Ethiopia was the other regional strong man in aviation.

Ethiopian airlines is today one of the largest airlines in Africa. It outcompetes Kenya on numerous factors. It is government owned. Ethiopian airlines is said to have been the only jewel during the socialist times of Mengistu when he reined in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has developed strong aviation institutions including a training school and capacity to repair its engines. The other regional player is South Africa. South African airways flys literally to every African capital. And South African influence comes with Shoprite, MTN, Woolworth and South African airways. Due to its financial muscle and large economy it has a relatively strong aviation in the industry. It is in these conditions that Uganda attempted to revive the academy.

The flying academy was one of the prides of the region but when the community broke down, the institution deteriorated primarily due to lack of investments in modern equipment and management challenges. I became a member of the interim board given my experience on Uganda airlines and my experience in the education sector. At that time, it was reported that the East African community had requested member countries then only Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to select centres of excellence to be supported by the community. It is reported that Kenya fronted UTALI College, a leading catering college in the region. I do not remember what Tanzania fronted. But Uganda fronted the flying school. After spending some time to think through the future of academy, we designed a strategic plan and wanted to link the academy to the University. You realize that given the competition by the regional neighbors and the law aviation activities in Uganda, Uganda would not compete with Kenya, Ethiopia or South Africa. We therefore recommended expanding the programme menu of the academy to include non-technical training programmes.

However for the academy to continue to be relevant and pursue its original mission, in competition with regional institutions, we required an investment of USD 3 million. We put up this request to the Minister of Finance through the Minister of Works and Transport unfortunately the money never came. We required new training air crafts, new simulators and new engines. Without these, the academy in its original mission couldn’t fiction.

About 2 years back, I read in the papers that either a new plane or new engine had been bought but the management problem continued. Government cannot do business because here was a noble intention to revive aviation training based in Uganda but government failed that it couldn’t compete with the regional training institutions in Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa. And even then, they failed to equip the academy and this meant that the country lost pout on having a facility in aviation training. Our idea during the planning was to add the soft courses and not compete head-on with the existing institutions in areas where they had competence but due to government reluctance maybe inability to fund the academy the country lost out. As captain Mukula entered the market, he is doing something we wanted to do 10 years back as a government institution. He is going for the soft courses and it is possible he will mint the money in those courses.

The Madhavani where I am privileged to be a member of the board have a facility to repair the engines. It seems the academy is dead for all intense and purposes but as a government unit, it will limp until a donor gives government a loan to run it. It will then run for a few years but it will definitely not make the money or deliver the service or make the money the regional institutions are making. Government should keep out of business because it cannot do it.