Cash Donations to the Poor In Africa. A Prescription for Perpetual Poverty

Early this year, when the president signed the anti-homosexuality bill, many donors withdrew their financial support from the country. This country has a problem of begging and most people expect that somebody else will give them the money. In the rural areas, those with jobs or businesses and politicians are expected to pay fees for the endless number of children people have. The youth everywhere expect money from government. The various schemes, entandikwa (startup finance), NAADS,  Bona bagagawale have resolved to giving out money to inputs to farmers and other people. They know this is a gift from government. Members of parliament are expected to pay fees for the electorate, provide transport to bury the dead in their constituencies among other things. Even the parliamentarians themselves, recently appealed to the President to give them some money because they say they did not have. And yet they are reportedly some of the best paid civil servants in the country. This begging syndrome means nobody is willing to do anything in this country because they expect free things from other people. I have read somewhere President Museveni advising Ugandans to work to be able to live well. One of Uganda’s successful but literally unknown business men Francis Xavier Kitaka said that from Childhood money was earned not just given. See New Vision of May 30, 2014. Uunfortunatly, there is a theory coming up from the donor community that Africans do not need to work, they just need to be given money. According to UNICEF see the East African of June 6, 2014. Africans are becoming happier and the reason behind this happiness is what is called the social protection floors where a growing number of candidates are supporting cash transfers to the poorest and most marginalized with no strings attached.  It is being advocated that instead of letting these poor Africans work, they will be given money and they will work. Coming from UNICEF, this policy may be taken through to the United Nations and may come up as a policy of Multilateral institutions including the World Bank. Poverty is lack of income and lack of income is lack of an economic activity. Africa is in such a situation that the little economic activity it has is of twofold; that which is agricultural for food consumption and the agricultural of mining which leads to export of raw materials. Africa is therefore unable to sell anything meaningfully on the World Market to be able to buy high quality products that determine the quality of life. The article in the East Africa says that this phenomenon of happiness arising from these cash gifts has caught attention of African leaders. Do not be surprised if they agree to confirm the policy that will come of donating cash to Africans. Poverty and Africa seem to be synonymous. 

It is well with my Soul.

Last Night a journalist called me saying that i had been sued by some individuals on criminal grounds. The grounds were that i had tendered forged documents. At the moment there several court cases against me regarding my re-appointment as Principal. In these cases, there are several allegations labelled against me which i would not like to discuss since the case is already being heard. However i know that there is a group of people who vowed just to spoil my name and make  these kinds of allegations. Since these are in court and i trust our courts will go to establish the truth, i can only leave these to the courts to handle. The saying that the truth will set you free is very appropriate. I am however not surprised that those who want me out of the MUBS job can go to this level. They have taken me to IGG, numerous court cases, now a criminal case, you never know what next happens. The truth liberates people and it will liberate me.

Why can’t Ugandans measure up to International Standards?

When foreign companies get contracts to do certain jobs in Uganda and indeed many African countries, there are mixed feelings among many local people. They always ask the question, why can’t we do it ourselves. Don’t we have local companies that can do this? Of course when these international companies undertake such contracts, they repatriate profits from the job and these profits must come from local earnings. If the profits were being taken by a local company, the money would remain in the country. For countries that have something to export like oil for instance, such contracts are not a big problem to the economy but they are for small economies that have very little to export. Road construction is one area where international companies secure such contracts. They bring in engineers and management skills. It is common on our roads to find one “mzungu” on a hot day as the local fellows sweat out on the road. Finally these roads come out well with good quality. This is true for the majority of them. It is also true that once in a while, these roads may come out with poor quality. Guess what the problem is? Usually lack of supervision. Who supervises? Our local engineers. On the Jinja Kampala road, there were some repairs done some time back with an intention of removing sharp bents from the road. The areas that were repaired include Namagunga area, Nagojje. Until recently, these areas that were repaired became the worst spots on the roads. These were done by some local contractor. 

As I write now, Sterling is doing some major repairs on the road and the difference is very visible. The road construction challenge can be replicated in many other areas of economic activity. What is the problem there? We have excellent engineers, excellent managers but we simply do not measure up to the job. It is not surprising that most of the foreign owned companies have foreigners as top executives like Stanbic, Barclays Bank, Hima Factory but even our local owned companies owned by Africans, we usually employ a foreigner in one of the top jobs. The Indian community in Uganda some of whom are identified as Ugandans take Sudhir, the Madhavani Group, Karim among others, they bring Indian experts to manage these organisations. We in the educational institutions are churning out educated people but they do not appear good enough to work in these companies. What is the challenge? Trust? Attention to detail? Work culture? Recently a road in Bugolobi, Bazalabusa road which links Luthuli Avenue with Mbuya road on the side of Bugolobi flats, was repaired. I am not sure what the cost was. The repair included removal of the old tarmac which according to me was excellent and replacing it with a new surface. The process of doing so was very painful because it took some long time to complete. The road maybe approximately half a kilometer. After it was resealed, most likely with the one layer, many of us who use it, waited for the final resealing but it never happened. 

This road had developed some potholes indeed one of them was so huge. I remember seeing a small car getting stuck in a pothole and the pothole grew bigger day by day. What was required was patching the potholes not resealing the holes. Unfortunately after this resealing, the rains came. They caused the damage on the resealed road which we are still waiting for the relevant authorities to address. But given our culture of lack of maintenance, I guess this road will be left to wear away until when we borrow money to resurface it. If we borrowed money to do this job, we have a major challenge in our hands. i imagine this is a city authority road and I hope that my friend Jennifer hears about this