My Response to Media

If you are a public servant, the day you appear in the newspapers for the wrong reason is the day you know you have become possibly famous and important. There are thousands of people but they do not show up in the newspapers unless if they have done something stunning. The press acts as a media to inform the public and very importantly acts as a watch dog for the public. As society starts recognizing you, they start keeping a tab on you. As an important person in society, you have to be accountable for your actions and if you are not the press will tell the public so. But at times the press can also just take you down for no good reason. In most cases, malice or those who want to pull you down. It is not new it is only natural as human beings we are envious. It can be positive, it can be negative. Positive envy results into an individual aspiring to be like that person he envies. They are motivated. Negative envy however is that which wants to pull you down. People want to be like them or worse than them. Whenever I did something good, you have a small print about it in the paper. Good things do not make news anyway. Allegations or something really bad will attract all the space the newspapers require. If there is a detractor pushing it and paying money to those who publish. 

More than a year back as they renewed my contract as Principal of MUBS, detractors went to the press and made allegations about me which made headlines. We almost lost Norwegian funding for our PhD programme because of the allegations. This was followed by court cases including a criminal one which was thrown out. I have been sued so many times over these “what I call stupid allegations”. I say so because the haters who used them knew they were stupid but that was not the point. They wanted to create an impression in the public that this angel you see is actually a devil.

These allegations attracted the IGG and made investigations within them. The IGG has dismissed these allegations. However, on one count they have requested me to refund the money. This is money that my colleagues felt due to my contribution to the School they would support a heart operation of my mother in India. The IGG investigated this case and in the report It is said that some of the people who were in the meeting the Chair of that meeting denied having extended this facility to me. It is amazing but that is human nature, several of the senior colleagues denied having agreed to this. I was not in that meeting. Those who recall the meeting are shocked by what our colleagues said to the IGG. Before you get to my age, you never know that human nature is treacherous. So the IGG requests that I pay back this money. The IGG’s office has done it role. I appreciate it and thank it. They have only been fair. The last time the IGG wrote a report about me it had falsifications in it. I challenged it in court and I had it set aside. Public office is not easy. What is interesting this time round is that I found the colleagues who leaked this IGG report to the press. You will be amazed when you know who did it, how they did it and why they did it. The current story appeared in the Monitor today has also been leaked and it is not surprising. I expected it and from the newspaper article and the details from the school Council meeting is not surprising.

The press can be unforgiving if they are driven by detractors who want to get even with you. Hardly a week back, the name Balunywa and MUBS was in the press. Again for negative reasons, this particular article appearing in the sun reflected on how people can stoop so low to go towards destroying an individual. The Sun report talked about Balunywa of MUBS. For those who read the story, they wondered why it was written. For those who did not read the story but saw the headline wondered what was wrong with this Balunywa of MUBS and wondered why he was doing this. The Sun was talking about one Yusuf Waiswa a lecturer in MUBS and fabricated some story about him. They were told this person was associated with Balunywa and this story could be used to get at Balunywa. Indeed they got to me because I was embarrassed by it. Guess who provided this information? A senior colleague in MUBS. Watch out for the people you sit on the same table with, they stab you in back! I think The Sun newspaper owed me an apology but when you come to know what they were pursuing, you do not even have to ask for the apology. YOU CAN NEVER WIN A PRESS WAR. SO DO NOT START ONE OR GET INVOLVED IN ONE. When they drag you into it, keep out of it. If you were in the wrong, apologize and move on. Nobody is an angel, we all make mistakes. However those of us in public office have more obligations to provide the necessary leadership to the public. I think the press needs to be more professional in their job. They have an obligation to investigate and report facts. Our leaders in our various capacities get there because of one reason or the other. They need to be protected rather than destroyed especially if the investigations reveals that there is no case but they should not take pleasure in discrediting people who have taken their time to serve the country. 

The famous primarily artists are more prone to primarily scandal but let all those in the government key jobs be aware anytime you will be a target. I thank those who have found me fitting to be written about because they value the small contribution I have made to the country and I detest those who use the mistakes we committed if at all to demonize us. Fortunately, there is the good news. The world is changing and the press especially for those with internet is losing its values. I can also post this on facebook and I am able to tell my story. I dare the Daily Monitor newspaper to publish it so that other people can hear my views. The journalists who are taking the money have their days numbered because they no longer have the monopoly of reporting. I have seen the reaction on the monitor story

Bravo President Magufuli

The Tanzanian president has become a household name in East Africa. I imagine in most parts of Africa. His Excellency President John Magufuli is a darling of the poor is a darling of the poor who think that the Government system is rotten and exploitative and is loathed by the civil servants and I imagine his fellow politicians who are beneficiaries of the civil service system that operates in most of Africa. In some parts of Uganda, the name is famous for other things.

When he took office, the Tanzanian president is reported to have initiated several apparently austerity measures intended to save money and improve performance in the Tanzanian economy. Among the things he did included banning the Tanzanian Independence Day celebrations. He is reported to have ordered the diversion of money intended for the celebrations to buy hospital beds. He reduced the budget for his own inauguration from 100,000 dollars to 70,000 dollars. He suspended Commissioner General of the Tanzanian Revenue Authority over loss of money. He abolished first class travel for government officials. He forbid printing of Christmas cards at government cost. He sacked the head of the main hospital when he found patients sleeping on the floor. He also directed various public institutions offered at meetings. For the University of Dares Salaam, the guidelines are circulating around on social media. These include: Removing heavy refreshments and leaving items like pea nuts. In fact if you want to serve any refreshment in the University of Dares Salam besides water and tea, you have to seek the authority of the Deputy Vice Chancellor. These are heroic acts and very appealing especially to those who are not familiar with how government works. On Independence Day, he rode a bike to go and clean town.

President Magufuli is sending very good signals, he is suggesting that we can use our resources in a much better manner. He is calling for frugality and value for money. He is seeking an improvement in government service delivery. Indeed he qualifies for a servant leader.  It is just that as Head of State, he has used a wrong method for a very good objective. Possibly there are worse things happening which are not visible and which he may never know. For instance, how much revenue does Tanzania get out of its minerals and who benefits from these minerals?

President Magufuli should go at a policy level rather than the token actions which he cannot sustain. Heads of State are the fountain of honour in a nation and there are some things they should not get involved in. It is in order to show the way but be careful because there are some things that cannot be sustained. While a Head of State can participate in a cleaning exercise, he should not make it his business to do so. These noble goals need a more permanent solution because the measures he is using, he will quickly be defeated by the system and are not sustainable.

President Magufuli should look at the development goals of Tanzania and evolve policies and strategies to achieve these goals. For instance some time back, African governments got rid of the policies of providing housing and motor vehicles for civil servants. Was this a correct policy? What objective did it achieve? In the United Kingdom, the Labour party governments built what is famously known as Council Houses which Margaret Thatcher sold. What were the lessons? Are the ordinary British people better off now than when they had access to government owned houses? It is policy that will get rid of remuneration packages for civil servants not executive decisions. Executive decisions tend to result into abuse because they favour only a few people. Tanzania and indeed literally all African countries need to change their policies if they are to get rid of poverty. Being frugal with the wrong policies will benefit wrong people. We need to review our investment policies, trade policies, foreign policies among others, we also need to evolve strategies that will ensure that we are able to achieve these policies. What are the policies that Rwanda has evolved that have made it what it is today. Who is benefiting from Rwanda’s economic success. If it is still MTN shareholders, then the policies may not be right. Bravo President Magufuli but the journey has just started 

Elections in Africa: The tragedy of lack of ideology; A Case of Uganda

I was the United States at a time they were going through primaries for the presidential candidates for the two major political parties. The US has the Republican Party which brings together conservatives .These are people who believe that society does not require big government and the role of government in society should be police and defense. They believe in the individual knowing best what he wants and in working to make profit for oneself. These are hard core capitalist. They believe in the traditional religious virtues don't believe in gay marriage don't support single parents and believe in all those conservative traditional positions in society

The other party is the Democratic Party. Of course it too believes in operation of markets but with government control and strict oversight. These are liberals who believe markets are not perfect and need intervention of government to create social justice. They support gay marriages, single family and generally government action to support the poor and vulnerable sections of society. The political battles between these two are interesting and they actually border hatred. In fact listening to Donald Trump who for some time has been a front runner in the Republican Party ,he said there was hatred between the two groups and of course accused Obama who is a democrat president for causing it. The primaries are intended to bring  out the best candidate.  It compares to what Besigye and Muntu had in which Muntu lost to Besigye. They then of course went to the Democratic Alliance  (TDA) where they failed to agree on a single candidate. Then primaries bring out who is best suited for the party.

The parliamentary primaries for the NRM party have been very interesting. The last one of 2011 was controlled by the then Secretary General Amaama Mbabazi. If you didn't support him , it is said you never won the primary. I witnessed the election myself and it was a big scandal. Some candidates were given money others didn't get. Some candidates had spare votes! They stuffed boxes. Today as the NRM concludes the same process it seems no learning took place. Accusations of fraud have been rampart. It is also said that there has been an Amaama factor. Amaama has his silent supporters who he may have sponsored according to press reports but they fear to come out openly to support him at this stage. They have hope that Amaama will make it at the presidential election. If he succeeds they will come out, if he fails they will forever keep quiet.!!!
The differences between the politicians in the US and indeed the Western countries  generally is ideological. Essentially  it is about the role of the state in transformation.
Each group believes its approach is best for the economy and they sell these ideas to the people to elect them into office. In my beloved country Uganda the idea of ideology is not on the table. First of all most of the politicians have peasant backgrounds and likely to be the first to break through in their families to join he middle class. They therefore have no interests  to safeguard yet. Yes they may have studied a bit about ideology but that's not an issue yet. They tend to support whoever is in government that guarantees their job. They also base their politics on either religious affiliation or tribal. Actually some people are their simply to enrich themselves because they have seen it is possible to do so. Yoweri Museveni is schooled in ideology and is the reason he is President today. His beliefs took him out of school and work to join liberation movements. He started his own party to liberate Uganda based on his belief that there was bad governance in Uganda and indeed Africa. He believed in the central role of the state, like the Democrats in the US, to solve societal problems. The democrats though believe in markets. Most of African leaders did not believe in markets being able to solve African problems. I wouldn't blame them. First of all those who colonized the world had objectives of profit maximization and didn't care about the  local people. Secondly when they imposed governments on to these colonized communities, these governments didn’t work with or for local people, they instead supported those who were looking for profit who were back in the colonizing country. Thirdly was the disease of slave trade which appears to have been either promoted or supported by the foreign colonial governments. The leader who emerged at that time therefore had no alternative but to hate the type of government of the day in the 20 the Century Communism appeared to provide the alternative to colonial governments.  Many African leaders therefore played into the communist hands. These ideologies, capitalism and communism were philosophies developed in Europe. The philosophiessuited the conditions in Europe. Africa's conditions were very different. Without the industrial revolution capitalism has no meaning in Africa. Seeking profit was not understood then. Whoever practices it simply rips off the peasant. This is what colonial governments did with introduction of cotton and coffee in Uganda. In Kenya, coffee was on farms owned by whites. In Zimbabwe the same thing happened but the Europeans actually took the land. In South Africa it was worse.
African leaders were his reactionary. Adopting foreign ideology like communism simply because it provided an alternative to capitalism. Not because it provided a better programme. Others like Keneth Kaunda in Zambia introduced humanism, but it was not anchored in production relations. Besides, it had no clear proponents to argue for it. He simply took a bit of African philosophical thinking that was not in the economic arena and thought he could make it an ideology.  It had no chance against the powerful capitalism.
For capitalism to sustain itself it has proponents, researchers, disciples and diehards. In fact both the Republicans and Democrats in the United States have foundations whose role is to research into their thinking and make simulations about the economy and advise the political leaders. The Heritage Foundation and the Brookings foundation serve Republicans and Democrats respectively.
These are think tanks where the ideologues of each party go to think for the party and advise how the interests of each party can be promoted and preserved.
It is not surprising that Africa has copied systems but do not know how to manage and sustain them let alone grow them or practice them.

Looking at the NRM party which is the biggest in the country the first question is what is the ideology of the party? How many people share or understand it if it exists? Given the different leaders with different backgrounds in the NRMis it possible that the leadership is bound by a common ideology .To me NRM is a collection of people who gravitated towards Museveni because he had captured  power and could dispense it. All the Johnny come lately politicians have joined to get a piece of that power and the resources that go with it. Unfortunately NRM has failed to build a party. That's why we have the Besigyes and Amaamas emerging. Amaama is arguing that yes he has been close to the power but he didn't dispense it. He now wants it so that he can do what he would have wanted to do. This is because NRM has no clear ideology. If it had Amaama wouldn't have emerged this way and would not be saying that. This is because ideology keeps interests of members a member cannot go away. If he does he goes with others on a clear disagreement with the mainstream party. Amaama should have agreed to go away with those who believed that the party no longer served their interests not simply because he wants to be President. India which has copied western democracy has seen break up of mainstream parties but like the NRM now the breakup of most has not been ideological. Its been about wielding power. This has seen emergence of numerous parties in India. However the difference is that unlike Uganda Indian political groups have some interests that back them.

In Uganda the intellectuals who should advise the politicians are nowhere near doing that, in fact they are accused of being theorists who know nothing about politics. The intellectuals are the guiding forces of any development.  They look at what the politicians are doing and make sense out of it. They provide guidance through testing of the different practices by politicians. But who listens to them? Not surprising that NRM today has no think tank or interests groups who support it .most members are looking for resources. Possibly the  historical s could be the interest groups but they periodically loose elections and go to the cold .it is the generals who normally get support from the establishment , not others. For this reason there are no Families, businesses and diehard individuals who believe in the NRM philosophy, because it doesn't have one anyway, who will go with it where ever it goes. This is because there is no common thread that links the different parts of the party together. Parties will form when they develop a common ideology without it they have no locus. Elections are therefore not about preserving interests but for the individual to get employed. May be, one day a system may form a political system. Good luck to those seeking elective offices