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of the statistics our President likes to quote is about the
improvement of revenue collection. He wants the country to
ever be grateful to him because he found us collecting only
Shs 40 billion in 1986 but with his visionary help we are
now collecting Shs 3,000 billion.
I would like to thank President Museveni for this achievement
but also ask him whether he thinks the much-hyped improved
revenue collection has had a fundamental change on the lives
of Ugandans, especially the peasants. In answering my question,
I expect President Museveni to rely on other statistics,
such as infant mortality, maternal mortality, primary and
secondary school enrolment.
These statistics are good for workshops and donor conferences,
but they mean little for mothers in Kyazanga who die in
labour.
In my Bijaaba village alone, two mothers have died in recent
years because their husbands were too poor to ferry them
to Masaka Hospital, 35km away, to deliver their babies.
There is no single theatre in my home constituency of Bukoto
West. So if someone needs a simple operation or has advanced
labour pain, they have to travel to Masaka.
The state of our roads is what I would like to dwell on
today. Government never stops reminding us that good roads
are key to trade. And we all know that time is a key ingredient
of production.
But if all of us, including the liberators that did us
a favour to increase our revenue collection know this, why
are they neglecting our roads?
I spend more than 40 minutes negotiating a 14-km journey
from Kirinya-Bweyogerere to The Weekly Observer in the city
centre everyday because I have to stop almost every after
one metre to dodge a pothole or descend in it slowly where
it covers the entire road!
The Kinawatakka road that I usually use was meant for light
traffic but with the unending construction of the Northern
Bypass, we share it with heavy trucks. As a result, it is
slowly being washed away by the rain and developing potholes.
The Masaka highway has for sometime been fairly usable,
but it has recently developed huge potholes and could be
like Kinawataka road by the end of the rainy season.
Driving to Masaka last weekend to attend my friend Abdul
Kasoma Kisekka’s introduction to the parents of my
cousin, Sheba Mwanje, it took me 30 minutes more than it
should ordinarily.
The following day I met Prof. Mondo Kagonyera at Old Kampala
Mosque where the couple tied the knot and he too was complaining
about the roads. Kagonyera, Sheba’s uncle, told me
that the journey from his home in Rukungiri should be five
hours but he had spent seven. Imagine what those two hours
mean in terms of production!
My mother lives in Kawanda and I hate driving on Bombo
Road, not because of the Bwaise traffic jam but the huge
potholes that make me feel pain in my chest. It is basically
difficult to find a smooth road in Museveni’s Uganda
today.
John Nasasira’s Ministry of Works gets about Shs
400 billion every year; he will actually get Shs 600 billion
in the next budget. What does this money do if all the roads
are full of potholes? Could a big chunk of it be ending
up in private pockets? How come some of the roads ‘fixed’
in the morning [e.g. Kirinya road in Bweyogerere] develop
potholes in the evening?
The taxpayers are fed up. Since I started working 10 years
ago, I forfeit a quarter of my salary through PAYE to the
state, plus other indirect taxes in fuel and other expenses.
I want this money spent on my well-being, not only on Museveni,
his family and cronies!
The amount of money we spend on one man - Mr. Museveni
- should be enough to improve our roads. For example, Museveni
had about 600 Presidential Protection Unit (PPU) guards
when he captured power in 1986; now he has an entire division
of about 12,000 soldiers disguised as a brigade! Consider
salary alone; if all Museveni guards were corporals, we
would be spending Shs 240 million on them per month!
But while one man and his family are guarded by more than
10,000 soldiers, Budo Junior School children are at the
mercy of ill-trained private guards.
We buy for the President vehicles of about Shs 500 million
each, we have built him a $54 million State House, we are
about to buy him a presidential jet of about $60 million.
On top of that, he dishes out our money to veterans, NRM
-leaning politicians, and land committees, as though it
were proceeds from the sale of his cattle.
If we have registered a fundamental change in revenue collection,
then we, ordinary Ugandans, are yet to register a fundamental
change in our lives.
Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda, The author is political
editor of The Weekly Observer, semugs@ugandaobserver.com
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