June 2011

State capture and the Bahima debate

Dear Nina,

I can see you have been busy putting out the fire that that Nathan started. I love self interest. If we all exercised enough of it, Ugandan would have a much better future. One thing that Nathans post has brought out is just how much resentment there is towards Bahima. A lot of it is irrational, but it has got to be defused. And that cannot happen if its simply ignored. I can therefore understand why you have been very active on that forum trying to put out fires. For you see if this particular fire does engulf us, your lovely Bahima children will be victimised for issues they had nothing to do with nor created. But even more serious is the fact that that fire like all mob justice will be irrational with indiscriminate targets who may range anywhere from every westerner to everyone below the Karuma!

I think that defusing all of that tension is a worthwhile cause. I would therefore like to redirect this debate.

I have never been one for conspiracies. For years I have heard about the Basiita clan meeting and how they control the country and have a wide agenda extending t and covering the whole region. I prefer not to believe in it. Its the same for rumours regarding Museveni not being Ugandan -I always wonder so what? As far as am concerned its diversionary to discuss whether Museveni is Ugandan or not. And whether he is a munyarwanda or not is immaterial because it does not make him any less of a Ugandan than any number of other border tribes. We do have out very own bonafide Ugandan Rwandese being both those derived from proper Rwandese migrants who migrated to uganda pre -independence as well as the Bafumbira in Kisoro.If there are Bahima who believe in their superirority, then I pity them -its their own funeral!

While I have visited Nathans discussion a few times i have only read about twenty posts. Today I checked and there are over 300. Still not sure if I wish to add to them in which case I would have to read the whole thread or just move on. Am sure many other people have already said what I would say or have already said in my own Bahima post -the Bahima conspiracy is a smokescreen the only difference between the Basiita clan meeting and any other clan meeting if it ever happened is that there are Bahima in key government positions but these meetings with clan agendas happen all of the time all over the place. Their being in key government positions makes them very visible. In addition being in control of government for 25 years means that they are perceived to own the NRM, its government as well as all of its mistakes that include the various social disasters such as thieving politicians as well as corruption and poor social services!

The reality is that these clan meetings happen all of the time all over the country. Individual clans among the Basoga, Baganda, Banyoro, Batoro, Acholi, etc, all ethnic groups and familes, clans and subclans have these sectarian meetings with the agenda of advancing family, clan or ethnic interests. Buganda has had its national conference, its annual meetings in america and various other gatherings at all levels of Ganda society. Basoga nseete have had their own international and local meetings too as well as smmaller individual clan gatherings. The Acholi have had Kachoke Madit at international level as well as in East africa. Right now the Bakiga have a major do the ICOB meeting in the UK to discuss sectarian interests and how to develop their people and region. Even the scandal that your dad was involved in Temangalo had a community service component to it in that the proceeds of Temangalo were apparently meant to “save” the “Bakiga bank” in which the Bakiga community had significant savings from foreign takeover by Nigerians!

There are even some more disturbing rumours. While everyone likes to exagerate Buganda’s potential to secede from this unhappy marriage called Uganda, there are other groups whose plans may be even more advanced. No one talks about the so called “Luo agenda”, a plan proposed by some Luo groups to secede from Uganda to form a Luo republic. I am sure you may have heard about some of these rumours. When Mao suggested that northern Uganda would secede from Uganda, the suggestion was not pulled from thin air but had a body of support behind it.

I have met some Luo radicals in other fora who actually believe seriously in this agenda. Some claim to hav even participated in the Kenyan massacres which they saw as a Luo oppotunity to rule Kenya through Odinga and use him as a springboard as well as a Luo government in Southern Sudan to take power in Uganda. While I may not take them seriously, the reality is that they believe and have convinced themselves that they are not wanted in Uganda and will need to rethink their options. The problem of course is that some have built up a case for Bunyoro being a part of their Luo republic being as far as they are concerned a Luo (Babiito) kingdom. Museveni himself buttressed that view when he was playing his divide and rule in Buganda but it appears that it may come back to bite his presidential butt for I can see a war erupting in Bunyoro if a Nile “luo” republic” were to happen and claim the oil fields in Bunyoro which happen to be in Buliisa on Bagungu land. Bagungu are probably Luo in origin too! Luo disaffection with Uganda of course is due to the fact that sevices have not reached their homelands and peace has been elusive for over two decades.

Some of these groups have got extensive political and military plans that have been going on for years. And some of them are radicals with quite dangerous and fairly advanced plans. Their plan is to ‘reunite’ the Luo empire by uniting northern Ugandan Luo as well as those in eastern Kenya, southern Sudan and western Ethiopia to create some sort of modern Luo republic. this is Plan B according to some to be activated if Otunnu is “frustrated” in Uganda by the “Buganda problem”. They intend to petition the UN to secede. from these countries. The accenscion of Barack Obama to the US presidency was viewed by some of them as a sign. They have blindly put their faith in Otunnu taking power but unfortunately he failed to connect with the masses on the ground which some have convinced themselves is because of the “Buganda problem”! And some of them have joined armies in the diaspora in deliberate anticipation!

As you can see Ugandan has major problems that cannot be blamed on the Bahima collectively. Museveni’s deliberate divide and rule policies have created a monster that threatens Ugandans future and threatens new wars. Unfortunately the so called country Uganda is really a sham. this is a country that was cobbled together by western interests rather than local interests. We are a creation of the British and do not have a national identity. Obote created his republic by uniting the rest of the country against perceived Buganda “superiority complexes”.Museveni has united a few eaters around a core of Bahima tribesmates while promoting cronism and impunity.

We claim unity but when have we ever been united as Ugandans? If anything those who claim a national identity are usually those who want to take control of the whole country for their own small ethnic group while claiming national unity! So we keep rotating eaters from one region to another who sing national unity while eating locally! At the same time we rotate violence. If anything the only thing we have in common is the rotation of violence with each change of government. First it was Baganda, then it was Acholi, then it was West Nilers and nubians, then Baganda, then Acholi -do we really want it to be Bahima this time? This cycle of violence needs to stop while we seek a national identitiy. What is Uganda? What does it mean to be Ugandan?

There are some Bahima eating of that there is no doubt. But so are many other westerners as well as NRM members from other regions albeit in probably smaller numbers. Some of them are primitive eaters who eat with impunity -the ones I called bush Bahima in my note. But they are careful to spread some of the money around so there are Banyankore enclaves, Bakiga eaters as well as others, all of which creates an impression that the whole west is eating. Some practices of course like “personalised scholarships” sourced from foreign governments and treated as personal property given out to family members and their local areas by powerful members of the NRM against the leadership code and the public service code when viewed against an incumbence of 25 years create regional imbalances in education and employment that increase resentment.

When we all went to uni, we had classmates some of them very weak students whose jobs were assured when the rest were walking the streets for years and not all of them are Bahima. In my brothers business admin class in a private university, the only one who got a government job straight from uni was the son of a prominent mukiga in Bank of Uganda. My brother got a job in one of the new dstricts after forfeiting six months of his salary -can you imagine that? He later chose to resign and go off to the UK after refusing to sign off on dodgy and illegal stuff his boss was trying to get him to sign! Another girl in the same class only got a job many years later after doing a masters degree -and that was because someone else -connected her!

Uganda is captive to vested interests, some of them tribal, but mostly regional and personal. Dr Silver Kugonza in an article, says that “In State Capture economy, powerful individuals run the government” He adds that, “by recognising the dynamics of state capture, one can get a clearer understanding of the cause of persistent corruption in Uganda”. He further adds that “State capture was faclitated by the bonanza of privatisation and divestiture of early 1990′s. The businesses that emerged then worked hard to manipulate policy formation and actual practices thus shaping the emerging rules of the game in their favour.”

He states that,

“This phenomenon of state capture comes out of efforts by business firms to shape decisions taken by the state to gain specific advantages, often through the imposition of anticompetitive barriers that generate highly concentrated gains to selected powerful firms/businesses/individuals at a significant social cost. Because such firms use their influence to block any policy reforms that might eliminate these advantages, state capture becomes not merely a symptom but also a fundamental cause of poor governance. In this view, the capture economy is trapped in a vicious circle in which the policy and institutional reforms necessary to improve governance are undermined by collusion between powerful firms/businesses/individuals and state officials who reap substantial private gains (rents) from the continuation of weak governance.”

Further manifestations may be “bribes” to parliamentarians to “buy” their votes on important pieces of legislation, bribes to government officials to enact favourable regulations or decrees/statutes, bribes to judges to influence court decisions -these are the classic examples of grand corruption through which firms/businesses can encode advantages for themselves into the basic legal and regulatory structure of the economy.”

Dr Kugonza goes on to define state captors thus;

“Although the concept of state capture naturally conjures up images of powerful oligarchs, captors come in a wide range of sizes and sectors. Often, captor firms/businesses are more likely to be new entrants to the market such foreign investors and their in-country partners who form a coalition that draws attention of the state away from reliance on the grassroots structures and popular demands.

Going back to our situation in late and early 1990s, our state was weak, unable to provide most basic public goods and with a set of a few powerful incumbent state enterprises/firms (these were predominantly state owned) dominating their respective markets without having to resort to bribery payments such as Uganda Commercial Bank. To compete in such an environment, new entrants adopted a strategy of state capture to buy greater security for their property rights from public officials and to encode, or incorporate, competitive advantages into the emerging legal and regulatory framework. State capture thus became a strategy for a few firms to create zones of relative security and advantage for themselves at the expense of all other firms/businesses or groups.

It is generally argued that once a country has fallen into the trap of a capture economy, foreign direct investment can magnify the problem. In high-capture economies, some types of foreign investors—those with local partners and domestic headquarters—are nearly twice as likely to engage in state capture as domestically owned firms. (By contrast, trans-national firms headquartered abroad that engage in foreign direct investment provide kickbacks more often than domestic firms when competing for public procurement contracts. The dangers to the long-term development of such a capture economy are that new, dynamic entrepreneurs have strong incentives to invest their talents in capturing the state rather than in developing innovative products or production methods, in order to compete successfully in a distorted environment. The capture economy rewards connections over competence, influence and innovation; it is fuelled by private investments in politics that weaken the state and undermine the provision of basic public goods. At the same time, capture systematically deters private investment in the economy, both foreign and domestic, and creates obstacles to the entry of small and medium-sized enterprises thus undermining the key sources of sustainable growth. This partly explains the cycles of rapid economic growth, stagnation and declines.”

As you can see, this conspiracy debate is centred around a powerful Hima conspiracy led by powerful Hima oligarchs in government such as Kutesa and Museveni leading a secretive Hima organisation with a “50 year plan”. The Hima community has now collectively been labelled as an exploitative tribal based mafia with an agenda to build a powerful Hima -Tutsi business empire covering the whole region with all Bahima as shareholders and Ugandans as the losers. this is a dangerous theory that i refuse to subscribe to. As Dr Kugonza argues, it is more likely individual business interests working with local partners in politics and the military who have captured the state rather than the Bahima community. The Bahima may or maynot have had a clan meeting but other communities in Uganda have had similar meetings with similar agenda’s.

Dr Kugonza concluded that,

“By recognising the dynamics of state capture, one can gain a much clearer understanding of the factors underlying the persistence of corruption in many developing countries, Uganda inclusive. Any reforms to improve the institutional framework, which might undermine these highly concentrated advantages, will be strongly and swiftly be dealt with by a coalition of captors that have the political, military and other forms of influence to derail such reforms whatever shapes, shades of colours or camouflage they assume …“

The solution to dismantling this state capture therefore is to identify those individuals who have been the agents of this state capture. While many of these may be Bahima, there are many others who are not. The Bahima as a whole are thus being labelled and face persecution for a problem they are not responsible for as a community. The focus of this debate should be redirected to identifying those individuals within the NRM and the military -business complex who have captured our state and control policy and state actions. These are the ones responsible for the malaise we find ourself in.

My suggestion is to start with those members of the NRM who have got extensive business linkages including partnersip with foreign firms controling our economy. No community should be made to pay the price fr the crimes of individuals from thsoe communities.

Opposition politics, think tanks and national conferences.

Sunday, June 12, 2011 at 11:25am

Dear Nina,

Todays letter was developed from my responses to an chat online with a concerned Ugandan Nate Muwonge who engaged me in a debate. As a member of Ugana’s younger demographic he wished to get my opinions on a number of issues regarding Ugandan politics. i explained to him that I am not a politician and are more interested in social issues. That my comments on politics come from the fact that social issues are largely determined by the prevailing politics as well as the priorities of the ruling politicians. Uganda’s social services are in a very poor state which pretty much summarises the quality of our current political leadership specifically the NRM! that if Ugandans can be more aware of the link between political leadership and social services, they will be able to vote more widely.

The discussion of course included the quality of our current political opposition! Their willingness to sacrifice their electorates hopes on the alter of self interest and allowances while Ugandans are crying about expensive government has pretty much put a spotlight on them!

Uganda’s opposition politicians come from the same stock as the ruling politicians they are just jostling for power so they too can eat or transfer the eating to their own village.

The current party’s in their present form including the NRM, all need to be shaken up from the grassroots.

The current party’s in their present form all need to be shaken up from the grassroots. New realignments and new political formations will need to be discussed and old politicians who are not flexible will need to be thrown out. this should be similar to what happened in the late 50′s resulting in the formation of UPC and the other dominant, now not so dominant political parties.

A whole generation is passing by with the NRM dominated by old politicians who have failed to deliver and who are not trained to deliver in a modern world hogging the limelight. This is demonstrated quite clearly in the lack of vision displayed by Museveni in appointing his new cabinet. That he proposed people like Sebagala and Kakooza Mutaale is the height of arrogance and contempt for Ugandans. That people withour requisite basic qualifications for the posts of minister were even proposed and appeared before the vetting committee demonstrates a lack of due diligence that is amazing! One wonders what the presidents office does with all of that money spent on it. That he failed to respond to Ugandans concerns about public expenditure and still appointed a bloated executive with redundancies and duplications pandering to personal interests is an insult to Ugandans as is appointing people with tainted histories. How about appointing as Min of Justice a man with a history of contempt for the law? Museveni is out of touch and prolonged incumbency have made him more and more arrogant and careless. it has also demonstrated his short comings and lack of preparation for leadership in a progressive and forward looking Uganda. No wonder he spends so much time trying to keep us looking at the past rather than forward to the future.

Mao’s generation of politicians risk completely missing out on leadership as Museveni persists with his plans for life presidency! When I say Mao’s generation, I include the NRM’s younger generation of politicians heading for mid life including yourself.

Mao will have to make decisions regarding his future and whether DP is the right vehicle for his political aspirations. DP appears to be destroying itself from within as is UPC. Otunnu has to go back to basics and connect with the masses or apply for another UN job. While his CV may get him another UN job, it is not going to help him connect with the masses unless he tells them what they want to hear -that he represents the change they want to see!

We are saddled with political dinosaurs who like Kajura and Kategaya demonstrate in public meetings are always sleeping at the wheel! Why would someone return Moses ali? Surely is it not an insult to West Nile that no one younger and more skilled was considered worthy of replacing him even if we all subscribed to theis regional balancing crap? Ditto the ministry of Karamoja which should not exist in my opinion that the best person for the job is the presidents wife from Nyabushoozi who does not have the slightest clue what their needs and culture is? i think that ministries like Ethics, Karamoja, national guidance, Kampala, Luwero and bunyoro should have been scrapped and demoted to departments! Ministers of state should have been scrapped and Permanent secretaries and undersecretaries strengthened with suitably trained technocrats while obvious duplications of minstries such as securit and internal affairs or defence should have been amalgamated and the number of political sycophants in these posts slashed together with the budget spent on them!

Besigye has been consistent even when he has suffered personal injury in standing up to his former boss. In many ways his anger reminds me of Gbabo who for more than a decade suffered persecution, beatings and imprisonment but when he finally got into power, acted just the same as his predecessors due to his personal enmosity for Ouatara who was a part of his predecessors government! Thats why I believe that he too would misuse power if he came into a country like ours where the president has unlimited powers and terms.

While Besigye’s quest may be too personal for some, his potential successors within the FDC like Muntu have failed to step into Besigye’s boots to take the initiative and leadership. Anne Mugisha wants the FDC slot in 2016 but all signs are that she will not get it. Things appear to have been good until she hit the ground and waded into FDC internal politics! I remembered her article castigating Betty Kamya for addressing party issues “in the wrong forum” when she too was crying “foul” in the wrong forum after getting rigged out of Nakakwa by her own party. She subsequently lost in Mbarara and admitted that her party simply was not prepared enough, something I had suggested to her before but she dismissed! Am afraid that this as well as the fact that she took on her party leadership and challenged them in a country and party that prefered behind the scenes arrangements may jeopardise her bid for party presidency in 2016. In many ways, one can see her going out like Kamya, sacrificed on the alter of self interests and a ‘twalwana’ mentality that appears to be shared by FDC and NRM. That because they have been in the trenches against Museveni, some individuals within the FDC feel “entitled”. This bars them from forming new alliances. Can you imagine where the democrats would be if they had failed to recognise the potential within Obama an outsider?

As a female politician there is again a “glass ceiling” effect and too many battles on too many fronts within the FDC and W2W may have given Nandala a boost. At the end of the day, tribal politics will unravel it all. Is it possible that Nandala may emerge ahead of Besigye, Mugisha and Muntu in 2016? Latigo ended up being a dud so Nandala is not there yet and will have to work very hard building consensus in the next few years!

Museveni has outlived his usefulness even to the NRM. While most of his men are tainted with scandal and corruption amking the succession question a hard choice. His succession plans for Muhoozi will need to be shelved unless he wishes for his son to spend all of his time fighting destructive wars. The NRM have been in power for 25 years and failed to deliver so it makes no sense to retain them. If the NRM is to survive, it will need to reorganise itself seriously over the next five years but again the recent cabinet appointments suggest that it is going to be business as usual!

They would have to achieve the feat of reorganising themselves into a new organisation with grassroot support and public confidence. This includes putting their obsolete old men out to pasture. I assume that you will be positioning yourself so you need to decide whether you are going to follow muzeyi down his slippery slope, daddy until they shaft him like they did Bukenya, or chose your own political destiny!

The problem of the opposition is that the NRM may beat them to it if they can skip Museveni’s succession plans and reorganise the NRM party while they are too busy fighting for positions. Kamya was an effective mobiliser for RA. Actually for most of the RA she was virtually the face of Reform Agenda! That she was betrayed the way she was explains her recent decisions, statements about Besigye as well as refusal to have any part in the W2W.

I think the FDC shafted her but the decisions she has made since have pretty much killed her political future. She will have to do with a posting as an ambassador for Museveni. Unfortunately Museveni uses ambassadorships as political rewards, just like he uses districts and ministeries! I think she was sacrificed at the alter of FDC’s ‘regional balancing’ politics which is much the same as that of the NRM that has sacrificed merit at the alter of short term gains and a disguised life presidency plan. n some ways one wonders just how the opposition differs from the NRM!

She does not have a political platform she made sense to people but people want to know that their vote is going to contribute to change not get wasted. Mao would have to talk to her if he wants to use her. Question is whether she will work with/under someone else. The politics of parties is that each now believes they “deserve” posts/positions because they “struggled” a very similar mentality to the NRM’s twalwana a sense of entitlement.

In many ways FDC is as much a personality cult as the NRM is as is UPC. As has been shown recently, if you remove Besigye, they appear to lose momentum. UPC is still very much beholden to Obote’s ghost despite their attempt at murdering his ghost when they removed his widow and son from the centre of their politics. They did try to build up Otunnu into a cult figure too which is why his most important asset is his CV. Unfortunately Museveni has devalued professors and highly educated men and women and reduced them to lackeys in his government so the public is no longer in awe of paper qualifications. His assocition with both Obote as well as the Okello regime as well still does not go down well in some quarters with very long collective memories! CP is dead -may they rest in peace and all of the other parties like Bibandi’s and Bwanika’s only exist in the figments of their founders imaginations! Suubi is a powerful lobby group that may be an asset depending on how it is handled.

People may have to look outside the parties and those politicians who see the light will join them rather than continuing to look at politicians for solutions they are incapable of doing. This means that men and women of goodwill who do not see a future in the current parties will have to decide if they wish to continue abusing their own intelligence and that of Ugandans or follow their conscience.

Moi lasted as long as he did by playing the divide and rule game. A fractured and directionless political opposition contributed as much to his last ten years in power as did his police. I notice that of late, Moi has become Museveni’s best friend. Could he perhaps be offering free lessons in how to hang onto power when you are finished? I would hope that he instead imparted lessons on how to retire in your own country after you have contributed to divisions and wars in your bid to stay in power for Museveni is going to need these lessons! Ugandans have long memories as Obote and UPC know very well by now!

We have the same problem with our political opposition. Museveni wins because he bribes and rigs the playing field with gerrymandering, a captive electoral commission, and politics of patronage and vote buying, but also because they are greedy and fractious and cannot seem to focus on what needs to be done!

I support the oppositions walk to work and hope that they continue it. But I also want to see them engage meaningfully in educating Ugandans. I am therefore waiting to see their policy documents starting with a response to Maria Kiwanuka’s recent budget. How the opposition manages their differences and the ego’s of their leaders will determine whether they succeed in their quest to become more relevant to Ugandans.

Lastly you have always asked before what Ugandans can do to help the country progress. As you have found out, Ugandans can articulate their problems -its just that their political leadership have no ears and do not listen.

Buganda had a national conference on the future of Buganda. South Africa and many democracies have think tank and national conferences inviting people from all strata of their society to comment upon and propose ways forward. I would suggest that Ugandans consider a national conference or series of national coferences with various themes. Health is one that would benefit from a national conference. This would draw people from various sectors of the society who are all shareholders not just medical and academic communities. this should not be a platform for political posturing and its resolutions have got to have commitment by the government to consider in their plans for the next decade or so. In other countries, development cycles are based on community needs and are planned upto 25 years ahead. We need to identify resource people in our community and set up think tanks whose resolutions do more than gather dust on shelves. Invlove Ugandans in their governance. Special interest groups are ahead of the government and are doing this yet the government thinks that a grade III teacher like Kakooza the junior Minister in Health can add value and people more qualified than he is should just obey him because he is a “leader”.

I could mention several others of your minsters who quite frankly are not cut out for their jobs but will leave it at that.