The cost of lack of red lines

How Uganda came so late and lonely to acquire a cash and carry government where every citizen is for themselves

THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | My column last week titled “When illness strikes a leader” attracted a lot of attention and commentary. In it, I argued that as he has aged, President Yoweri Museveni has lost control of many aspects of the state, especially in business. There, wheeler-dealers who surround State House like an animal carcass sell him tall tales of business ventures. He buys these stories and pours hundreds of millions of dollars into these scams. I gave the examples of Matthias Magoola and David Senfuma as the people who have convinced the president to give them public funds as venture capital for their hare-brained plans to build world-class pharmaceutical enterprises.

Some intellectual friends called or texted, arguing that the issues I raised were “vintage Yoweri”. That since he came to power, Museveni has governed this way, dishing out favours to friends, allies and opponents he wants to win over (or buy off). What is new, these critics argued, is that today he is doing so on a very large scale in large part because the economy of Uganda and therefore the government budget have also grown by leaps and bounds. I am inclined to agree with this criticism but to an extent. As an outside insider to the system, I am also aware that the president is genuinely exhausted not only in his physical energy but also in his intellectual astuteness. This is a biological reality he cannot escape.

One friend gave a long list of leaders who have aged in power yet did not lose the moral, policy and ideological purpose of their struggle the way Museveni has. But this could be because of the way they ruled, i.e., their administrative competences, but also because of the nature of the societies they governed. But since many Ugandans (like most human beings) focus more on individual agency than structural dynamics, let me do similar. Where the critics are right is this: what we are witnessing is not entirely new. It is the scale and scope at which it is happening that is new. And this because there has been an ideological shift from the earlier belief in free markets and the private sector to a belief in the role of the state in the economy.

I will return to Museveni’s individual agency later. For now, we are witnessing a big shift from the ideal of the market as the best mechanism to allocate scarce resources. Today the government believes it should do business directly and singly, or in partnership with private companies. Witness the transition from Umeme to UEDCL, the takeover of power dams, etc. In the mid-2000s, we complained bitterly because the government gave a company called Tri Star $15m to build a cotton factory to export goods for AGOA. Now the government is giving Magoola $630m for a pharmaceutical plant. Why do public officials allow this to happen?

This brings me back to individual agency. Museveni is a complex man. He does not dichotomise things into right and wrong, good or bad. Instead, he sees the world as full of grey. He is therefore willing to accommodate certain levels of incompetence and corruption in public office, recognising that he cannot create a perfect world. In such circumstances, it is very difficult for public officials working under him to know for sure his reaction to their actions or inactions – unless it impinges on his ability to retain power. For many public officials, therefore, they must wait for his personal intervention to get anything done.

This personalism gets worse as the president ages and is therefore unable to effectively evaluate every business proposal brought to him. So, wheeler-dealers who want to extract resources from the state for themselves have learnt the trick. To do something wrong and still claim innocence, you need a directive from the president. Consequently, the last few years have seen a massive proliferation of blue letters allocating this and that to this person or company. These presidential instructions have become the means through which wheeler dealers collude with public officials to fleece the state. One finds Museveni’s finger in every pie.

This is very different, for example, from Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame has established a largely functional bureaucracy. He has set a standard with clear expectations of what he expects from those he has appointed. He has also set clear consequences for public officials who fail to meet their official mandates. Public officials in Rwanda, therefore, know which red lines they dare not cross and the dire consequences they will face if they do. As a result, Kagame frees himself from having to micromanage things through constant written reminders to his staff. While his authority is felt in every government action, he is personally not directly involved. Therefore, even as he ages, Kagame’s ability to manage the state and ensure public officials do not collude with scammers to cheat will not be eroded.

Please note that there is no public official who makes these approvals of hundreds of millions of dollars given to the likes of Magoola, Enrica Pinetti, etc. Instead, all these decisions have been taken to cabinet, where the president has personally bulldozed his ministers to approve oodles of money for these projects. Even in the procurement of all the major infrastructure projects – Karuma, Isimba, Standard Gauge Railway, etc. – Museveni has been the decider. So many things have gone wrong with these projects, and there are no public officials to hold to account. Why? It is the president personally who awarded the contract. All that public officials say to defend themselves is that they were “obeying orders from above”.

The lesson from this discussion is that individual agency matters. The best way to govern a country is to set clear expectations. Public officials need to know their responsibilities – what to do and what not to do. If people know that they will face dire consequences for their bad actions, they will work with less supervision. This lesson came to me through my experience with Rwanda. There, I found Kagame often free to travel, attend sports and cultural events and spend a lot of time with his family and friends while the functions of the state run smoothly. Everywhere I go, people know what to do and what not to do. The sense that Kagame has his eyes everywhere, or that if things go wrong the wrongdoer will be held to account, is the fuel that drives Project Rwanda.

***

amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug