Article Index
"I know it all" populism
Page 2
All Pages

At the beginning of this kisanja I wrote about what I termed 'Presidentialism' -- a distasteful tendency of you, Mr. President, wanting to intervene in everything, whether it deserves the attention of the presidency or not, and in the process undermining the existing institutions.

I asked the following questions: "Is President Museveni now the government? Where are the other institutions?" At that time I decided to pick pen and paper following a spate of strikes and demonstrations that engulfed the country.

From market vendors and boda-boda riders, to Makerere University lecturers and students, to Kyambogo University lecturers, to groups of primary school teachers and other workers, the country was under siege. Most of them were staging riots as a bait to attract you Mr President to solve their grievances. 

I had prior to these incidents pointed out and warned that your populist habit of intervening in everything, including meeting boda-boda riders and roadside kiosk attendants, would breed a dangerous culture of centralisation of authority and "presidentialism".

You encouraged of Ugandans of all walks of life and caliber to undermine other authorities and leaders except the president. "Unless the president himself intervenes, no one can convince us", the chorus echoed across the country.

What I did not anticipate at that time was that this presidentialism was as well slowly but surely making inroads into the policy making and implementation realm of the nation.

You failed PEAP
When the Oxford Policy Management was evaluating the Poverty Eradication Action Plan (PEAP) in 2008, they identified an institutional disease in Uganda -- lack of collective decision-making at the political level. They patently pointed out your deliberate erosion of the role of the Cabinet as a collective decision-making body. 

Mr President, there are serious concerns among Ugandans and development partners about policy incoherence as a result of you hijacking every single policy-making and implementation organ in the country.

The feeling is that nowadays major national policies are initiated and launched by you without any consultations and sufficient attention or commitment to the level of sustained funding necessary for their effective operation.

Their major concern is whether when you centralise decision-making and come up with capricious, yet national decisions, you are aware that some of these decisions are in conflict with other policies of Government.

They cite the PEAP whose effectiveness has been impaired by other national policies, which have taken insufficient account of the objectives and priorities of the PEAP. Examples are Bonna Bagaggawale, the abolition of graduated tax, and changes in local government through the proliferation of new districts.

Mr President, you know the role you have played in all these policies. All have tended to be a one man's vision and you are even on record defending your parenthetic visions.

Cabinet turned into rubber stamp
Many people now believe that it is this undisciplined central policy-making which has led to over-committed budgets and frequently unanticipated demands. This has made strategic management of government nearly impossible. Ministries are complaining that they cannot plan or manage well because they do not have a predictable budget.

< Prev		Next >