CASH STRAPPED; After Borrowing Extensively The Broke Ugandan Government Now Plots To Print More Money Mobutu-Robert Mugabe STYLE

 

CASH STRAPPED; After Borrowing Extensively The Broke Ugandan Government Now Plots To Print More Money Mobutu-Robert Mugabe STYLE  

·        Ugandan Economy Has Failed To Recover From The After-Effects Of The Covid-19 Lockdown

·        Government Should Institute A Covid-19 Fund To Lend Money To Ugandans At  Fair interest rates

By the time of authoring this, Uganda’s debt burden had clocked 88 trillion shillings which is way above the recommended 50% debt to GDP ratio.  

Last week the NRM government was requested parliament to ratify its loan application from Stanbic bank, England chapter to fund its development budget. The story which we analyzed in these pages was earmarked to work on roads, electricity and other infrastructural obligations.

This week the same government has been in the news for requesting local Ugandans to lend it huge sums of money to resolve its deeply demanding recurrent budget. The money will be used to pay the public service workers who include the army, the police, teachers, doctors and other government workers together with other expenditures related to the day to day running of the government.

 

Borrowing in itself may not be an evil undertaking. But borrowing for both the development budge and the recurrent budget spells doom for the country.

Once the government starts struggling to fund its recurrent budget then it exposes itself to all sorts of troubles.

It’s this money that pays the police and other security agencies which deal with forces that intend to overthrow the government. Once they are not paid, the police will not be in position to stop protests of Arab spring proportions.

In other words, failure to fund the recurrent budget simply means that government is NOT in position to defend itself from its opponents.

President Yoweri Museveni has normally bragged that his NRM government was footing bills for almost 100% of the recurrent budge while also managing a respectable 35% of the development budget. 

During the state of the nation address, the president normally reads a number of projects fully funded by locally generated money. He has always read so many road projects either fully funded by the government or in tandem with the donors.

As you read this, it will be very difficult for the president to mention any infrastructural projects fully funded by his government in this financial year 2022-2023. Why?

Because the government is now officially broke and there are very many reasons which account for this state of affairs.

BADLY PLANNED BUBU POLICY

In the last five years the economy has had big setbacks arising from poor government polices like badly thought-out taxes that have dampened continued growth like the taxes on animal feeds that has accounted for the rising prices of pork and chicken products leading to near collapse of the poultry sector.  

The NRM government has been deluded to believe that they can achieve BUBU (build Uganda buy Uganda policy) that is occasioned by an import substitution strategy without first building the production capacity of the products normally imported into the country.

By trying to assert the BUBU plan they have imposed taxes on all goods that can be produced within the country to force local Ugandans to produce them locally.

But the problem is that the local Ugandans cannot produce those particular products at the same level in quality as the imported products. This has created a lot of confusion in the economy.  This import substitution strategy can only be implemented on a gradual basis to take care of issues of quality and quantity of those products. Now the economy is suffering because of this BUBU policy that has not matured enough to take off.

The economy has also been put on a setback trail because of the lockdown which arose from the covid19 some two years ago. While other countries managed to incentivize the economy by making a number of subsidies, the Ugandan government has done nothing to cushion the after effects of the lockdown.  Most Ugandans who lost businesses because of the lockdown have never recovered.

The situation has been compounded by the number of natural calamities like the floods, the locusts, poor crop harvests like maize, drought and hunger in some parts of the country and the influx of refugees from war torn neighborhoods like the Congo and Southern Sudan etc.

The situation has become so bad that the government has had no choice but to resort to open borrowing even when the debt burden had already reached unacceptable levels that are shooting beyond the desired  50% of the GDP.

PRINTING CASH

After running out of borrowing options, the government is now plotting to the last undesirable option of printing more money to fund its budget.

Printing money is an option normally used by governments that are cash strapped When government is bankrupt it has to either borrow or print money to survive in the short-medium term.

When the late President Robert Mugabe embarked on unpopular polices of seizing farms from the white Zimbabwean farmers, the international community slapped sanctions on his government it became broke.

This was mostly because he could neither borrow from the donors nor trade with the international community and his country had run broke.

He then resorted to the option of printing more cash leading to hyper inflation that it led to Zimbabwe’s economy becoming the laughing stock of Africa. When a government prints more money that is not backed up by productivity, it leads to chronic, uncontrollable inflation.

It results into too much money chasing very few goods. In president Joseph Mobutu Wa Zabanga’s Zaire, they printed money to a pint where there was a single currency note of  of over a million shillings and you needed a load of cash to make a routine shopping trip. People used to move with boots full of cash to fund their errands.

The printing of money devalues the currency, compromises the savings and has the undesirable effect of unsettling the economy in the sense that it stifles investment.

Some few years ago, the former governor of bank of Uganda the late Tumusime Mutebile rejected suggestions to print money by reasoning that the money will face unnecessary devaluation and become susceptible to manipulation from fraudsters who can also print counterfeit notes.

The best solution, therefore, has always been to borrow money from whichever sources available. This has been the main reason why the government has embarked on a borrowing spree that has seen the debt burden reach 88 trillion shillings.

But now that the government has run out of borrowing options, the future doesn’t look rosy at all.

THE WAY FORWARD

Government should reconsider its ambitious polices like BUBU that has resulted into unnecessary mistakes of imposing harsh taxes on imported products. This import substitution plan must be implemented in a gradual manner in tandem with the production potential of the local producers.

Alternatively, the best way to make BUBU work can be achieved if government also got involved in the production process and not leave all the production for private individuals. Government should also revive agricultural facilities like Kibimba rice scheme, Doho rice scheme to produce products like the animal feeds.

Secondly, the Ugandan government should acknowledge the after-effects of the covid-19 lockdown and provide incentives for the economy to recover.

This can be done by instituting A COVID-19 FUND that can allow cash strapped Ugandans to access credit at a fair interest rate to enable them resume business.  

Thirdly government should reconsider its high cost of administration by cutting down any unnecessary excessive expenditures.

These and many other deliberate initiatives can go a long way to revive the collapsing economy from sinking into the abyss.

The Author Fred Daka Kamwada Is A Researcher, Policy Analyst and blogger.;kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

THE DRC MESS; Rwanda Should Annex Congolese Territory That Has Kinyarwanda Speaking People While Uganda Also Annexes Areas Of People With Ugandan Connection

 THE DRC MESS; Rwanda Should Annex Congolese Territory That Has Kinyarwanda Speaking People While Uganda Also Annexes Areas Of People With Ugandan Connection

 

·        How Can A Country Bigger Than Western Europe Remain Unstable For This Long Without Getting Dismantled Into Viable States?

·        The DRC Mess Will Only Be Resolved By The Immediate Secession Of Several Provinces Of The Congo That Cannot Be Governed Effectively By Kinshasa

 

 

The DRC is the largest country in sub-Saharan African continent (only second to Algeria) and also believed to be the size of Western Europe. But for the last 60 years it has suffered the ignominy of being labeled the sick man of Africa due to the poor leadership that has failed to galvanize it as a viable state.

For the last 24 years it has been a sanctuary for over a hundred rebel groups with each trying to assert a different territorial presence.  For the last few months the M23 rebel group has been in the news for causing all sorts of chaos in the East to the extent of taking over a whole town of Bunagana prompting EAC member states to mobilize troops to secure peace.

The M23 openly insists that it was formed to protect the Kinyarwanda speaking Tutsi peoples in the Eastern enclaves of Kivu province.  The African leaders have done their usual drama of talking, talking and talking without reaching a fitting conclusion, yet the solution is all-over the place.

Congolese president Etienne Tsesekedi and all his predecessors starting from President Joseph Mobutu, Laurent desire Kabila and his son Joseph Kabila must have all known that this country is too big to be governed by one man from a remote capital of Kinshasa-but they all put on a brave-pretense face that all was well.

This country started disintegrating in the 60s when the political dynamics failed to add up when the first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba fell out with the Belgians whom he openly told to leave the country to the native Congolese. He also made statements which were interpreted as communist leaning, which angered the capitalistic West culminating into his brutal assassination.

From that moment the country first became president Mobutu’s plaything before it degenerated into a theater of political schemes, economic exploitation and incessant civil wars. The Katanga province had tried to secede from Congo but was defeated but It was dissolved in 1963 following an invasion by United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) forces, and reintegrated with the rest of the country as Katanga Province.

If the Katanga leader Moise Tsombe had managed to secede from the bigger Congo, it would perhaps have translated into a direct blessing of that country with a huge possibility that it should have developed into one of the most advanced African countries on the African continent and it would have had the domino effect of tickling other provinces to follow suit and advance their self-determination agendas into viable stable states.

Therefore, it’s fair to say that frustrating Katanga from seceding from Kinshasa was one of the most unfortunate episodes of that country because it destroyed an opportunity for Congo to split basing on original, historical foundation unlike other African countries that were designed and crafted by the colonialists.

 CASE FOR SELF DETERMINATION

Some of us feel that African countries which were designed by the colonialists at the Berlin conference of 1888 should be dismantled to fit into the dynamics and realities of African societies.  This Berlin conference was the one that led to the unfair, insensitive territorial designs that have led to the constant bickering and under development of Africa.

History shows us that a country needs to have societies that are homogenous to qualify the billing of a sovereign country.  When you look at most of the European countries, you will find that most of their territorial designs were carefully based on homogeneity of societies.

 In fact, it’s fair to say that Part of the reason why Japan and china managed to develop this much was because they were built on homogenous peoples who shared the same social-cultural values and a common history,  

When Otto von Bismarck was fighting to unify Germany, he made sure that all German speaking communities are liberated and fused into what later became the mighty Germany you see today.

Before Bismarck ‘s efforts, the Germans had been scattered all over Europe in different territorial enclaves. He made the tough decision by starting from Prussia as a nucleus to liberate all Germans and made a famous proclamation that German unification was not going to be achieved by nice speeches of the politicians and insisted it would be achieved by iron and blood.

And indeed by iron and blood we got the emergence of the mighty Germany which still enjoys the honors of being the biggest economy in Europe.

   BANKRUPT AFRICA

Now this is what has failed to take place in most African countries. The leadership of African countries is aware that these territorial designs were dubiously crafted by the colonialists but they have spectacularly failed to do anything about it.

Although some few intelligent Africans tried to resist this colonial territorial design they were fought the defeated by the brainwashed fellow Africans.

For instance, in Nigeria there was the Biafra civil war which resulted from ethnic, economic, religious and political tensions which forced the Igbo ethnic group, a majority tribe in the Eastern Region, led by a military officer by the names of Odemegu Ojuku to announce secession from Nigeria.

But the bankrupt and colonial Nigerian military officers fought and defeated the secession efforts of Biafra.

They forgot that the Ojukus who were fighting for self determination of Biafra were trying to create a country based on original African territorial design composed of Africans from the same ethnic background and language.

 

The territorial designs of the colonialists were so insensitive that they divided people who speak the same language into two. We shouldn’t have had Ugandans divided along the borders of Kenya and Uganda, Sudan and Uganda, Zaire and Uganda and Rwanda and Uganda that has led to social disintegration and disharmony.

There is a case of two brothers assuming senior government positions in two different countries –where Aggrey Awori became a minister in Uganda and his brother moody Awori became vice president of Kenya. What a shame! We should have had wars (self determination) to resolve those territorial contradictions.

Despite of possessing limited education, President Idi Amin tried to dismantle those colonial territorial designs by trying to annex parts of Kenya and Tanzania that had Ugandans.

SPLITTING CONGO

Now for the case of Congo, you have ethnic groups that feel threatened by other ethnic groups compelling them to create local armies for protection because the bigger state in Kinshasa cannot protect them.

The Kinyarwanda speaking people have formed their army in the form of the M23 on the pretext of self-protection. Likewise, the wa-Ndande , the Lendu , the Hema , the Mai-Mai and many other ethnic groups have also formed their militia armies to protect them from probable genocide. This scenario is enough to justify the self determination of these people into viable states.

But the problem is that the African leaders are too bankrupt to agitate for self determination of these people. They fear to tell Kinshasa that it should prepare for the secession of some parts of its territory into viable states to avoid this unending instability.

They regard themselves as pan Africans, but they have no clue as to what needs to be done to achieve a viable stable African state. These African leaders demonize colonialists but have failed to dismantle the colonial territorial designs of the imperialists. You cannot agitate for African unity in a continent of peoples who are disunited by ancestry and language to an extent of annihilating each other. You need to first acknowledge these social differences before you unite into one.

For instance the sub Saharan Africa managed to easily unite with the Maghreb Arab north by first allowing the Arabs to forge their own territorial entities with respect to religion and language.

But despite of that first act of seeking homogeneity, the Arab north managed to integrate with the sub Saharan south into one Africa after first taking care of their own homogeneity in their own backyard. This is the same model that we need to introduce to parts of Africa that have failed to stabilize.

Congo will only stabilize when an original African territorial design that respects ethnic differences and social dynamics is crafted out. How can a country bigger than Western Europe remain unstable for this long without getting dismantled into viable states?

THE WAY FORWARD

Since the issue is rotating around Rwanda and the interests of the Kinyarwanda speaking people in Congo, then a hard decision must be made to allow Rwanda to annex all territories with Kinyarwanda speaking people under one administrative unit,

This would automatically mean that areas like Bunagana should be added onto Kigali to accommodate all the people who have something common with Rwanda.

Secondly, Uganda should seek to annex all the Rwenzori mountain territories in a bid to integrate the Bakonjo on the Congo side into Uganda

The is because the Nande of Congo and the Konjo people of Uganda are a single ethnic group, which they call Yira (Bayira). They trace their origins to the Ruwenzori Mountains between the two countries. The languages Nande and Konjo are close enough to be considered divergent dialects and therefore be easily integrated into one Uganda.

IF Uganda doesn’t poses the balls to do so , they should allow the Yiira Republic to go ahead with their secession plans,

 Uganda can also annex Congolese parts of Mahagi to integrate the Alurpeople  in Orientale province.

After catering for the territorial interests of Uganda and Rwanda, other provinces of Congo should seek for self-determination by breaking off from Kinshasa and devolving into a viable sovereign state. And this can only be achieved by iron and blood , just as Otto Von Bismark once remarked during the unification of Germany.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a researcher, policy analyst and blogger kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

Gen Museveni Is In A Catch-Twenty-Two Situation Where He Cannot Openly Oppose the MK project And Terrified Of The Fact That It Pushes Him Out Of Power

 

 The Jajja Omalako Proclamation Is a Direct Counter Force Against the Muhoozi Project In Particular And Mao’s Transition Project In General

 

·        Gen Museveni Is In A Catch-Twenty-Two Situation Where He Cannot Openly Oppose the MK project And Terrified Of  The Fact That It Pushes Him Out Of Power

·        The Jajja Omallako Project Shields President Museveni From The Pressure Of Having To Vacate Power When He Still Needs It For His Personal Benefits.

 

Early this week a group of overzealous NRM supporters converged at a Kampala suburb of Kyambogo and made the proclamation to the effect that president Museveni should continue offering himself for the Ugandan presidency for the 2026 general elections.           

The group code-named itself Jajja Omalako (loosely translated as ‘’ grandpa, you are still fit enough to continue running this country) insisted that there is nobody who can manage this country as well as president Museveni. The Jajja proclamation comes at the heels of Chairman Norbert Mao’s transition project which he has been trying to push around the country.

The DP party president who signed a memorandum of understanding that resulted into him scooping the ministerial docket of justice and constitutional affairs has been convincing the country that his deal with president Museveni involves the idea of transition from the bush war class to another generation and the adoption of a national dialogue. However Mao’s transition project has generated a lot of doubts from the politico class who think it’s just a comical waste of time.

We at the investigator managed to make an informed analysis about this transition talk and clarified that it was foolhardy for Mao to think that president Museveni is stupid enough to transition himself out of power, just like that.

But Chairman Mao has been insisting that he is convinced that the president can consider holding a national dialogue and delivering a peaceful transition as a gift to the country as part of the deal that enabled him to merge his struggling DP into the NRM government.

Interestingly , the only aspect of the deal which has so far been implemented include the jobs that have been scooped by chairman Mao himself who was promptly appointed the minister of justice and constitutional  affairs and his secretary general Dr Siranda who was elected to the East African parliament.

Interestingly, early this week president Museveni threw the spanner in the works when he came out to dispel suggestions that he had agreed a transition and national dialogue with Norbert Mao. 

This means that, as far as the transition talk is concerned, the country has gone back to square one.  It practically means that as far as transition from Museveni is concerned the country has to get back to The Muhoozi project as the only viable option for a transition from president Museveni to another generation. 

 

 For the last five years the Muhoozi project that seeks to make first son General Muhoozi Kainerugaba the next president of this country has been trending as the only option being sold around the country by some young Turks close to the first family.

 It has however been faced with all sorts of polarizing opinions from the politico class. At first the MK project faced stiff resistance from opinion leaders including military officers who have since retired from the army prompting the first son to twit that some senior officers openly hated him.

But with the passing of time, the MK project has gained some currency around the country with open mobilization for Gen Muhoozi to get assembled as the presidential candidate for the next elections.

In fact it (he mk project)has sunk so deep that most Ugandans (including very senior citizens) around the country have been convinced to embrace the project and resorted to seeking audience with Gen Muhoozi to solve their problems. The urban youths who are known to profess opposition politics had also joined the MK bandwagon and had started using HIS portraits to brand their motorcycles and cars.

With the MK phenomenon in full cycle, the president also emphasized that the name (Muhoozi) he gave his son, means revenge. This encouraged some shrewd Ugandans to assemble the mobilization tools at the service of the first son.

 The Ugandan president has however been skeptical about encouraging the MK phenomenon to get to full swing levels. He has sometimes made discouraging moves by removing him from command positions and switching him to lesser demanding assignments as presidential advisor.

At one time he removed from command as commandant of the Special Forces brigade and appointing him as a mere advisor on military affairs before he brought him back to as commander of the land forces.

Then last month the twitting UPDF general made controversial twit that generated a diplomatic backlash between Uganda and neighboring Kenya when he suggested that his UPDF forces could capture Nairobi in just two weeks

This twit led to a keyboard confrontation between Kampala and Nairobi and culminated into the removal of the twitting UPDF General from the docket of land forces and an open apology from the president.

But the Ugandan president went on to promote his twitting son from lieutenant General to full General to perhaps, dispel suggestions that he had lost confidence in his son. Although MK has reached a point where some Ugandans can entrust him with power, it has put his father in a tight corner on what do about it.

Gen Museveni is caught between a hard rock and deep sea predicament because he cannot be seen to be opposed to the MK project but at the same time confronted with the realization that it pushes him out of power.

But some overzealous Ugandans want him to come out and project the way forward for this country.

It was in such circumstances that a group of NRM zealots came up with the Jajja Omallako project which seeks to make it clear that the incumbent should stay put in the seat of power. This Jajja Omallako proclamation also intends to make it clear that no other person, other than president Museveni, should consider to offer himself for the Ugandan presidency In the next elections.

With the emergence of the Jajja Omallako phenomenon, you would expect that it will have the immediate effect of extinguishing Norbert Mao’s transition talk and either postpone or completely undermine the Muhoozi project. In fact it shields president Museveni from the pressure of having to vacate power when he still needs it for his personal benefits.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a researcher and policy analyst; kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How President Idi Amin Was Enticed To Declare Himself Life President And Fell Slightly Short Of Forming A Political party.

 

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF; How President Idi Amin Was Enticed To Declare Himself Life President And Fell Slightly Short Of Forming A Political party.

·       By 1974, The Man Considered To Be A Clown Was Now In Absolute Control Of The Entire Country In The Same Way President Obote Had Been In 1969 When He Declared A One Party State After Dismantling The Entire DP Leadership And Conscripted Them In His Government.

 

In 1977 or somewhere about that time, a group of Kigezi citizens travelled all the 200 miles to meet President Idi Amin at his command post in Kampala and convinced him to declare himself the life president of Uganda!

The Kigezi delegation convinced Amin that he was popular enough to rule the country for the rest his life because he was as popular as Col Muamar Ghadafi, Abdel Nasser, of Egypt, Fidel Castro of Cuba and many others, and therefore deserved ruling without any restraint.

The man, who later came to be regarded as a buffoon by some elements in the western world, enjoyed being lavished with praises and he quickly adopted every title he was bestowed upon and therefore had his avalanche of titles to read as President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hajj Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea.

It is actually rumored that amongst the Kigezi delegation there was a young law graduate called john Amama Mbabazi who was there to take care of the legal aspects of that Kigezi proclamation.

There is another rumor which also suggests that this Kigezi group advised president Amin to take up the idea of forming a political party which would have the effect of killing off former president Apollo Milton Obote’s UPC party.

Although Gen Amin was enthused by the idea which he likened to his friend Col Muamar Ghadafi’s Jamahiriya political movement in Libya, he was somehow frightened of the real idea of engaging in the vote seeking campaigns in some parts of the country that hated him.

Initially, in the aftermath of the 1971 coup Amin had promised an immediate return to civilian rule which was the first time he was confronted with the idea of forming a political party.

Prof. Mahmood Mamdani wrote in his book, Politics of Class Formation in Uganda that On February 21, the Uganda Army promoted Maj. Gen. Idi Amin to the rank of general, skipping that of lieutenant general.

 “The army also ‘suggested’ that he should be the new president of the second Republic. Amin said he would consult his Cabinet. When he did, the Cabinet unanimously accepted the ‘suggestion’. It was agreed that Idi Amin Dada would be President for at least five years as the country prepared for general elections.”

But this meant that Amin had to form a political party which he had not thought about at that time.

He was particularly aware of the Obote’s UPC political power base which was spread across the country. Although he was known to be one of the vicious dictators the world had ever seen, Amin used to silently consult and seek for advice from his pseudo intellectuals on some sensitive matters.

One of his secret advisors was called Lt Col Obitre Gama who was the only military officer to be named in Amin’s first cabinet and brig Bernabas Killi whom he considered as an expert on matters of policy having acquired some extra education from overseas. Another one was Wanume Kibedi who was also his brother in law and had appointed him as minister of foreign affairs before he defected to exile.  Amin also enjoyed consulting Maj gen Francis Nyangweso on matters of sports development in the country.  Gen Nyangweso was the man who enabled Amin’s regime to achieve so much in the sports sector that saw john Akii Bua win the first Ugandan Olympic gold in 1972 in Munich Germany, the Uganda football team reach the AFCON finals in Accra Ghana in 1978, and Ugandan boxers excel at the global stage. Since they had both been boxers and soldiers in the Ugandan army, Amin loved Brig Nyangweso so much that he never subjected him to any threat like he did with others who had to flee to exile like Gen Moses Ali who was appointed minister of finance but had to flee for his life.

Interestingly Gen Amin never had many advisors on matters of political nature because he reportedly loathed politics and considered himself more of a military man without any political tendencies in him.

But he trusted maj Bernard killi to know something about this life presidency issue because he was the same man who had tipped him about that fantastic idea of expelling Indians out of Uganda in 1972 which he promptly did by unleashing a ninety-day notice for Indians to leave the country.

After some slight consultations about the repercussions of adopting the title of life presidency, Maj killi reasoned that he (Amin) could still be life president without seeking for the mandate of the Ugandans in a political party.  

That was the time when there was no single political force within the country that was openly opposed to Amin’s rule.

Although former president Obote was abundantly active in exile, he never posed a threat to the Amin regime since his rebel networks never held single inch of Ugandan territory. 

  By 1974, the man considered to be a clown by many, was now in absolute control of the entire country in the same way president Obote had been in 1969 when he declared a single party state after dismantling the entire DP leadership and conscripted them in his government.

There are chances that Amin could had made a good politician if he had ventured into elective politics. Why?

 

Because Amin had been a known member of the UPC in the 60s and he seemed to know something about politics and its maneuvers. He was also very good at populist undertakings that could make a very good politician. He had the natural charisma to move crowds, traits that can be very powerful incentives for a politician.

He was also blessed with a very good looking body frame that was not easy to find in any part of the world which could also be translated into an attractive political brand.  Its undeniable that his political posters would have looked very attractive for the voters.

 His economic war polices that saw the expulsion of the Indians in 1972 had endeared him to Ugandans so much that he would have simply swept votes in most parts of the country if he had ventured into elective politics.

 But since he was intellectually short on personal wisdom and acquired no formal education, he couldn’t take advantage of those good traits he possessed to push for what would have become one of the most powerful political brands in the country.

 

 His political weight of the 70s can be measured basing on the fact that even today Amin still remains the most popular Ugandans ever to grace this earth. His photos grace the internet search engines as if they were taken yesterday.

In fact, although he was pushed out of power 43 years ago in 1979 and died nineteen years ago in 2003, he still commands a popular presence in the political discussions about Uganda anywhere in the world to-date.

The reason we have ventured into this discussion is the political phenomenon taking place in the country that continues to extend president Museveni ‘s rule into perpetuity. 

The Ugandan political events are moving in reverse gear as most of what was done way back in the sixties and seventies are being repeated today by people who should know better.

For instance, the kigezi proclamation which we have just analyzed here was what we saw last week at kyambogo when some members of the NRM called on president Museveni NOT to listen to anything related to a political transition.

Tomorrow we shall delve into those political developments where the Jaja omalako group are pushing for a repeat of history which Rtd Major Amanya Mushega suggested that history doesn’t necessarily repeat itself. ‘’but history only repeats itself when complete idiots repeat the mistakes which were committed in the past by fools.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a researcher and policy analyst. kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

 

The Computer Misuse Act Duplicates Most Of The Offenses Already Captured In Uganda’s Penal Code

 

The Computer Misuse Act Duplicates Most Of The Offenses Already Captured In Uganda’s Penal Code

·        The Social Media Tax And The Continued Closure Of Facebook All Expose The Negative Spirit In Which The Computer Misuse Act Was enacted  

·        Fortunately, or unfortunately it will be very hard to secure a conviction due to the lacunas and ambiguity contained in this computer misuse act

The late Former Ugandan President Idi Amin is known to have said that anyone was free to enjoy freedom of speech before, but he couldn’t guarantee the freedom of speech after speech for that person trying to exercise that freedom.

In other words, Amin was trying to say that you were only free before you exercised that freedom -which in essence would tantamount to no freedom at all.

Moving forward, last week president Museveni assented to the computer misuse bill in its raw form without any objections to the lacunas and shortcomings contained in it.

The bill which is now an act of parliament seeks to curtail or deter people who have made it a habit to misuse social media platforms by insulting, denigrating or abusing others.

It however appears to be still raw to be effectively implemented its form. Why? Because most of what it intends to curtail or deter is already considered a criminal offence on the Ugandan penal code.

According to the Ugandan penal code, a person whose reputation has been harmed by another person can either file a civil suit or initiate a criminal proceeding against the person. A person can file a civil suit under Section 19 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 which includes within it any civil wrong done to a person.

Accordingly, the Ugandan defamation laws deal exactly with the issues which were enacted in the computer misuse act.

For instance, Libel is a method of defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person's reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in his/her business or profession.

The penal code therefore imposes a two-year jail term for the accused.

Now its obvious that what the computer misuse act intends to deter, curb, or regulate is already catered for on the penal code.

The only difference is that it (the computer misuse act) tries to narrow itself on the computer and social media platforms as the medium for committing the crimes. 

That (the duplication of the penal code) aside we need to also look at other aspects of the law that make it shallow, badly scripted and malicious.

THE NEGATIVE SPIRIT

 

One of the fundamental issues about this act is the spirit in which it was designed that seeks to curtail the free use of social media platforms by Ugandans.

Recent history shows that the NRM government has tried to block Ugandans from using social media platforms first by instituting the social media tax which generated a lot of controversy around the country.

The tax meant that anyone who wanted to access any media platforms had to first pay a tax. One wondered how the Ugandan government arrived at the conclusion to tax media platforms which it had not created in the first place.

After realizing the futility of the social media tax, they reversed their decision and scraped it.

Secondly you need to recall that During the 2021 elections the NRM government closed all social media platforms to the extent that even today Facebook is still officially closed to Ugandans.

Facebook can only be used by using the virtual private network applications which are deemed to be illegal in the country. The same VPN was used to frustrate and circumvent the social media tax as users managed to access the social media platforms without paying any mentioned taxes.

It is under such negative conditions that the computer misuse act was legislated and passed into law.

The movers and promulgators of the act insist that there was too much abuse and insults channeled through the social media platforms.

THE LACUNAS

But the question is; is abuse or insults permissible anywhere in the world?

It is certainly not normal for someone to abuse another. We all know that it’s a criminal offence for someone to abuse, insult or portray someone in negative form because it constitutes a crime and its punishable by two-year jail term.

If we have such laws on our penal code, why the do we waste time duplicating them with the enactment of the computer misuse act.

Another area of contention that you need to know is that it’s hard for the prosecution to secure a conviction for this computer misuse act. Why because, first of all the law fails short in many areas.

First of all, when you are designing a law, you need to state and define the offence and the penalty.

Unfortunately, in this law, it doesn’t clearly define the offence of computer misuse. It criminalizes posting of photos without the consent of an individual but doesn’t explain how it constitutes a crime.

 This law is so shallow that it confines itself to the use of a computer use. But what if someone uses another gadget other than a computer?

This means that if someone managed to post your photo without your consent like the law states, then it should only be a criminal offence if he used a computer.

 

THE FINES AND PENALTIES

 When it comes to the penalties which were unleashed for the offenders, then you wonder what was on the minds of the promulgators of this law.

This law states that the person who commits the offence will on conviction, suffer either a fine of Shs16 million, five years in jail or both. Do you need rocket science to deduce that the fines and penalties are too big to be enforced?

Common sense dictates that smaller fines and penalties are easier to enforce than harsh ones. Why? Because the judge will find no justification to sentence someone to five or seven years’ imprisonment for an offense that is negligibly as slight as posting a photo without someone’s consent.

And it will require the prosecution to come up with evidence in regard to who took the photo and posted and clearly state how it violated your rights.

Ok you can easily capture the culprit who took the photo and managed to post it on the social media platforms, but can you easily explain how it violated your rights.

For if someone posts your photo when you are drunk and a public nuisance, how do you challenge your right to behaving in a nuisance manner in courts of law?

Because first of all behaving in a nuisance manner is an offence in its own right. Therefore, capturing the photo of someone posturing in a nuisance manner can only serve as a whistle blowing attempt by a well-intentioned citizen who intends to put a stop on your nonsensical behavior.

 

With all factors held constant, this computer misuse act can easily be challenged in the court of appeal or left to perish on its own due to the lacunas that affect its applicability. It will suffer the same fate that led to the craping of the homosexuality act which was also enacted into law, yet it was already catered for on the Ugandan penal code.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a researcher, policy analyst

kamwadafred@gmail.com