Pure Good Governance

The enthusiasm and zealousness that taxes are collected is not the same with which services are provided. And this is not an exception of only developing countries.  Recently, I was travelling on the Tirinyi highway; I was stopped by police officers who later thoroughly searched the car I was in with the hope of finding unreported economic goods.  A few meters away was a bus that was undergoing the same experience; a lady was dragged out of the bus to identify the goods that she was carrying in the trunk.  It wasn’t clear whether the goods had been cleared at the Busia boarder or not.  She was retained.  God knows what her fate was in the hands of the officers who appeared ravenous, angry and ready to devour like hungry vultures.  As the commodity prices continue to rocket in the East African region, there is definitely someone behind the curtains who is down on their knees praying that the prices should soar further [i] .  The higher the prices, the ...

Incumbency in politics is a very strong connotation. Holding elective office means access to a skilled staff, a treasure trove of campaign cash and the sort of name identification that money can't buy.  This brings me to the alpha and omega question; can the incumbent especially at the level of presidency lose an election? It has increasingly become public knowledge that incumbency provides insurmountable advantages, lee-way to unduly influence an election and this power has been completely misused especially in the context of the third world countries.  In East Africa for instance, no single sitting president has lost an election.  Many people have argued that Moi’s gesture of handing over power to Uhuru Kenyatta who consequently lost the 2002 presidential election was almost as good as Moi losing the 2002 election.  Myopically viewed, this argument could pass but a deeper analysis would reveal otherwise.  In Tanzania, only one political party that took over fr...

On one of the local radio stations last week, a caller made a very interesting comment, that Uganda is the only country in the world where food and fuel prices increase spectacularly but people remain quiet.  Although this statement might appear sarcastic, it carries a load of facts that need to be further interrogated.  Between October 2010 and March 2011, the price of a liter of petrol shot up by about 15%.  This has consequently sparked a sharp rise in the cost of living.  Food prices and transportation costs are now soaring to unprecedented levels yet people’s incomes remain the same or have even gone lower.  The cost of a strip of paracetamol tablets in a retail commercial drug shop has risen from 5,00/= to 1,500/= which demonstrates a 150% price increase – and this goes for most of the essentials such as clothing, house rent etc.  All these mostly hurt the common men and women who are struggling through spells of unemployment, job insecurity, low inco...

Many stakeholders who observed the just concluded elections concluded that the elections and the campaign period were relatively peaceful.  This assertion seems to run through almost all the reports released by both the local and international election observers immediately after observing the February 18 th Presidential and Parliamentary elections.  Whereas many observers steered clear of pronouncing themselves on the freeness and fairness of the election, they all found solace in affirming the peaceful nature under which the election was held.  Personally, deeming the just concluded election as ‘peaceful’ has continuously made me very uncomfortable.  A few months prior to the elections, we saw a warm gesture by the police deploying massively countrywide to safeguard citizens from both possible terror attacks and/or any eventualities that could be sparked by the general election and campaign excitement.  Though this could be judged as a signal of positive sta...