Uganda is still Primitive State 25 Years under NRM

 POLITICS

This article is an attempt at auditing the NRM on its agenda of modernization Uganda through industrialization. Museveni once diagnosed Uganda as a backward state that needed to industrialize so that the primitive modes of production are replaced subsequently with advanced means of production. Museveni did not articulate how the consumerism pattern would transform to sustain the industrialization.

Museveni’s infatuation with foreign investment is rooted in neo-liberal ideology that was part of the neo- imperial package imposed on developing countries through liberalization of their economies. These economic ideologies advanced the interests of capitalists, to enable them compete, overtake and dominate the poor who form the bulk of consumers.

In 1986 when the NRM took over power, Jinja was a buzzing industrial hub of Uganda. Today it is a ghost town. Then, Museveni sold off all the industries to his regime cronies and all the industries collapsed. That was a lesson that Ugandan entrepreneurs where not competent in shaping the private sector through industrialization. Today, the private sector is customer service oriented – merchandise vending, not manufacturing.

By adapting neo-liberal ideas, Museveni opened up Uganda as a “free market” to foreign investments and not indigenous investors. Museveni prematurely infatuated with the idea that government should withdraw from providing essential services to its population. It was hoped that the private sector innovations could provide these services as demands arose in the open market. But Uganda is not a middle class society, so issues of affordability led to consumer isolation. Majority of Ugandans consume cheap goods or second hand stuff. That’s what they can afford.

Given the time of liberalization of the economy, Ugandans did not have sufficient skills and capacity to operate the private sector. This means that while the government discourteously reduced the size of public servants, it did not enact reciprocal policies that would permit a transition from government employment to sustainable public sector players. The education system was equally not adjusted to prepare Ugandans for this new challenge. In short, the state estranged Ugandans from the economy and reduced the base of income earners.

The recent strikes by Uganda’s teachers and then by small traders in central Kampala revealed a rather bitter reality for Museveni’s bubble economic growth. The inequity in income distribution among public servants has compromised service delivery. Further, that there are no prospects of robust industrialization or modernization as such. The same group of workers that government dealt with in 1986 is the same ones who still dominate the economy – civil servants and petty traders.

I have seen workers Unions in UK and Canada call for strikes. These are industrialized countries from where we emulate all our policies. For instance, the protagonists of the no-term limit in Uganda fervently argued that after all Britain has no term limits, not even a constitution, so why should Uganda have one?

When workers in countries with vibrant public sector go behind the picket, you begin to hear groups such as coal workers, truck drivers, bricklayers, mortuary attendants, Graveyard attendants; car importers, Public Health or Hospital workers, public transportation workers etc conjure up under their Unions to go picketing.

In Uganda, the only people who went on strike were teachers. Even the other public service groups, such as nurses, physicians, researchers, police and prisons did not join the strike. The fact of the matter is that no player from the private sector joined the strike to demand for fair wages or better working conditions.

Now, one can assume that the private sector is a better employer, such that the employees do not feel exploited; that there are so few disgruntled employees in government because government job is so well paying; or that Ugandans generally do not mind the pillages of taxpayers’ money by government through corruption. We could also assume that Ugandans do not mind about the wealth inequities that exist between the various branches of government and the frontline workers.

But the strikes revealed that Uganda is still uncritical and a primitive state, and the production mode remains traditional and primitive twenty-five years after Museveni’s diagnosis, economically speaking!

END.