Rwanda’s medical tourism is brilliant innovation

MEDICAL TOURISM

The numerous reports of children and their mothers dying in Uganda’s healthcare system is not something that a citizen should be proud of. Clearly, most of the maternal-child deaths are preventable with a robust healthcare system. There are many success stories in the African continent where communities or governments have been able to help curb child-mortality rates and Uganda could learn from these. Comparing Rwanda to Uganda to me is like comparing apples and an egg but Rwanda offers such a glaring example for us to learn from.

While Rwanda and Uganda draws much international attention over its regional aggression and total disregard for its neighbour’s autonomy, Rwanda actually has lots of concrete socio-economic achievements that one can benefit from studying. Being an inspiring Global Health leader and a consultant in Public health, I am attracted naturally Rwanda over its robust anti-corruption and universal healthcare policies. In these aspects, Rwanda appears to be hundred steps ahead of Uganda.

Last year, I did a scoping review on maternal-child healthcare in which I compared Rwanda’s health care system with that of Uganda and South Eastern Asian countries where maternal child health is rampant. I discovered many important lessons from Rwanda’s steady progress and vision as compared to that of Uganda and other aforementioned regions. A great article written by a group of researchers had appeared in Maternal Health Matters, a public health journal with a focus on maternal-child health. This, article described how Rwanda’s community health insurance scheme had helped build community bond with their healthcare facilities. The healthcare insurance, levied on sliding scale system depending on household income, ensures that Rwandese, and not the government, supervised their healthcare facilities. This approach has made healthcare become very accessible to all Rwandese, especially to expectant mothers and their new born babies.

According to the Millennium Development Goal report, Rwanda did sustain maternal mortality rate at 5% from 2000-2010. Over 52% of deliveries now are being attended to by qualified professionals and Rwanda cut its child mortality rate to nearly half from 2000-2007. One would be confident that at this pace, Rwanda would surely require just a little impetus of goodwill to transcend access issues due to difficult terrain, and to achieve MDC goals 4 and 5.

Last week, I saw a picture of magnificent hospital facility – brand new with top of the art equipment, sitting glamorously on the peak of a hill. Down the foot of hill was a projection of bravura of scenery whose deep green and haziness surely infers therapeutic appeal.

Talking to my Rwandese friend at Butare hospital on the phone about this facility, I came to learn that Rwanda has decided to invest in medical tourism. What a splendid idea?

In Uganda, we are still stuck on wildlife based tourism. Our investments are still on traditional goods such as sports goods, building materials, second hand clothing, farm implements, used rifles, expired drugs, scraps and so forth. For many years, we know that Makerere University has trained competent medical doctors and variety of healthcare professionals. These professions in Uganda appear ineffective and almost incompetent. The same MUK graduates in Kenya, Tanzania and in Rwanda stand out as exemplary in the services they offer to their country. The explanation for such a stark difference lies in government policies and work environment.

While the government and medical professionals in Rwanda and Kenya root for medical tourism, in Uganda, their counterparts lack innovation and rely on government for livelihood at the detriment of their service consumers.

So, what does a medical tourism look like? Many Ugandans will recall President Museveni flying his daughter to Germany for delivery; Brig Mayombo and Wapakhabhulo dying in Kenyan hospital or Mzee Bidandi Ssali being flown to Bangkok in Thailand for very simple treatment. In other words, Rwanda’s vision is such that government can invest in its medical facilities, bringing in modern equipment, train and retain some of the best surgeons and keep an efficient medical system. The next time any member of the Ugandan ruling regime becomes ill, Rwanda will be a destination of choice. Rwanda offers many advantages, its security is very efficient, it is closer than Israel or Germany from Uganda and its services are a hybrid of culturally oriented care with western medical technology.

Medical tourism will help fund the system and boost tourism because naturally, people recovering from illness find much comfort in an appealing peaceful, clean and organized environment. I applaud the Paul Kagame leadership on its strong vision on streamlining its healthcare system and taking a leadership stride towards investments beyond basic necessity.

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Amnesty for the corrupt is an infatuation with the devil

SALEH'S PROPOSAL

Reading the proposal by Gen. Salim Saleh that the corrupt should be offered amnesty should have left many as awed as I was. The core of Saleh’s proposal is that government should provide a channel through which people who have accumulated wealth illegally and by corrupted means, should declare the loot and get taxed. He proposes that government should emulate the success in ending insurgencies in the country through the instrument of amnesty. There are other interesting details about this proposal in the Saleh dossier, but let us look at its core recited above.

The proposal by Saleh, should not shock many people who knew Saleh of the 90s. Only those who had expected a changed in Saleh to a less greedy and mature Saleh in 2013 should be shocked. Saleh’s proposal therefore has roots in his own personal guilt as the pioneer of blatant corruption in Uganda. First, to assume that corruption is forgiveable and should be provided amnesty constitutes an infatuation with the devil itself. Second, it reveals how contemptible these people are to the misery of the Wanainchi that the corrupt deprive of basic social services such as medicine, drinking water, electricity and so forth.

But we also know that Saleh is not aware of  what constitute corruption because of his privileged access to state resources. One could say that this grandiose proposal is a personal statement or wishes to absolve himself from accounting for his expansive record of graft and corruption. I recall in the 90s when censor motions in Parliament targeted the corrupt, Saleh himself offered millions of shillings for anyone who could define this taboo – corruption. Since no one has come to claim that bait, we would surely assume that Saleh himself still does not understand that he is at the pinnacle, in fact a pioneer role model of the corrupted Uganda under this NRM regime.

A quick google search with key words “Salim Saleh AND/OR Corruption” generates more than ten pages on the subject with one click. When you begin to read each link, you begin to feel that the name Salim saleh is almost synonymous with corruption. One good reading is from the STAR of the World Bank and United Nations Office of Drugs and Crimes website. STAR is Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative. The STAR recounts how Salim Saleh almost single handedly dismantled UCB while at Greenland Bank where he improperly engineered the takeover of 49% shares of UCB.

One would be damned not to recognize that Saleh himself partook in the primitive accumulation of wealth, breaking down legal and due processes to rob Ugandans of industrial complexes during the privatization process and swath of arable land in the country. There was no destruction of any major government asset in the 90s that never had the characteristic signature of Saleh’s hands on it. From UCB, NYTIL and so on…all were ravaged by the insatiable greed of one legend who is now asking government for a concession it cannot afford - to  give amnesty to the corrupt.

Corruption is a deviant act and criminal in nature. For professionals, corruption compromises on quality of services and deprives the masses of what is due. If the corrupt were offered amnesty, those hard core criminals who steal human organs or mediate human sacrifices would also demand for amnesty. Imagine serial killers like Arinaitwe of the 90s and serial rapists, drugs, arms and human traffickers asking for amnesty so that they could pay taxes on their loots! That would compel the country to degenerate into modern day Sodom and Gomorrah!

The lessons we learn from this particular proposal is that the NRM regime has its ideology dried up. However, what is satirical and quite disturbing is how lack of accountability is normalized. Uganda is where the new normal is what every sane society objected to in the past. The real bankers are the robbers, security agencies are the very agents of insecurity, the criminals are the heros, the hard working people are the villain in an economy where survival is only secured for the bushwar veterans like Saleh.

By no means shall a country develop and lay a firm foundation in this manner. Everywhere we go now, people appear to be obsessed with living fast and dubious lifestyles. The poor want to be rich by any means possible, irrespective of due process. In Uganda today, everyone is corrupt. Unfortunately, bribery has become normalized; elected leaders now procure the will of the masses to lead. If we buy into this self directed propendency of  Gen Salim Saleh, then we are damned as a nation.

END.  

Ugandan churches are a hub for corruption

CHURCH $ CORRUPTION

Over the weekend I visited one of my Professors, so intent at rehabilitating some of us to return to the Church. There is a Catholic church that has special service slot for an African group. My professor attends to this service and he has observed a remarkable level of enthusiasm which distinguishes the traditional Canadian mass from the African way of praying. Accordingly, the Canadian Catholic priests say mass while their African counterparts do celebrate mass.

The exuding spiritual vigor set aside, we sustained a debate about the role of churches in social and political development in Africa. There was the argument that western religious belief systems have found such a stronghold in the hearts of African communities because by nature, these communities were already deeply spiritual. I agreed with this analysis because from personal experiences, African communities that I know believed in plethora of religious belief systems, rituals and traditions. For instance, the concept of resurrection is nothing new since a large section of African traditional societies believed in life after death. Making sacrifices were common practice, believed to reconcile the two worlds, of the living and the dead, but also reinforced the concept of sharing and caring for each other.

Given the strong beliefs in Africa, one would still find it difficult to explain the animosity of the African race towards each other. It is amazing how we almost gnaw at each other during moments of sharing, when have to distribute resources or in an election. Clearly there has not been an illustration of the intersection between Christian values and African tradition belief systems as both appear to be fading fast among the youngsters.

The biggest dilemma manifests in the form of corruption that is nearly bringing African societies to its knees. The magnitude of corruption that exists in our contemporary society is transmitted through community organizations such as churches and state agencies. The societal superstructure is one that is positioned to produce, reproduce and transmit this vice called corruption which complicates its relations with the base. From Marxian perspective, the base comprehends the forces and relations of production in which people enter to produce the necessities and amenities of life. These relations determine society’s other relationships and ideas, which are described as its superstructure. The superstructure of a society includes its culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, and state. It is believed that the base determines and predominate the superstructure (Marx, 1977; Scaff, 1984; Morrera, 1990). However, in a corrupted and dictatorial society like Uganda, the superstructure has usurped the influencing acts over the base. As it is, the Churches in Uganda, which should be the moral foundation of society, have become subservient to this vice of corruption.

The church, both traditional Catholic and Protestant have failed the society in as far as cultivating strong Christian values of honesty. These churches are deficient in moral authority to hold sway over their congregation because they appear to be beneficiaries of corrupted society. It is saddening that churches are already tripping on their own robes. Whether they can hold on firmly to their own centres and avoid a crack due to pervasive current moral crises through the 22^nd century is yet another steep test. For instance, the Catholic Church must now deal with moral dishonesty and duplicitous priests who are on rampage of sexual abuse of children and bearing illegitimate children, some with Nuns and members of the congregation.

Seemingly, with fading of religious values in the population, the emergence of all the other so-called Born-Again movements have truly diluted faith and commercialized its practices too. Churches are now the places where corruption finds its own life and soul food; a place where being corrupt is encouraged and redeemed by these Preachers.

Preachers in Africa have excelled in the art of duplicity and extraction, striking at a time when the population is most vulnerable. Many people run to churches to seek the guidance of God towards their own survival. Most of these people live with HIV/AIDS, are poor and may have lost their loved ones, or are jobless. Some of the people may be transitioning through personal difficulties, so they turn to the Church for consolation. At their most vulnerable, this is when the churches strike them to pry on their vulnerability for an exploit.

The link between churches perpetuating corruption is ebbed in luxurious lifestyles of the church leaders. In the Bible, tax collectors were always portrayed as wretchedly for their wealth accumulation. We recall the story of Zacharia who had to climb the sycamore tree to seek Jesus’ redemption (Luke 19:4). In Africa, most of the Preachers are the new Zacharias who collects the tithe on behalf of the Lord for their own aggrandizement. This way, these churches have become the platform where the corrupt cleanse their sins and get redemption for their injustices.

It is important to question the materialistic agenda of these churches. Why are churches not bothered with social inequalities or the rampant corruption that undermine genuine economic development? Just take a trip through Kampala’s wealthy suburbs, you would be amazed at how owners of churches also live in meticulous villas; you must see their brand new multibillion cars and the kind of toys that their children play with. When we were growing up, church leaders were not exactly paupers, but they were not as rich as politicians and even more. It is unusual that that at this time when corruption is so rampant, church leaders are also stinking wealthy. This pattern explains why some Muslims are converting to born-again beliefs and opening a church because it is just a cash-cow! It also tells how desperate and vulnerable the people are in the hands of corrupted religious institutions.

END.

Charge Sheet for Mr. Lawrence Kiiza

Form 53(1)

Central Public Police Station, Kampala, Uganda

Date: 4/10/2013

Uganda Citizens vs Lawrence Kiiza

CRB No.3 of 2013

Male, employed by Ministry of Finance, Uganda

Resident of Kampala, Uganda

STATEMENT OF OFFENCE

Corruption Contrary to section S.2 (a), (b), (c), (d),(e), (g) and (h) of the Anti-Corruption

Act, 2009.

PARTICULARS OF OFFENCE

On or about January 22, 2011, Lawrence Kiiza unlawfully and corruptly solicited and 

negotiated an undocumented payment of $50m from Tullow Oil, PLC in Uganda contraray 

to S.2 (a), (b), (c), (d),(e), (g) and (h) of the Anti-Corruption Act, 2009.

Concerned Citizen/ Police Officer Magistrate


......................................... .......................................
Signature



Another charge of Economic Terrorism for conniving withTullow Oil PLC

Another Charge of Treason for leaking government secret to Tullow Oil PLC

Another Charge of Abuse of Public office for using his office to solicit for bribe

Another Charge of betrayal of public trust vested in the office of Director for Tax Policy,

Ministry of Finance.

Mr Lawrence Kiiza must be investigated

TULLOW OIL SAGA

I read an intriguing article in the New Vision online, published on April 8, 2013 with much awe and I think Mr. Lawrence Kiiza must be investigated and arraigned before anti-corruption court. I was in awe already mainly because usually, New Vision is not the paper where one can reliably find stunning objective investigative pieces about the scandals that have plague the NRM regime.

In this particular publication, however, an intriguing headline: Finance boss named in Tullow oil saga, caught me unaware. Reading through the article, I was even shocked with the blow-by-blow account of the conduct of Ministry of finance’s director of Tax policy – Mr Lawrence Kiiza. The article was accompanied by the picture of a smiling and a beaming bespectacled man with the caption underneath the picture that identified him as Lawrence Kiiza.

After reading the entire content of the article and following the links to the full verbatim testimony, I receded in shame. I then decided to find out more about Mr. Lawrence Kiiza and upon googling his name, I landed on a couple of articles and lectures he delivered to Masters Students. One such was the summary of his June 22, 2007 lecture to GRIPS Masters Students titled: Policy design and implementation in developing country.

I wasn’t even surprised upon opening the online version of the same paper on the next day, April 9, 2013. There was no news headline mentioning that the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), the Police nor in that case, any authority had shown interest in the matter.  It would be relieving if the content of the article that implicates Mr. Lawrence Kiiza had stimulated the interest of the Authories – even in the Ministry itself. The evidences or leads are there which clearly make Mr. Kiiza a person of interest to the anti-corruption division of any responsible branch of government.

Maybe we should be patient and give the DPP and the CID chance to internalize the content of this article - if they have not already. However, I think it is important to note that in Uganda the line between whistle-blowing and treason has become too hazy. Although it is inconceivable that the PS in the Prime Minister’s office has remained put behind his desk on accounts of whistle-blowing, it is important that the whistle-blowing line is drawn clearly this time.

Let me try to summarize for you why I believe that Mr Lawrence Kiiza should be a person of interest to the authorities. In that NV report, Mr. Lawrence Kiiza was implicated in having personally negotiated a $50m in non documented payment (bribe) from Tullow Oil, an investment company vying for the lucrative oil industry of Uganda,  ahead of Uganda’s economic interest in what has now become “the Tullow oil saga” in London (UK). In exchange, it is purported that Mr. Lawrence Kiiza leaking government secrets and minutes of meetings to Tullow so that Tullow could gain an upper hand in negotiating a deal that would cheat Ugandans of oil revenue (Refer to testimonies in NV, 04/08/2013: Finance boss named in Tullow oil saga).

The learned fellow, Mr. Khawa Qureshi, Heritage Oil’s lawyer did lay down every hard evidence there is for everyone to see for themselves. In this case, would it not be proper to question the motive and spirits under which Mr. Lawrence Kiiza acted in conniving with Tullow oil? Was Mr. Kiiza acting in the best interest of the government and in his capacity as director of tax policy at Ministry of Finance when he inadvertently negotiated for an undocumented pay of $50m in exchange for government information?

The lines are not very clear here and it is unwise to make conclusions before a full investigation of the case. But as a taxpayer, I want to know beforehand whether Mr. Lawrence Kiiza was acting as Whistleblower to Tullow oil at the expense of his government and his people. If that is the case, then I would submit a complaint, and duly so herein, as a taxpayer (from remittances) to the DPP to charge Mr. Lawrence Kiiza of the following crimes in accordance with existing laws;

1). Economic terrorism, for acting with full intent to compromise a due process between Government and the oil investors in order to sabotage Uganda’s economic interest and to cheat Ugandans for his personal gratification by way of soliciting for bribes,

 2) Treason, for conspiring with foreign entity through leaking sensitive government information that could have threatened national security and did threaten the national interest of Uganda,

3) Gross abuse of office by using his position and government resource against the interest of the government of Uganda and in violation of the code of conduct of public officer

4) Betrayal of public trust invested in the office of director of tax policy of Uganda’s Ministry of finance.

For more reading, please follow:
http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/641464-finance-boss-named-in-tullow-oil-saga.html

END.