Uganda MPs should pay taxes on their allowances

#MPAllowances and #GrandInequities: 

I waited patiently to see how the Parliamentary Commission would defend the Amendment of Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2016 that allows the MPs to protect their allowances from taxation. I read every defence and commentaries on this matter that I could come across on social media and mainstream media. In particular, postings by Director of Communications of Parliament, Mr. Chris Obore left me fence-sitting on the matter and I tried to wrap my head around this matter in vain because my conscience was not at ease.

My question was, who really is telling the truth? Was Chris Obore telling the public the truth, or the bug of obscurantism has caught up with a man who built a public image and fortified it as a Journalist who told it as it is?

Treasure Secretary Keith Muhakanizi has helped put this paradox in perspective in an article that appeared in the DM of April 25, 2016. Read: treasury boss faults MPs for over tax exemptions.

The key argument of Parliament in justifying its decision to exempt itself from paying taxes on their allowances was that allowances are not taxable, and that they already pay taxes on their basic salary.

The critical question that has lingered in my mind is, are other civil servants not really paying taxes on their allowances? This is the part where Chris Obore did not explore with the public. This is the icing on the cake.

Let us examine some basic facts:

MPs' basic salary at Shs 2.6millions per month is less than one eighth of the combine monthly allowances of Shs 10.2 millions, excluding that which each MP will accumulate based on the # of Sittings and # of Committee Sittings each may attend in a month (gross Shs 25millions);

Lets break it down and you do your maths!

a) Subsistence allowance (Shs4.5m),

b) Constituency facilitation (Shs3.2m),

c) Town running allowance (Shs1m),

d) Gratuity (Shs1m),

e) Medical allowance (Shs0.5m),

f) Plenary sitting allowance (Shs150,000 per sitting) and

c) A committee sitting allowance of Shs50,000 per sitting.

The truth, which Mr. Obore must explain to the public is, why do MPs get salaries if they are paid allowances for each sitting and each attendance of plenary session? What is their hefty Salary for?

Other than MPs, are there any other category of Public servants in Uganda whose allowances are as hefty (superseding salary nearly 8 times) and these allowances are not taxed? OK, lets say, whose meagre allowances are tax free?

Would it be proper for a teacher to be paid allowance for attending classroom, marking papers/assignments, invigilating end of term exams, and attending school, on top of their basic salaries?

Would it not be a matter of equity to pay Doctors and Nurses for attending to the hospital, attending to the patients, attending to surgery, attending to whatever they should be attending to, on top of their basic salaries?

I pity those who just accept such grand pay inequity for the sake of it. There is more to the MPs evading taxation on heir allowances than we already know. The MPS allowances alone are more than 8 times their salary if an MP were to attend maximum # of sittings, and plenary sittings through the year. Would we not benefit more by offering a tax waiver on their salary and levy taxes on their allowances instead?

I am just being curious as a citizen of Uganda and an appendage of my peasantry roots in Pajule or Dure! I need answers, and so do my peasantry comrades in the countryside.

END.

Dr. Nyanzi’s Undressing: Do Ugandans need 24 hour distress call services?

 NUDITY DEFIANCE

 Dr Stella Nyanzi’s undressing at Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR) has placed Uganda under a moral siege of sort. Public opinion appears swayed against Dr. Nyanzi, but in her act, she was only conforming to Makerere University’s tradition of bad decisions leading to strikes and violence.

 

 In Uganda, issues of sex and sexuality as a mode of resistance is taking a proper shape – from Amuru to Makerere University.  Ugandans are still afraid of nakedness and naked bodies compels them to start talking, acting. Undressing as a form of defiance and resistance among disempowered women in the face of adversaries has proven really effective.

 

Bear breast nakedness seemed to be a matter of grave concerns among the immoral, charlatans, Luciferians, Priests, the corrupt, and the mute.  The real people who are accustomed to living in the absence of government, now accept the institutional decay as a norm. They appear to understand that in contemporary Uganda, nothing works; and authorities are reactionary rather than proactive. If an act of nudity elicits an action in the right direction, then who should care?

 

It is a common experience that each time a person approaches public institutions; s/he is transformed into a victim. You either become a victim of a pathetic customer service, obsessed bribe seeker, the indecisive boss, the unethical sex-for-service, the no-service due to no-equipment situation like in hospitals, the moving office syndrome (ie, boss is in the village, or out of the country),  and the “Come Tomorrow” syndrome, or “machine not working” narrative, among many. These problems are only symptomatic of a bigger problem of poor governance, misrule, militarism, and violence in society.

 

People no longer bother to follow due process for fear of being defined as the problem for which they seek redress. Being a victim is indignifying enough, however, being defined as the problem for which you seek solution, is dehumanizing and objectifying. The indignity embedded in pursuing due process causes the chronic distress among Ugandans that makes them apathetic and suicidal. Taking actions that are characteristically extreme and outside of the box, like undressing, mob justice, or committing suicide, seems to be the only turning point for many Ugandans. That is why automobile operators no longer obey traffic rules in their suicide pursuits!

 

The Dr. Nyanzi’s debacle teaches us that no matter how legitimate one’s battles are, one should rather die than undress, even if undressing were the last stage in your struggle before your death. In her simple defiance, Dr. Nyanzi is comparable, to civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Dr. Nyanzi staked her dignity to win a more important war of getting MUK to investigate relations at MISR, something she claimed had been a nightmare for the last six years of her employment there. Only her nakedness caused that critical threshold for investigation to get done, just as Rosa Park’s mere sitting on a bus seat reserved for white folks redefined the civil rights movement. 

Moralists can go hang!

 

People should learn to ease up on Dr. Nyanzi’s undressing act. That neither defines her in totality, nor her moral values. Rather, her bold act evinces her strength and courage as an oppressed woman. After all, Ugandans generally need 24 hours distress call services to salvage them from such chronic frustrations and potential suicide.

 

Uganda is in a very delicate situation where nearly everyone is frustrated, disgruntled, hostile, distrustful, deluded, emasculated, fearful, and hopeless. That is what has become of us in the last 30 years. Ugandans have endured a steady decline in their relationship with the government. That relationship has ebbed at its lowest and fear is what still hems them together. The NRM government has broken down public institutions and squandered public trust. The widespread systemic and structural failure ensures that nothing works on merit, everything operates on sectarian basis and highly politicized to cause dependence on the state as a benevolent giver, moreover to a selected few.

 

Dr. Nyanzi’s undressing was an act of courage in a chain of unattended to grievance filed in 2014. She deserves our respect within the context of ensuing systemic and structural failures within our public institutions, and particularly at Makerere University. Most importantly, it challenges our sincerity as a nation on our violent nature - strikes to solve problems. 

Makerere University may not even have the moral authority to condemn Dr. Nyanzi’s stunt, given their record of encouraging strikes every year. One must strike to get a problem solved at MUK. It is stressful, and the anticipation of such violence can make one become as innovative and as belligerent as Dr. Nyanzi.

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Kampala needs decongesting

#MyKampala

The story of collapsing buildings in Kampala will soon shape Kampala’s legacy as one of the most dangerous cities to live in. If buildings can collapse at will, no one is safe. However, Kampala’s troubles are more than that. Collapsing buildings are just the tip of the iceberg. Rather, Kampala’s real woes are about the continued lack of urban planning and a steady confusion of the nature of a modern City.

We should applaud KCCA for whatever efforts made to turn Kampala City from a fast growing dirty slum into a decent slum. However, those efforts are not enough because of the bad blood and politics that limits the potentials of the City Authority.

When you travel around the world – and most of the managers of Kampala are well travelled – you see that Cities and urban centres are well planned and designed for the future. Kampala is chocking because of this absolute lack of a futuristic purview of what it should be. Given the expansion of Kampala’s population through rural-urban migrations, births, and foreigner settlements, some robust actions are required.

To understand a City, one must consider it a living entity. The city is like the mammal with complete pathophysiological functions. The City needs fresh air to breath, space to grow, a heart to pump “blood” through its arteries and veins, Waste Management System for it to cleanse; Time for it to sleep and wake, space for it to partake in physical activities, a sickbay for it to heal, and replenishment for it to rejuvenate. The city has mental health/wellness needs too; crises points for its troubles to get resolved, recreation for it to enjoy a quality of life and maintain a characteristic tradition, and proper grooming for it to glitter and adorn beautifully like the Princess. There are more; Cities even socialize, that is when you see inter-cities’ events across the world.

in many ways, a proper understanding of the physiology of the City would inspire a proper manner of its governance, planning and forecasting. Kampala has expanded sporadically and yet its internal systems that should support its growth and development have stalled. Even with the threat of global warming, the green movement has not yet hit the city’s conscience.

People are destroying wetlands, the volume of cars on the single/double lane roads have tripple in a decade leading to enormous pollution in Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono. The congestions and pollutions in Kampala are gaining a characteristic harmful nature. The smog and smell of industrial waste from Mukwano Industries, Meat packers, and the smell from randomly broken sewers in the City are already a major source of human diseases – respiratory, cancer, etc. Try to drive by the Electoral Commission Offices at about 5pm and you will experience a unique smell of the city – pungent, repulsive, and sickening smell. If you must drive from Wankoko on Luzira Road, you would pray that the traffic does not lock you in these areas, coming to Meat packers and towards Jinja Road. The stench is like someone is in a Police morgue!

Kampala City Council Authority needs to up its game if it is to propel Kampala to a decent city status. In its current form, Kampala is a slum dwelling and its managers can cajole themselves for a work well done in beautifying a slum, but not modernizing the city. To be able to modify the City, bold – and I mean grand innovations, need to be undertaken. This may include the strategic amalgamation of Kampala with Mukono and Wakiso into a Metropolitan establishment. I have previously advised on the creation of Alternative Business Centres to decongest the inner City. Kawempe, Ntinda, Gayaza, Matugga, Bweyogerere (in addition to Kiira), or such centres should become Municipalities and furnished with its own Owino, Nakivuubo, Kikuubo etc version to attract such traders.

Understandably, the KCCA should take an interest in the Sub-county Development Model that was proposed by the TDA Campaign in the just concluded elections. This strategy will help put up standardized services to all the adjacent sprawling urban centres that will significantly reduce the congestion burden on the inner city Kampala. Creating a one-way routes during peak house would relieve traffic. Ask yourself, what do people really crave from downtown Kampala? Trade, services, deals, and cheap goods. Can we create alternate places where we can replenish them with the same or even better alternative to reduce over-crowding in Kampala’s Central District?

END

Diasporians have a role in shaping Uganda's politics

UGANDA DIASPORA

The ongoing debate on the role of Ugandans in diaspora in shaping the socio-political discourses in Uganda is a superficial one. During the election time, we were reminded always by adversaries that those living abroad have fled the frontiers of politics and should first return home to be counted. It is increasingly absurd that when convenient, some Ugandans decide to put a non-existent differences between those at home and those in the diaspora. Those at home claim that Ugandans in diaspora are disconnected from their degradation and pitiful conditions due to their distance.

Many cite the relative progression of the exploiters through foreign investment as a sign of development to be proud of. According to them, telecommunications and entertainment industries are booming; their roads are being worked on, never mind the shoddy and cheap work; and their UMEME is shinning bright – never mind the load shedding. Their children are now going to private schools that have become a supermarket for knowledge. Traditional institutions - schools and hospitals - are facing steady decay and for them, they are no longer engrossed with infrastructural, but moral decay. The proliferation of private clinics and the development of the private sector under the NRM had answered all their problems, even if affordability is an issue – never mind that they depend on their relatives abroad. These “stead development”, they claim, have eluded Ugandans who live abroad.

This kind of arguments are pedestal and uninformed. First, most countries in Africa have a significant proportion of their citizens living abroad or in neighboring countries. There are various reasons that drive these Africans out of their countries – schools, fleeing persecution, bad governance, economic reasons, eg work and so forth.

In the case of Uganda, the main reasons that Ugandans flee their country are associated with the legacy of insecurity, persecution, discrimination, and other forms of structured injustices such as sectarianism. Moreover, each regime comes with its own brand. Uganda has been at war since independence, and faced various forms of sectarian, ethnic and trivial conflicts that forced many to leave. In fact, more and more studies on brain drain show that nearly 67% of Ugandan Nursing students express the desire to leave Uganda immediately upon graduation. Nearly 70% of professionals, including doctors, lawyers etc expressed their wish to seek greener pastures where their professions are honored (77% of Liberia trained doctors work in the USA). With nearly 83% of the youths unemployed, you find a situation where a large percentage of the population expressing their desires to leave the country. But that alone, is half the story.

The real reasons that force Ugandans out is the violence of the NRM regime in all its manifestations. By violence, we view corruption, sectarianism and inequities in jobs and opportunities as forms of societal violence through which the regime expresses its dominance.

As a result of this interstitial violence that this regime wages on society, there has emerged a narrow clique of survivors. Most of whom have stayed afloat by pandering to the regime. The just concluded 2016 elections has exposed and isolated some of them adequately. These are fake professionals who deal in fake goods and perpetuate fake ideologies that are mostly self gratifying. We have a coterie of fake lawyers dealing with fake cases manufactured by the fake state police, who are, by composition and characteristic, the appendage of the military. There civil Police in Uganda is dead.

In other words, those who have managed to do well under such a circumstance have had to evolve through a complex evolutionary process that has transformed then into believing and honoring fake ideology. Uganda needs redemption from and for those.

The satire with this so-called progressive Uganda is that it is not productive economically. The real irony is that, the very victims of the regime's violence who manage to flee for a better life abroad; and the ones the regime sells to slavery in places like Saudi Arabia, Thailand etc, are the ones who sustain the regime and its repressive machinery through their remittances. The remittances are the monies that Ugandans who live abroad send back home to sustain Ugandans and their crooked government. It has been growing in the last decade by nearly 14% annually according to Revenue Authority estimates. In the FY2014/15 Ugandans in diaspora remittances were in excess of US$1, 392million, accounting for 4.6% of the GDP. We are talking of 250% increase of revenue from US$646millions in FY2011/2012.

The UN estimates over 630,000 Ugandans to be living abroad and another 42,000 were already recruited by licensed employment agencies to work in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia etc.

The lesson learned from those who think Ugandans in the diaspora have no role in shaping Uganda's sociopolitical discourse and economic development is that they should rethink. Our roles are immense and we feel increasingly as disenfranchised as Kampala voters in being denied the opportunity to vote from our missions abroad and to get a representation in Parliament.

This is the issue that we must advance and it is an issue that I intend to pursue relentlessly.

Nearly two-thirds of Districts in Uganda cannot generate local taxes to fund their own annual budgets and yet they are represented in Parliament.

Further, this regime has pursued foreign investment and lavished foreign investors with tax holidays as a vote of no confidence in indigenous Ugandans. The government is no longer investing in innovations, in schools and in those critical areas to inspire local production.

Finally, the issue of Ugandans living abroad, should not be about class, competition, or distance. It should be contextualized within the global nexus of information technology, foreign exchange (Money) and complimentarity. We now live in the global village made very tenable by advent of social media. Nothing happens in my village in Pajule or Dure, and never reaches me within 30 minutes. The Hansard is online and the local media are all accessible via internet. To assume that Ugandans who live abroad have lost touch with what is happening at home in this era, sounds ridiculous. Such clumsy thought should be obliterated from an industrious mind and left for the indolent.

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