By George Murumba

26^th Sept 2011:

Is his new fairness drive genuine?

After more than twenty five years of hearing Ugandans complaining about the inequitable distribution of the nation’s resources a.k.a ‘national cake’, President Yoweri Museveni seems to have finally listened and consequently directed Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi to “immediately” implement his executive directive.

Museveni’s directive was contained in a strongly worded letter [seen by Uganda Correspondent] to the Prime Minister and copied to all Members of Parliament.  Top among the ‘national cake’ issues to be reviewed by Amama Mbabazi is the allocation of road equipment and slots for army and police recruitment for districts.

The President said the unfairness of the current quota system is one of the reasons why Ugandans constantly ask him for new districts.  Museveni’s critics and political opponents however have accused him and continue to accuse him of recklessly dishing out new districts as part of his wider political patronage programme to unfairly win votes.

The other top ‘national cake’ issue to be reviewed is the government’s University Bursary Scheme which the President said causes “…a ridiculous mess of imbalances”. For evidence of the ‘ridiculous mess of imbalances’, Museveni pointed to the fact that Wakiso district, which has a population of approximately 1.2million, is given the same [eight student] slot like Nwoya district which only has a population of 49,900.

The President also wants the system used to allocate funds from central government to the districts reviewed in order to inject more fairness in it.  And perhaps for the very first time, Museveni also hinted at the possibility of grading districts according to their respective population sizes.

For example, he suggested that the first category of districts could be those with a population of between 20,000 to 200,000 people.  According to Museveni, this category of districts would be entitled to “…the standard allotment of university places, army recruitment slots”.

A Northern Uganda Member of Parliament who showed this reporter a copy of Museveni’s letter however took serious issue with Museveni’s population based formula, arguing passionately over a steaming cup of coffee that it was “…a sinister and deliberate plot to over-feed his densely populated Western region while depriving the sparsely populated Northern regions of Uganda at the same time”.

The second category of districts, Museveni suggested, should be those with a population of between 200,000 and 500,000 then followed by those with populations of between 500,000 to 1,000,000 or more.  Following that sequence, the more populated districts would then get double the resources that are allocated to the category of immediately below.

A senior treasury official however told Uganda Correspondent that “…there is no way Museveni’s political populism directive can be implemented this year because the budget is gone and it did not cater for it”. It is an interesting observation isn’t it? END.  Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.