NRM rural transformation journey

OPINION

By Ofwono Opondo

The ongoing political rancour over the alleged neglect of Luwero Triangle, the beacon of National Resistance Movement (NRM) revolution, compels my recollection of Uganda’s rural transformation journey since 1987 when the Government, in fanfare, launched the now-forgotten Rural Farmers Scheme and, along with it, the Free Tractor Service funded through the Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB) and Co-operative Bank (Co-op Bank), both state-owned.

On September 17, 1987, at a ceremony at Kololo Independence Grounds, President Yoweri Museveni launched 100 tractors, and 700 more were later distributed countrywide, the majority of which went to the Luwero Triangle to kick-start agricultural production.

UCB and Co-op Bank were later closed on account of poor management, having accumulated unsustainable debt portfolios and bad loans that business people and politicians obtained but refused to repay.

The co-operative unions of Masaka, East and West Mengo, West Nile, Acholi, Lango, Teso, Bukedi and Bugisu and societies too choked on debts, loans and farmers’ produce that they had collected, but did not pay for. Bad management, corruption, asset-stripping and outright theft by their respective local managers and allied politicians marred operations. These managers and politicians have chosen to maintain silence, sometimes blaming Museveni personally for the collapse of co-operatives in Uganda.

Many younger people may not know that a lot of water has flown under that bridge not entirely in vain with Entandikwa, North Uganda Social Action Fund, Bonnabagagawale, Zonal crops, presidential model farms, the National Agricultural Advisory Services, Operation Wealth Creation, youth and women funds.

With economic liberalisation and privatisation, the Government, on the ‘good’ advice of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, divested itself from businesses by wholly selling off its corporations and state enterprises.

Private entities, including many Ugandans who presented themselves as bona fide entrepreneurs and business people, bought them up. However, nearly all of them were speculators who sold off their interests as soon as opportunities presented themselves.

Many joined the politics bandwagon, got elected for short stints in Parliament or were appointed to Cabinet, but as the saying goes, the rest is history.

Along the way, privately-owned commercial banks — Sembule Bank, Nile Bank, Tteefe, International Credit Bank, Kigezi Bank of Commerce, where the central bank governor Tumussime Mutebile (RIP) and four high profile Bakiga ministers held shares, Greenland Bank, owned by Dr Suleiman Kiggundu, a former central bank governor and Crane Bank of business tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia — failed. As President Museveni said at the time, as ‘corpses’ they should be buried.

At the head of the rural transformation has been President Museveni, an ardent sponsor of the ideology of the “mass line” sometimes even where it has been discredited. Today, we find ourselves amid another government programme, the Parish Development Model (PDM), haphazardly introduced and implemented with each of the 12,000 parishes countrywide receiving sh100m each financial year starting 2021/22.

Government officials, including ministers and most MPs running around the country with PDM, are unable to directly tell the President the uncomfortable truth that the programme in its current form has gone astray.

Travelling through and sampling Kapelebyong, Amuria, Kumi, Butaleja, Bugiri and Tororo districts, especially in Iyolwa and Mulanda sub-counties which I am familiar with, there is ample evidence to show that the lists of beneficiaries have been grossly compromised.

Similarly, fund disbursement is sluggish and extortion by lower intermediate officials is widespread with some beneficiaries receiving paltry amounts as low as sh300,000 instead of the sh1m.

Many beneficiaries are not spending the money on enterprises they selected but rather on immediate household needs including food, school fees and social indulgences like marriage ceremonies. Unless a drastic correction is undertaken, PDM is standing on the sharp edge of judgment if not failure altogether.