Greed destroying Uganda

Dr Muniini Mulera (Daily Monitor photo)

I always look forward to Muniini Mulera’s Monday articles in the daily Monitor. Actually, most them have a place in my documents on my computer. In his weekly letter to his Kampala friend Tingasiga titled; “Spritual survival is Uganda’s only hope” in the Monitor of 9 November 2009, Munini captured the situation currently in Uganda so well.

…Greed is Good philosophy is central to the moral conduct of contemporary Ugandans, and not just their rulers whose excesses we have chronicled and bemoaned ad infinitum. There is a conspiracy between the victims and their exploiters. The corrupt are glorified, received with ululations as they cruise into the villages in their latest motor vehicles, laden with goodies bought with stolen public funds.

Those who shun the displays of wealth or play by the rules are despised as failures by the hapless victims of the thieves. Do not bother to stand for elections if you neither have an empty village mansion nor the funds to buy them alcohol and meat. From the President to the lowliest peasant, greed is good. From the big city evangelical pastors of miracle centers to the smalltime village preachers, greed is good. From the primary school child to the principle of a college or university, greed is good. From doctors to doormen; from government ministers to church ministers, greed is good. Whether they are organisers of Chogm or traders in sorghum, greed is good. Men and women rob their Nkuba Kyeyo kin of their savings sent from abroad to build houses back home. The greedy relatives, at ease with deception, send photographic progress reports to their trusting kinsmen, inviting their victims to send them more cash to complete the imaginary houses.

Men and women entrusted with responsibility to serve their fellow citizens, put public funds to private use, and damned be the consequences. Health care administrators and providers steal life-saving supplies and funds with nary a thought about the deaths that result from their greedy indulgence. A civil servant is allegedly robbed by his wife of Shs900 million, just shy of $500,000, which he had banked in a box under his bed and calmly tells his fellow citizens that he was simply keeping the cash of his brother.

The top managers of the National Social Security Fund help themselves to workers’ money as if scooping water from the River Nile, including advancing to themselves vast amounts from their yet-to-be-earned retirement entitlements. Auditors affirm the veracity of fraudulent or non-existent books and financial accounts in exchange for kitu kidogo (bribes). University teachers sell examination papers for cash or sex with their charges; medical doctors and nurses abandon patients to God’s mercy; and police officers protect criminals even as they harass innocent citizens in a singular pursuit of greed.

Parliamentarians, a particularly self-indulgent lot, speak as one in their quick deliberations about enhancing their own emoluments, utterly oblivious about the desperate circumstances in which their constituents exist. All these chaps wake up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror and convince themselves that they are serving Ugandans. Their greed is good. Their greed is the recipe that will save Uganda. Those who challenge that premise are the enemies, the saboteurs who undermine the fortunes and opportunities that the country offers the Gekkos of this world.

Wealth and power have trumped realistic living and service. Uganda’s motto, ‘For God and My Country’, survives on official letterheads and emblems. The operating motto is “get rich as quickly as possible, as much as possible, anyhow.”

This pandemic greed holds the beloved land in a macabre dance that threatens to sap the last breath of hope. The few survivors who hold onto the right moral values and lessons are left helpless, resigned to a fate they feel unable to stop or even slow down…