[UAH] The Observer - Why Museveni fired Aronda
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Dwelling on what he called "poor or inadequate planning within the defence forces," the President said that he had had to intervene and demand a pay rise for the air force pilots and mechanics, arguing that the army had to retain their highly-skilled labour or lose it to the private sector.
"I do not even know whether my directives on that issue have been implemented and to what extent, if at all," he said. "I had to come in because I discovered that we will never develop an air force if we continue failing to pay pilots what their colleagues are paid in the open market or at least something comparable to it."
Chopper fiasco
Turning to the controversial helicopter crashes, Museveni again blamed poor planning and bad advice from generals Aronda and Owoyesigire, the former commander of the air force.
"When Generals Aronda and Owoyesigire came up with the idea of deploying our aircraft to Somalia, I did not like it, mainly because …I did not like scattering those resources when we still had unresolved issues such as the Allied Democratic Forces rebels [ADF] nearer home," he reportedly said.
The president was, however, persuaded by the two officers who argued that the deployment would, in addition, yield some money for the soldiers involved.
"When I eventually agreed, I did not know that operational planning in the air-force was totally deficient," the commander-in-chief lamented, before going into details.
Museveni also questioned the planning, as well as some of the tactics and strategies used by commanders in Somalia. He vowed to radically review the Somalia mission to make it more efficient and avoid tactical blunders. He said it had taken the visit of a commander he didn't name to change some of the wrong tactics along the way. The commander-in-chief also criticised the army leaders for failing to use collective solutions to solve collective problems as he had advised.
He said while the army could handle soldiers' children collectively by running its own primary and secondary schools, they could not do the same for university, now that many officers have university-going children.
"We can, however, start an army technical school for soldiers' children," the president advised, adding that he had written to Gen Aronda to find a collective solution to this problem.
Museveni also suggested a salary loan whereby soldiering parents access loans to be repaid using deductions from their salaries. He wondered whether the army's Wazalendo Sacco had looked into this. Without such support, Museveni argued, army officers would become indebted and others would turn to corruption to provide for their families.
The president further suggested the establishment of health facilities to provide free services to soldiers, as well as income-generating projects such as poultry farming, tailoring and baking to boost their incomes. Turning to discipline in the army, Museveni criticised the UPDF leadership for tolerating army officers who disseminate dissenting views in the wrong forum.
"Why should anybody give individual opinions in meetings or in the media? This institution is not a private property for anybody. What you say in public should have been sanctioned by those of us who are responsible. This habit gives a bad image to the army and causes anxiety in the public," said the president.
He consequently ordered the army leadership, Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) and ministry of Defence to stop what he called "irresponsible talk" using existing laws or initiating new laws aimed at protecting the cohesion of the army and maintaining its good image.
Museveni didn't spare the CMI, which he accused of failing to detect the underfeeding of soldiers, among other mistakes. He added that even the recent "subversive activities" of General David Sejusa aka Tinyefuza had not been exposed by CMI but rather other branches of the state and army.
editor@observer.ug
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