[UAH] The Observer - Ssemujju Nganda: How Museveni preaches water but ‘drinks’ wine

http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26310:ssemujju-nganda-how-museveni-preaches-water-but-drinks-wine&catid=93:columnists

Committees of Parliament are about to summon ministers and heads of departments under their supervision to formally present lists of activities to undertake during the next financial year and accomplishments of the previous year.

I will, in a future article, give you a breakdown of money allocated sector by sector. The column today focuses on the Office of the President. The presidency has presented a 172-page policy statement outlining the amount of money allocated to it and items on which it will be spent next financial year.

I would like to congratulate occupants of State House, especially for having shed off the pretence about this house being a bottomless pit.

State House has been consistently but deliberately allocated 'less' money at the reading of the budget to make the president look less extravagant only to turn around and invade other budgets in the middle of the financial year.

It is now official. The residence of Mr Yoweri Kaguta Museveni will cost taxpayers Shs 205 billion during the next 12 months. In the past year, the State House budget has grown by about Shs 140 billion. Last financial year it was Shs 58 billion but it grew to about Shs 200 billion through supplementary budgets.

This means taxpayers will spend Shs 569 million on the residence of the president everyday and Shs 23 million per hour. To be fair, this money will not be consumed by Mr Museveni, his wife and children but by thousands of people they have brought under their care.

For example, while the rest of the poor people in the country must continue attending UPE and USE schools where there are no standards to talk about, the president has allocated himself Shs 30 billion to secretly sponsor hundreds of students in good local and overseas schools.

Simple calculation reveals that if the president was to pay Shs 300,000 for each of these students per term, he would be paying for about 3,300 students per year. Some of these secret students are sponsored at overseas universities to study courses in petroleum and oil, which cost lots of money.

Taxpayers will also spend Shs 36 billion on the president's travel within the country. This means something like Shs 600 million per day. And the president has also allocated himself Shs 80 billion for donations, Shs 7 billion for maintaining his vehicles, Shs15 billion for travel abroad and Shs 18 billion for classified expenditure.

Today's column was not meant to be about figures but activities behind these figures. I thought the figures would be important to draw the attention of readers of this column who genuinely look for information and analysis to a bigger crisis we find ourselves in as a country.

The president now employs 1,600 staff minus his guards in Special Forces Command (SFC). In State House alone, the president has 756 staff while in his office he employs 841. Of these, 110 are presidential advisors on all sorts of things.

There is even an advisor on Kigezi diocese paid by taxpayers. On this list you find all NRM party employees, like Prof Elijah Mushemeza. The renegade Gen David Sejusa is still on the list and is paid a salary. Isaac Musumba, a former minister who was recently detained in India, is also a presidential advisor.

Maj Jacob Asiimwe is a special presidential assistant in charge of NRM veterans, and he is paid a salary for it. A total of 16 advisors are on political affairs. These include Maj Roland Kakooza Mutale, Kintu Musoke, Hajji Badru Wegulo, Prof Edward Rugumayo, Steven Bamwanga, Chango Machyo and Mushemeza.

The president has only six advisors on agriculture, the country's mainstay and almost all of them handle veterinary related issues. There is no single advisor on industries, trade, tourism and many other valuable sectors of the economy. All that the president is interested in is how to fix his politics so that he stays in power in perpetuity.

The rest of the advisors, by the way, are also on political issues but quite disguised. There are advisors on Buganda, Teso, Lango, culture, etc. Of course we know that the reason these fellows are appointed is not to advise the president but, rather, to enable them access pay.

You probably remember what Tamale Mirundi, the president's press secretary, once said that many of these advisors are appointed to enable them get money to pay school fees for their children.

Col Shaban Bantariza, deputy executive director of the Uganda Media Centre who is now in detention, likes arguing on radio talk-shows that there is always a professed and an ulterior motive to every decision a politician makes. If the professed motive is to show the country that the president values advice, spread the sectors or areas in which you are seeking advice.

For example, appoint an advisor on forestry, cotton, coffee, banana, industries, energy, and tourism in Kigezi or Busoga. These appointments point to one thing: that the only activity taking place in the mind of our leader and, therefore, at his residence is politics.

Yet the same leader is preaching development at every function he attends.
To all Muslims, Happy Ramadhan.
The author is Kyadondo East MP.
semugs@yahoo.com