{UAH} Kabushenga's Attempt To Rescue Sinking Uganda

Two problems Uganda must address urgentlyPublish Date: Aug 12, 2013

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Trained youth receive motorcycle repairing tools from Amuru RDC Milton Odongo instead of cash handouts which time has proven that it does not help much.

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By Robert Kabushenga

There are two problems that we, as a country, must solve. We must create opportunities for people to earn a living. Fast. The other is to find something of value that we, as Ugandans, take to the market and sell sustainably over a long term for a high return. Forget oil.

 

That is how we shall solve the explosive social issue of youth unemployment and avert its destructive political ramifications.  

 

President Museveni argues that the real solution is investment in infrastructure, commercialising agriculture and expanding our industrial base. Basically, adding value to what we can sell. In the short term, this creates work on the projects. Long term it assures employment. Fine. But there is an additional ingredient in this mix that is woefully missing.

 

 Continuous and consistent thinking and discussion of this issue that is principled, socially focused and politically crosscutting. Instead you have shallow superficial platitudes whose real purpose is opportunistic. Those in positions of consequence (various youth desks and organisations) and with ability to cause concrete consequences are asleep at the wheel.

 

In the meantime the youth demographic continues to grow without the commensurate expansion of opportunity to earn. This is a recipe for social upheaval that will have no distinction for political inclination.

 

It will seek to rearrange the political order to address this problem. Such a political context can be effectively exploited by demagoguery. It is something we need to think about seriously and discuss purposely while we still have the luxury of time for a rational discourse.

 

There is one intervention we should abandon immediately. Cash handouts. This option has not worked from the days of  'entandikwa' NUSAF 1 and 2 to the recent dalliance with venture capital funds. Apart from having no long-term benefits, such interventions are open to abuse and the beneficiaries are always a small well-networked group.

 

The gains are never widespread. Invariably and more often than not cash handouts are the object of quarrels, fights and bitterness. This is compounded by our lack of capacity to intermediate this type of intervention.

 

 President Museveni argues that one of the real solutions to Uganda's problem is investment in infrastructure

 

The real answer is to create work and it is within our means to do so as Jennifer Musisi has demonstrated at KCCA. Simply execute public projects swiftly and efficiently. Right now, every project is bogged down in procedural logjams whose real purpose is to serve the competing private interests of rival commission agents.

 

KCCA by simply doing what it is mandated to do that is, maintaining Kampala City now provides work for thousands of young people. If all the different public agencies simply did their work, this effect would be multiplied so many times over.

 

I have been driven to speak by three reasons. The first is that a friend of mine thinks that it is about time to have an open and frank discussion.

 

The second is that every week, I have to deal with at least 15 requests for work from young people. Some have designed even more ingenious ways of catching my attention or appealing to my sympathy and deep emotions. Instead of asking for work, they want me to mentor them so they can be as successful as they perceive me to be.

 

This is not just emotionally draining because of the inability to make a difference in their lives but is also shocks you when you are forced to confront the magnitude and depth of the problem of youth unemployment.

 

For instance, one would have thought that for our good ministry of transport, the more urgent project would be construction of a railway network.

 

That would immediately create work and commercial opportunity at different levels. Instead they are toying with the idea of reviving a national airline in an aviation industry that has challenged even the most efficient economies in the world.

 

Apart from setting ourselves up for bleeding the treasury, this planned white elephant will throw up a lot of controversy especially in procurement and employment typical of a parastatal.

 

Even worse, it will generate more work for those who will manufacture planes than it will for us locally. It is one of those where the net transfer of money out of Uganda will be higher than the inflow.

 

I also think that to run it with a minimum level of efficiency, we shall have to hire expatriates. Another sore point that could provoke national bitterness, especially from the younger end of the population who will see it as another lost opportunity.

 

My point is that, if only government projects were not hostage to opportunistic bureaucratic obstacles causing delays, half the unemployment problems would immediately find resolution.

 

The rest would then be generated by private sector innovation (whose own growth would be spurred by infrastructure expansion) and agricultural development. Both of which would feed on the investment and implementation of infrastructure expansion for growth and to create even more opportunity for work.

 

The third reason for writing about this is to share something I saw on television. A couple of months back, an American business channel devoted a whole week's programming to discussing the problem of youth unemployment in Europe. The most effective response to this problem was German.

 

Ten years ago, they realised they had this problem to sort out. So they opted for investment in vocational training that is relevant to the country's economic activities out of which it derived a competitive advantage. It is no surprise that today Germany is the only robust economy in Europe. This is a model we should emulate NOW!

 

Let me now add a fourth reason for venting. To say that the time to act is long passed. It will not be enough to speak in solidarity or demonstrate that we can articulate or show how well we understand the issue.

 

It is time to do something practical. Those of us whom society has given the privilege of public service are expected and in a position to do something. The only thing young people want is education, skills and opportunity to engage in gainful employment.

 

This we can do by providing vocational training for skills that will serve our current and future economic activity. In the process, we shall then produce surplus value that we can take to market beyond our current excitement and obsessions with a deceptively transient and exhaustible wealth called oil.

 

In the interim, there is need for national programmes that instill national consciousness, equalise social experiences, create discipline, build a work ethic, manage expectations, all of which should enable young people have a realistic view of the world. It should also help them play a productive role in society. I hope someone at the Patriotic Clubs reads, listens.

 

The alternative to this action will most certainly be a high social cost which will be paid in full by all of us (including those seeking to exploit the issue opportunistically) and irrespective of our various persuasions

 

The Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the Vision Group