{UAH} Why I'm a billionaire who throws great parties and buys presidents - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke

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Why I'm a billionaire who throws great parties and buys presidents - Comment

You've probably heard some variant of this idle joke about Carlos Slim (net worth $73 billion) and Bill Gates (net worth $67 billion) having coffee in a restaurant when a penniless lad pulls up a chair and joins them, making three people at the table. The lad then triumphantly but truthfully declares, "Our average wealth at this table is $46.67 billion."

I think Ugandans should take up that broke lad's attitude in order to have peace of mind. We have plenty of our own billionaires to make us feel as great as the lad who intruded at Gates and Slim's table.

If your wife dies in labour because you don't have a hundred dollars to bribe the doctor as occasionally happens in Uganda, just think of this guy who started the year by spending Ush2.5 billion ($1 million) on his wedding party in Kampala. The average cost of your and his weddings comes to just over half a million dollars, right?

And it is now not very difficult to use your money to buy almost anything. At that wedding, which was held at Munyonyo Speke Resort Beach, the tycoon decided to buy his own president to entertain guests.

There is this youngish man who has made a career imitating President Yoweri Museveni. For the right fee, you can hire his presidential performance and some of your upcountry relatives in attendance will actually believe that the president spent half an hour showering you with praises at your function. It gets even more convincing when the country's real vice president is in attendance and forgets to put on a dismissive expression when greeting the "president."

If the landlord evicts you for failure to pay rent, think of the property buyers of Kampala, who these days bargain upwards with the seller instead of downwards.

If say, the seller demands one billion shillings ($400,000) for a prime plot, the buyer pleads and begs to be allowed to pay two billion ($800,000). This is to ensure the seller will always call him when he has another plot to offer but the primary reason is to "bury" embezzled money that can no longer enter other countries freely because of anti-terrorism/ anti laundering monitoring.

So, instead of dwelling on your ex-landlord's cruelty, just stand by the road and as such a guy passes with the official number plates on his limo, you can declare that the average cost of your recent property acquisitions is one billion shillings.

And if you miss your final exams because you could not raise the examination fees of $50, then focus on those high school boys who contest for the presidency of their social clubs, elections in which a candidate must offer at least $4,000 as budget support for the next dance when they host a girls' school.

Of course, this is an average figure for schools around Kampala as in the upcountry schools the candidates spend much less to win the social club chair, but why dream upcountry? When you miss exams and lose an academic year for lack of $50, remember the average you and the new dance president spent on the election was $2,000.

And that does not include the cost of the Hummer hired to transport him and the lady president of the girls' school as the rest of the students use school buses to go for the dance.

See? We can all live like millionaires, either physically or in spirit.

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International Fellow for development journalism. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com

Why I'm a billionaire who throws great parties and buys presidents - Comment - www.theeastafrican.co.ke
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/billionaire-who-throws-great-parties-and-buys-presidents-/-/434750/2159948/-/ab2p9h/-/index.html