{UAH} Attention Secretary Mirima/Robert Atuhairwe

Secretary Henry Ford Mirirma,

 

Your so called super Permanent Secretary Kabagambe Kaliisa Fred has just poached one of my workers and I am not very happy about it because I have not been paid any compensation. About 5 years ago, I recruited this lovely munyoro woman, Harrit, into my organisation. She is a very good worker and made a lot of personal and professional progress under my leadership. Because of her brilliance, my organisation agred to let her take paid leave in order to do a masters degree, which she passed with high colours. Now after my organisation has made this investment in her, she is poached by  Mr Kabagambe to take up a senior position in the oil industry in Uganda. So she decided to return to Uganda and is now working there in Kampala or in Bunyoro itself.

 

Secretary Mirima, I think the Bunnyoro Kingdom must thank me for providing a very highly trained and talented professional, moreover a munyoro, to work in its nascent oil industry. People like Harriet are very difficult to get in Uganda and my organisation is already missing her.

 

Robert Atuhairwe should note this, I am already involved in training or developing Ugandans of talent who will return with me to Uganda to start the process of building the new Uganda we want. I am very well aware the current workforce in Uganda is too corrupted, ill-educated, or ill-trained to deliver programmes that we will want to mplement to achieve the new Uganda. Many have already been ireedemably corrupted by the working culture of the old Uganda and a majority would be surplus to our requirements.

 

This is one of the very important roles I play here in the UK. I help Ugandans from all walks of life develop their full potential, etther through training or further education. I have encouraged hundreds of Ugandans, once they arrive in London, just to throw away their University certificates and diplomas from Uganda, because they are useless in the UK. I advise them to forget about kyeyo, to register in Universitis if they can and to start afresh. Many have taken my advice, but some have not and have consequently ended up working permanently as security guards, care workers, cleaners, shop assistants etc.

 

I am also an unofficial careers advisor and as well as education advisor for young people. Many young people come to me for advice about their courses and potential careers- they come to me, because they see in me an excellent role model that all of them can look up to, and I can give them the advice that sometimes their own parents can't give them. I therefore give a lot of talks to parents groups.

 

Just this week alone, two students who have benefitted directly from my support have got good jobs in law and have started hopefully good legal careers. One, an Acholi boy who came to London aged 4 years when his mother and the rest of his family was murdered in Kitgum in 1986- he and his father were the only survivors. He graduated in law, and has got a training contract withb a very presigious firm of Solicitors here in London, and is posted to Dar es Sallam wher the firm has a branch. The other is  muganda boy, son of a muganda woman who also worked for my organisation. He also graduated in law and has got a good position in an Insurance Company. These are just two boys who constantly came to me for advice, guidance and support whenever studying law became difficult and they wanted to jump out.

 

And most satisfying of all is my own adopted daughter here in London who is just about to graduate from Oxford University. Just to think that 12 years ago, this girl had only two choices in life, after both of her parents died within one month of each other: to be taken into care in the UK or to be returned to Uganda to live with an old grandmother in Busoga who she had never seen before, in a village with no electricity and no running water. And I took her on, even when I was myself already divorced and looking after my own two children.

 

In the Philippines, my sponsored child there is also graduating in December, but the good news is I have managed to get her a job with the organisation I used to work for and she will be paid a starting salary of about $10,000 pa, very high pay in a country where the average salary is about$300 per month and the GDP is less than $1,000 pa.

 

In Tanzania, my sponsored child has also got a scholarship to go to the USA this september, so I am going to be having two children in the USA. She is a special student. I got to know about her from the Catholic international newspaper of  CAFOD. They advertised of a muslim girl, then 11 years old who was living in severe poverty. She was partially blind and in danger of loosing sight altogether if she did not have an operation. Her family could not afford it. And at 11, she had never gone to school. So I agreed to sponsor this girl. But first I had to save the little sight she had left. Luckily, I found out the Flying Doctors were going to be operating in Dar es Saalam for one week, so I quickly arranaged for her family to take her there, where she had her operation. After that, I sponsored her primary education at the famous Buiguri School for the Blind in Dodoma where she has always been a top performing child despite the fact she started formal education at 11 years. Now she too has got a scholarship to attend the famous Perkins School for the Blind in Massachusets, USA- this is the oldest school for the blind in the USA.

 

So I am a very happy man this month, I feel as if I am walking on the month. I am so encouraged because I can visibly see with my own eyes the good results of my sacrifices. I feel very proud, even though I realise what I have done does not change much in greater scheme of things, ie it will never end poverty or injustice.

 

If I can build a dedicated people with focus, then I am sure when the time comes for us to start to build the new Uganda we want, I will have a very dedicated team to take home with me to Uganda. A lot of these Ugandans who are now geeting education, training or work experience in the UK are the people I am banking on to get my agenda rolling because I have very little trust in the current work force of the old Uganda. And Secretary Henry Ford Mirima, when the oil revenues begin to floww to the coffers of the Bunyoro-Kitara Kingdom, I hope you will remember Harriet, who has been poached to serve Bunyoro-Kitara, and compensate my organisation appropriately.

 

George Okello