{UAH} Politicians getting you down? Chill, listen to Anne Kansiime - Comment -

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Politicians-getting-you-down--Chill--listen-to-Anne-Kansiime-/-/434750/2253576/-/kwun46/-/index.html

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Politicians getting you down? Chill, listen to Anne Kansiime

Something is happening in Uganda. While politicians have become totally shameless, ordinary people are learning to ignore them and getting on with their lives and thriving in their careers.

Politics seems to be the only field in Uganda that is deteriorating, where quality doesn't matter and intrigue gets rewarded, where Members of Parliament accumulate debts to service lavish lifestyles and demand that the taxpayer pay them.

But if you look closely, you see a lot to be optimistic about.

For every MP who thinks Uganda owes him a free iPad and a free luxury car every five years, there are 10,000 hardworking single mothers who feed and educate their children without grumbling.

For every MP who wants the president to use taxpayers' money to pay off their recklessly acquired debts, there are hundreds of struggling businessmen, who are living within their means and paying their taxes.

For every one of the 380 MPs who receives $8,000 of untaxed allowances every month, there are exactly 100 police constables who survive on $100 a month without complaining even as they face injuries while protecting the public in politicians' clashes they are not party to.

For every parliament committee member taking bribes from businessmen, there is a hardworking artiste perfecting her performance skills in order to give quality entertainment and value for money to the public.

For every minister conniving with foreign donors to push through skewed projects that cause the country more loss than gain, there is an agricultural researcher burning the midnight candle in a laboratory to develop a new crop crossbreed that is disease resistant, drought tolerant or higher yielding.

For every opportunistic young political activist feeling great after plotting to pull down others and climb over them for quick riches, there is a determined undergraduate burning hours on the computer trying to develop a new IT application, like the Makerere kids who recently successfully tested a mobile phone app that diagnoses malaria without pricking you or shedding a drop of blood; or those who built a modern electric car that is now being developed to the next (production) level.

And for every maliciously ambitious politician busy concocting lies against his rival and reporting them to someone "above," there are a dozen progressive farmers increasing adopting modern methods for more productivity, in spite of not getting any help from the politicised and corruption-ridden government agricultural programmes.

And now we don't have to listen to the abusive language of politicians as they attack one another. We have increasingly better music from our young artistes. For a long time, we put down young musicians by unfavourably comparing them to veterans who are still in the field. But young Ugandan musicians have today so upped their game that it would be unfair not to commend them.

In entertainment, we even recently got ourselves a new star called Anne Kansiime, an extremely funny girl from a rural background who has stormed the Kampala showbiz scene talking her native western Uganda accent without attempting to sound like a town girl. The purely homegrown Kansiime is now all over television, and her originality impresses.

And as politicians fail to nurture programmes to create employment in our resource-rich country, more young people are moving abroad to work and investing their hard-earned money back home. So, in spite of our deplorable politics, there is still hope for and by our young people.

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

Politicians getting you down? Chill, listen to Anne Kansiime - Comment -
http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/Politicians-getting-you-down--Chill--listen-to-Anne-Kansiime-/-/434750/2253576/-/kwun46/-/index.html