{UAH} Kabuleta’s campaign message sounds nice but is utopian

Kabuleta's campaign message sounds nice but is utopian

SUNDAY JULY 12 2020

    

Musaazi Namiti  

In Summary

• Will Mr Kabuleta, for example, sell oil and gold and give cash to Ugandans?
• And assuming Mr Kabuleta pays Ugandans stipends using oil revenue, can he do much with 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day (a barrel goes for $43)?

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By Musaazi Namiti

In a poor country like Uganda, few things sound nicer than telling people, the vast majority of whom are trapped in poverty, that you have a solution to their financial worries and problems. It is the one thing you will say and many people will sit up and listen with rapt attention.
And that is precisely what journalist-turned-pastor Joseph Kabuleta, who has declared his intention to run for president, is telling Ugandans. His campaign message is financial liberation. The message is, in my opinion, vitally important, considering the fact that every single person needs money. If you ask me, money is the only god we all find indispensable. It is the god that never disappoints. It may not be everything, but poverty is not either.

Mr Kabuleta has yet to be nominated, but he has been speaking about financial liberation, especially in interviews with local TV stations. He says all Uganda's wealth is hogged by a few individuals who wield State power, which is true. For years, Ugandans have been getting only crumbs. Now, Mr Kabuleta says, Ugandans cannot even get those crumbs. There is, he adds, a ceiling of concrete between Ugandans at the top who are busy eating and those starving. Those who are eating are not allowing anything to fall through.
Few Ugandans would disagree with Mr Kabuleta. The problem is that his financial liberation message is insanely utopian—and he seems clueless about how it is going to work for Ugandans.

In a recent TV interview, he had this to say: "What I would want is for any Ugandan who leaves this place not to leave because they have been pushed through the limits but they have no choice. I want it to be out of choice rather than out of total desperation. So I want to create a scenario in this country, where people can have a living, a proper, proper living and an aspiration to acquire things without them feeling that the only opportunity they have is to get out of this country."
That is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence of ability to make the promise a reality. Mr Kabuleta has given the impression that if he becomes president—which is a gigantic if—he will just wave a magic wand and make everything hunky-dory. How do you make people that earn $825 (Shs3m) per annum start earning, say, $3,500 (Shs13m) per annum in five or 10 years (which, I think, would still be little)?

We do have oil and mineral wealth, and Mr Kabuleta says he will make sure proceeds from our natural wealth trickle down to all Ugandans. But he does not say how Ugandans will have a share of the proceeds. The challenge for many Ugandans is a lack of proper sources of income. He does not talk about creating jobs for Ugandans, which is how many countries lift people out of poverty. Will Mr Kabuleta, for example, sell oil and gold and give cash to Ugandans?

And assuming Mr Kabuleta pays Ugandans stipends using oil revenue, can he do much with 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day (a barrel goes for $43)?
Norway, a model on how oil revenue can be utilised and which the Ugandan government has consulted, has a small population (five million) and produces a lot more oil than Uganda (two million barrels a day). It has zero tolerance to corruption. Mr Kabuleta says nothing about combating corruption, which is rampant, and has hobnobbed with a dubious businessman called Micheal Ezra. Can he deliver? Search me!

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