By Peter Olorunnisomo – The travails that plague Uganda will seem little when the import of President Yoweri Museveni approval for increased security spending for Uganda’s 456 members of parliament – which includes expenditure on sharpshooters and armoured escort vehicles – after a ruling party lawmaker was shot dead.
Critics said the spending was wasteful and failed to address security concerns of normal citizens who fear rampant crime in a country marked by unsolved murders, waves of kidnappings for ransom, burglaries and robberies. It is a considered a key indicator to the beginning of paranoia which may soon engulf the whole of the political class who do not want to be killed.
The perspective of critics that the needs of the common Ugandan has not been met and indeed the economic inadequacies which affect the Ugandan on the heels of taxation on mobile money and social media usage belittle the need of care and common interests to the interests of the political few who are, as it were on the African landscape, becoming saints and not servants.
In a letter to the finance minister, according to Reuters on Thursday, President Museveni said the decision to boost security was taken after a meeting with members of parliament in which incidents of “criminality and terrorism” were discussed.
“Members of parliament … have been singled out for intimidation and possibly attack. I have, therefore, decided to protect the members of parliament … since they are being singled out,” he said.
The opinion of the public affairs commentators and critics suggest that the Ugandan parliament, by this act, undermines the government’s position for the need to raise taxes with citizens liable while on the other hands funds which can be put to better use are wasted on beefing up security which has not threatened national peace.
The killing of a ruling party lawmaker and his bodyguard on June 8 follows lethal attacks on Muslim leaders, a public prosecutor and a senior police officer. There have been no arrests in any of the cases.
The fact that arrests have not been made is not convincing enough to justify the scale of protection at public expense which the president and parliament have decided on.
President Museveni said lawmakers would now be accompanied by military sharp-shooters and ordered the finance ministry to purchase armoured pick-up trucks to use as escort vehicles.
Rights groups and the opposition accuse the government of wasteful spending and failing to reign in corruption.
In the 2018/19 (July-June) financial year, the government introduced new taxes and hiked existing ones, including a new levy on accessing social media sites.
“Ordinary Ugandans are being taxed heavily to meet wasteful expenditure of politicians,” said Cissy Kagaba, executive director of Anti Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU).
“Security should be guaranteed for every Ugandan not for a few selected people … it’s pathetic and annoying,” she said.
Parliament spokesman Chris Obore denied the spending was wasteful, describing it as a “short term measure” to meet credible threats.
In power since 1986, Museveni, 73, is expected to stand for re-election in 2021 after parliament, controlled by his ruling party, scrapped an age cap in Uganda’s constitution last year.
The amendment, which sparked protests countrywide and a fistfight in parliament, removed a bar on anyone older than 75 running for president.
A thread of concern expressed on a larger scale, that could suggest the selfish political interests that have bedevilled some African states, is President Donald Trump who has said he is on a mission to achieve global peace especially peace on the African continent.
In comments made to journalists on the sidelines of a North America Treaty Organization (Nato) summit in Brussels, Trump stressed that Africa’s problems were so complicated that only few people could understand it.
Trump said in part: “Africa right now has got problems like few people would understand. They have got things going on there that nobody could believe in this room.
“If you saw some of the things that I see through intelligence – what’s going on in Africa – it is so sad, it is so vicious and violent – and we want peace. We want peace for Africa. We want peace all over the world.
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