#UOT One perennial challenge for #Uganda is that crises are seen via procurement lenses by state based elites (with a vanguard of establishment intellectuals and neo-nationalists) who evoke patriotism to white wash blatant mistakes and offer cover for money games #COVID19
#UOT Every now and then we are reminded that amoral actors who want to privatize the profit ( from logistics of crisis responses) also socialize the cost asking citizens to settle for less or as Nigerians say “monkey dey work, baboon dey chop”. #COVID19
#UOT Some of the prominent “narrative warriors” extolling nationalist sentiment are thinly disguised profiteers just twice removed from direct procurers.They ask for accommodation and charity from the public never structural changes to the behavior of public institutions #COVID19
#UOT Let us in this #COVID19 effort beware of these wolves in sheep’s skin, the snakes and parasites who speak in tongue about sacrifice but are cushioned by layers of privilege unavailable to omuntu wansi.
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#1 Real-estate prices in Uganda continue to dumbfound me. If only because it is a constant reminder of the capital sunk in brick and stone that could go into some other part of the productive economy. (a thread)
#2 A friend reached out the other day to say a relative was selling a couple of acres of prime land near Kampala for 450M an acre. While I have encountered high prices, it still shocks me that the local market can sustain such high prices.
#3 After reading the NRA ( National Risk Assessment) for money-laundering and other sources I understand why real estate is part of the fear economy. Investors understand that buildings carry over better than other assets in a political or economic crisis
A few comments on this story @933kfm. Firstly, it is important to know that Hon. Fungaroo's vision for an Idi Amin Institute is for a tertiary ( in other words academic) degree awarding institution. This is why it came under the ambit of NCHE.
I was initially confused about this and read the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act ( then asked Hon Fungaroo). When he mentioned degree awarding as a goal, I explained that an institution/think tank on the Idi Amin period did not need to award degrees.
If the intention is a critical re-examination of the Idi Amin Presidency in the context of his times, post-independence Uganda and say the Cold War or even military governments in Africa ( this is the key difference between Amin and the rest), why degrees?
1. A few thoughts on the #Coffee debate with regard to what comes next ( a short thread). Government incentives such as tax relief, land etc are essentially equivalent to commercial and monetary value that the state "invests" in the given project
2. In short, incentives are a proprietary tool by the government to give up expected revenue, say from tax or other sources, in order to advance some greater public purpose. In the case of the Vinci deal, the stated purpose is value addition to coffee
3. The decision to extend equity ( through incentives etc) to a project is not only about strategic value of the project. Any public investment must pass a commercial, strategic and political test. Much of the defence of Vinci deal has been only that it is legal.
Samson. I think you are mixing up two things. Paying a mortgage is about ownership ( save via equity accumulated over time). There are folks renting in some places where mortgages are widely available. Renting in Uganda is partly due to the absence of mortgage opportunities (cont
On a mass scale. This also means sadly that mortgages as an instrument of mass participation in the economy is limited. In so called advanced countries home ownership ( paying a mortgage) is a primary score of credit worthiness (contd)
It builds equity that individuals can borrow against and housing construction companies can rely on to also borrow to expand. This activity is backed by Federal Loans in the United States and is a subject of a longer conversation
#2 The 1923 letter by the Commissioner of Mines at Entebbe, E.F Wayland referencing the Anglo-French Middle East Development Corporation doing investigations into oil in Bunyoro, 98 years ago today.
#3 E.S Wayland proposed a policy of the (colonial) government staying concessions for oil exploration in Bunyoro until the government had done its own work. This policy would hold until the 1990’s.
Good morning. Here is a shorter thread on the press conference I attended with @HEBobiwine about the conditions of his detention and his plans, hampered as they are by his confinement. This is a portion when his wife Barbie spoke about how they were coping.
"We have many men in soldiers in various uniforms. Some are in green uniform, some in blue uniforms and some in brown. They seem to be taking turns. There are different faces" Barbie said. She added" There are some standing peeping into the compound. Others are already in."
"A group of men manhandled me ( she was trying to get food from their garden") until I asked for help from the women ( officers). Why am I being handled by men? I did not get any answers apart from being pushed back into the house" Barbie told.