As I penned down this article, I reflected on the Luganda adage saying that “sebusilu bwa njoka bugilisa nyinizo”, loosely translated that the foolishness of worms makes them eat the host, of course when the host dies, the worms also die!
It is quite devastating speaking about Uganda and its state of affairs where scandals compete for headlines in our news outlets, so much that we have gotten used to them that the best we can do is to make fun of them and life continues!
From state house to parliament, from central government to local governments, from public institutions to religious institutions, the scavengers are on the rampage feasting on the carcass called Uganda! It’s indeed a carcass because everything has been stolen and we are a skeleton of what we ought to be!
The sharks have eaten Uganda like there is no tomorrow, their bellies never get filled like bottomless pits, a sense of shame buried, integrity lost & impunity at its highest. They have amassed everything as if they will stay forever, a privilege they take for an inherent entitlement!
As I kept pondering on the news regarding the incompetent CEO of Uganda Airlines a one Jenifer Bamuturaki, tears flew in my eyes! How such a cone woman who claims to have a Bachelors in Social work and Social Administration without a transcript for 28 years and claims to have misplaced her senior four certificate somehow fraudulently got appointed to head a national airline is quite bewildering!
That such a person without valid academic qualifications gets appointed to a job she never applied for and pays herself 87 million shillings monthly salary, an amount that can pay 200 primary teachers or enough to construct two classrooms and moreover earning this huge pay from an entity that is making losses in billions despite hundreds of billions that government has sank in, is not only disappointing but also unacceptable!
Imagine a CEO who misplaces her O level certificate and doesn’t bother to locate it and fails to pick her transcript from university for 28 years being trusted with the national airline, and you wonder why it is making losses? Isn’t this what God says in Matthew 7:6 that “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces”?
When we speak, people in the government think we are envious! The name Bamuturaki is a Runyakitara name suggesting that, “why are they against her?”
Indeed why are we against her? Honestly, Ugandans don’t have a personal vendetta against Bamuturaki and the likes, our problem is about the future of Uganda. It is about the 45 million Ugandans who want a future, the 56 percent of the youth under vulnerable employment who need decent jobs, the hospitals that have turned into death traps and the trillions of taxpayers money that is squandered!
In the next 28 years Uganda will have 100 million people, if we can’t feed 45 million now when soils are still fertile, shall we feed 100 million people even with the current trends of climate change? If tens of thousands have been sacrificed into slavery in the middle east simply because we can’t afford to employ them despite the abundant resources, shall we employ 100m Ugandans?
Indeed, like the above Luganda adage, the parasites don’t mind whether the animal they feast on dies tomorrow! Majority of our decision makers will not be alive in the next 28 years Iam talking about because many are above 50 years.
The parasites don’t care whether the airline is making losses or not and whether it deserves competent management to help it make profits that can at least be stolen later. Because they don’t mind about the future, they would rather eat the seeds as long as the owner of the garden can provide more, thanks to the Ugandan tax payer!
The public servants’ salaries are delaying, many government projects are on halt and the finance minister says there is no money only for parliament to discover over 17,400 billion (17.4 trillion) of borrowed loans lying idle on the accounts without being used some having spent over ten years as tax payers shoulder the burden of paying interest for these loans. Isn’t it the time for us to save ourselves from the parasites?
Muhimbise George, 0787836515, muhimbiseg@gmail.com
The author is a member of the Alliance for National Transformation.
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