Soma ukipata muda, ni changamoto katika swala zima la matumizi ya fedha na kuwa realistic katika utekelezaji wa mipango, na malengo.
by Andrew M. Mwenda
by Andrew M. Mwenda
Last week I was in Kigali, this time at the heels of a cabinet decision to impound all luxurious four wheel drive vehicles bought at government expense and driven by ministers, security and military chiefs, foreign experts and their local handlers. In a morning crackdown, all the big men and women of this republic woke up to find that police constables along the main roads were stopping and taking away their vehicles and leaving them to walk to office.
The international donor community, known all over Africa for its corrupt and profligate life styles which they indulge in the name of fighting poverty, was this time caught with their pants down. They claim to fight poverty while riding in luxurious four-wheel drive vehicles, sitting in opulently furnished offices, earning obscene salaries and living in executive mansions. In a bold act of defiance, Rwanda impounded even those vehicles belonging to donor projects. After cleaning his own government of corruption, he has now taken on the profligacy of the international aid industry and its experts are now scared.
In a discussion with President Paul Kagame, he told me that he had looked at some of the "poverty reduction" projects and they smelt bad. "There are projects here worth only $5m and when I looked at their expenses, I found that $1m was going into buying these cars, each one of them at $70,000.
Another $1m goes to buy office furniture, more $1m for meetings and entertainment, and yet another $1m as salaries for technical experts, leaving only $1m for the actual expenditure on a poverty reducing activity. Is this the way to fight poverty?" he asked as I shifted with glee in my chair.
Already, the government is auctioning these vehicles and so far has gotten over $3m from the sales. Mr Kagame has now issued a new directive, saying government should not purchase cars for its officials with more than 2,500 cc. But there is more: the government has placed a ceiling on mobile telephone expenses for all its ministers, military and security chiefs to 50,000 Rwanda Francs (Shs150, 000), and also ordered MTN Rwanda to cut off their international roaming access.
The directive also stops the holding of workshops, seminars and conferences on poverty reduction in posh hotels like the Intercontinental, Mille Collins etc, insisting they should be in government owned buildings at no cost. The order also requires all government ministries; departments and agencies to move from privately owned buildings where they pay high rents to government owned buildings.
I told Kagame that whereas some of the most highly skilled Africans are going to Europe and North=2 0America to clean streets and toilets, our development partners send us Œtechnical experts on these projects at individual monthly salaries of between $10,000 and $20,000, a salary that could pay 12 Africans of better training and experience and save this continent from severe brain drain. In fact, most of these so-called experts are a miserable, career-stranded lot in their own countries, but are dumped in Africa and other poor countries through foreign aid protocols.
Donors never shy from lecturing our governments on fiscal frugality, yet their aid driven projects are the most profligate. Of total project aid to Uganda's ministry of Health, 93 percent of it goes into technical assistance (i.e. salaries and allowances for the experts) and overheads (i.e. four wheel drive vehicles, opulent office furniture, computers, stationary, tea and cakes).
Only a miserable 7 percent of this aid goes into purchase of drugs. Now you understand why, in spite of a huge health budget, our people cannot find drugs in hospitals. We in the media have been shouting ourselves hoarse against government corruption. It is time to expose the worse forms of profligacy, which forces our governments to pile up huge sums in debt.
In fact, of the total money from the Uganda government budget to the ministry of Health, 98 percent reaches its intended beneficiaries, clearly showing that in spite of its corrupt ways, the government of Uganda is a better evi l than donors. Of total project aid to Uganda, 68 percent goes into overheads and technical assistance. Only 32 percent to its intended beneficiaries.
A few weeks ago I presented the above facts to President Yoweri Museveni and asked him to act. My heart bleeds to say he is so deeply discredited by his inability to tackle corruption in his government, and his own profligate public administration expenditure that he lacks moral authority to take on donors.
A few weeks ago I presented the above facts to President Yoweri Museveni and asked him to act. My heart bleeds to say he is so deeply discredited by his inability to tackle corruption in his government, and his own profligate public administration expenditure that he lacks moral authority to take on donors.
The other reason is that his regime lives off this coalition of mutual deceit with donors that both are fighting to eradicate poverty in Uganda. Kagame, however, is able to act boldly because he occupies a moral high ground in fighting corruption, has ensured fiscal frugality and also because his government pursues strategies of survival - not necessarily dependant on donor approval.
In Rwanda, ministers and other high ranking public officials resign and or are fired by the week because of allegations of corruption. From the lowest clerk in a government office to the most powerful minister or military or security chief, no one is immune to jail when they steal; none close to the president, none distant from him. You steal, you get jailed.
If there is some prima facie case that you stole, but there isn't not enough evidence to convict you in a court of law, then you are asked to resign or get fired. What a tough guy this Kagame man is!!
Mdau Benedict Kimbache
skype Name: Kimbache1
He has such a conviction in heart and Soul. HE IS A BELIEVER, i do admire and envy him for that.
ReplyDeleteWhy cann't we stop smiling, like our president KIKWETE and start put on a fifth gear, he is such a nice guy to be president, and he can work it out to his advantages, IF HE WANTS TO, surround himself with TACTITIANS and the CONVICTS the like of SOKOINE, there are plenty of us around here.
but when you look around him, you get to see Mizengo Pinda, the ugly dood with SMILING HEART, HE DOESN'T HAVE DIRECTIVES OR HIS HANDS ARE TIRED, OR THE STAGE IS TOO BIG FOR HIM.
I suggest Kikwete should do the unthinkable change the constitution altogether and bring the opposition onto the cabinet, and everyone else will become competitive, and hold FAGIO LA CHUMA, do you remember that?, you are given target, Well reasonable targets within your ministerial duties, whether that be budgeting or planning, and justify every single spending or peny within the department to the intended customers(general public) and do periodic analysis of derivatives, COMPARE ACTUAL WITH THE PLAN, JUST LIKE COST ACCOUNTING, AT THE END OF THE YEAR YOU WORK OUT YOUR STARS, DONT COLLECT ENOUGH, BRING ON FAGIO LA CHUMA,
and I believe on this process in time lets say 10years become the norms, until then, mwenye kula rushwa, mbadhirifu wa mali ya umma au jamii, mzembe kazini inakua aibu kama kutembea na mtoto wa jirani. name and shame is the game. i know you are laughing now but human minds is susceptable to that influence, after all we are all have conscious and in time it becomes the cultures(unajua wajapan akigundulika kula rushwa, wanajiua ni AIBU KUBWA SANA KWAO) sisi hapa ndio tunaona ahh ULAJI, wajapan watathink we are ALIENS kufurahia jambo hilo(we are from different planet).
I am sure Kagame is aware of that, and trying to impose the same on his very little tiny country surrounded by BIG fishes, the like of UGANDA, and others, he knows well if his neighbouring country doesn't work on his vision of riding of the corruption, it will spread JUST LIKE CANCER, you TREAT THE CANCER SOURCING MOLEs, and then you add CHEMO surrounding IT, just in case will spread again. and THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HE IS SUGGESTING TO MUSEVENI.
RWANDA DEPENDS ON UGANDA for its LOGISTICS SUPPLIES, and the RWANDAS ARE TIED TO THE CO-ADMINISTRATION, of it, if one side is corrupt(cancer), damn pretty sure will spread to the other side.
but on the other side, KAGAME would love to imagine, RWANDA IS ON TANZANIA AND VICE VERSA, BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHY!, WE ARE SUCH A RICH SPOILED COUNTRY.
WE CANN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO USE OUR SPOON, IE BANDARI, ROAD INFRASTRUCTURES TO ZAMBIA, RWANDA, BURUNDI AND EVEN UGANDA. AND THIS IS OUR PRECIOUS BILLIONS INDUSTRY FAILED TO USE IT EFFECTIVELY ON OUR ADVANTAGES, it is still a sleeping GIANT, until them, we sit come down, do our homework(research), haulages industry, the cost benefit analysis of roads, trains, and expansion of our ports, and etc and then work out the contractual agreement by acting smartly in bringing them in(those neighbouring countries) to these idea, I am sure they will pay some of the costs, IF THEY WILL RECEIVE GUARANTEES, and we get to keep our infrastructure.
and then it become a matter of simplicity of getting rid of bureaucrats within hubs and port facilities in facilitating these NETWORKS, roads ports and others, less paperwork and cut bureacrats pay ushuru while the CONTAINER, CARGO on ships, once it lends spend less than 24hrs, it is clear to go, by next 5working days it riches the offshore of our customers in neighbouring countries they would love that.
and what we become, oh be certain the richest country in AFRICA.. men I live a dream.
Viva Kagame. Tunahitaji raisi kama Kagame Tanzania. Pia Serikali itunge sheria ya kusimamia matumizi ya pesa za misaada. At least 80% ifikie walengwa na 20% iwe ndio maximum ya adminstrative costs.
ReplyDeleteThis is very good, Africa is changing, Kagame is just giving an indicator, we are going to expose the hypocricy of the west,
ReplyDeleteI would like to put a carveat on this move by Kagame, history is the best teacher, Africa have had good leaders, but the west has been playing dirty games to distabilize the continent through assassination of those good leaders-CIA, two days ago, it was reported on BBC about a group of bandits or puppets trying to distabilize Rwanda, one was a Rwandese based in USA, this I think has something to do with CIA, we know what CIA does to promote American imperialism, but again, I am worried about the recent move by Judges from France to carry out an investigation about the bombing of the presidential jet in 1994 in which the former president of Rwanda was killed, all these are just signs or symptoms of the potential disease, we better be alarted and tell our good president of Rwanda to be exremely careful,
I once again, commend the good work our president paul Kagame is doing, I call upon my own president Jakaya Kikwete not only to emulate the example but also to abandon his wishful thinking that there is such a thing called poverty, he thinks aid is aid in the sense of aid, it is not, it a discourse, and I think we need to be more careful these days than ever before because the western capitalism is under crisis.
What he thinks is right if he was in developed country. Kageme is the same old wine served in the new bottle...what he said is repeation of what our heroes thought in 1960's during the fighting of colonialism...This is war of survival between the south and the north and within south ourselves. You can't stop 4w car for corolla, where you don't have a good infrastructures in our country, people will stop buying 4W for now but spending the same for flight which is much expensive. He says that to loud himself high so that he still clinging onto power, that is African politics everywhere. we need to find the solution, no 4W, then improve infrastructures, put new railways, etc of what we call a brain-drain I think even Kagame himself is the one who make professional to run away in Africa, with his dictatorship leadership...
ReplyDeleteRais Kagame ni rais mwenye kitu wanakiita 'vision'. Kuna sehemu anataka kuipeleka Rwanda. You can argue all you want about his vision but you can't question his commitment to take Rwanda there. That's the sign of a true leader.
ReplyDeleteEnzi za Mwalimu 'vision' ilikuwa kujenga nchi yenye usawa katika misingi ya ujamaa tukiwa na lengo la kujitegemea. Njaa haina adabu kwa hiyo kilimo kikawa uti wa mgongo. Is our vision the same au tumebadilika? Siku hizi machoni pangu imekuwa kama 'vision' yetu imekuwa kupata ushindi wa kura nyingi kwenye chaguzi mbalimbali.
be it dictatorship or whatever you want o call it, WE NEED A PRESIDENT LIKE HIM.... Definetly, THAT IS MY PRESIDAAA
ReplyDeleteMdau chiggs