Museveni A Pro Africa Financial and Security Stability

Museveni A Pro Africa Financial and Security Stability

 

Tom Muyunga-Mukasa

 

Museveni is a Sun-Tzuian military strategist who mixes the doctrines from the Copenhagen Controversy and the Manchester Schools’ state-craft manuals. He has in the process had to come up with a choreographed pattern called the Museveni neo-realism which for the past 35 years has set all moving parts in Uganda toward a middle-income state goal.

Galvanized and empowered to participate in oversight roles and strengthened their belief in state structures, the people are now aware of what value-for-money outcomes look like. They see the manufacturing sector making economic returns. Many come from or have settled in the regions where reinstated parastatals and other government corporations that were scrapped in the 1990s under the WTO/IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) are now run better and are lifting Ugandans out of the no-value-added raw-material producer captivity by providing employment for Ugandans. A state provides means for people to overcome adversities and protects them against malicious interference to the pursuance of happiness. 

For 35 years, Museveni has used the time to teach, educate, inform and show examples to the people on how they can work with the state to improve on their agency and self-determination. There are elements of a share-holder relationship cultivated. The people are aware of concepts such as trade tariffs, infrastructure, social services, cooperatives, unemployment, championing law and order, presidential terms, parliamentary and local government elections, the paradox of states drawn along colonial lines and what it takes to integrate fully in a global economy. They have been introduced to the practical notions of Political Economy by a statesman who for 35 years has realized that Africa for instance, has a long way to fulfill the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) goals supporting trade between nations.  

 

Museveni has used the slogan “securing the future,” to leverage the goodwill ushered in by his long reign. Which in turn has entrenched integration into international finance whose benefits are to be harvested by both the investors and Ugandans. Protection is important for the freedoms enjoyed by Ugandans, enabling them to move, settle anywhere in the country unencumbered and it is a highly regarded freedom. 

Save for COVID-19 safeguards, freedoms have been upheld. Those disturbing the freedoms are met with military battle-front precise force and the lines are drawn between enemies of the state and the state. The perceived enemies face a highly disciplined, professional and battle tested force in a good versus evil dichotomy.

 

The 35-year longevity legitimizes Museveni’s actions over time through which he has had to address the internal interests of Uganda as well as balance them with external ones. Some theories can be referenced to back up this thesis. According to Buzan, the people look to an omnipotent state to provide the crucial freedom from threat. They trust in the ability for the state and society to avoid hostilities but allow an atmosphere to function without being perceived as a threat. According to Oppenheimer, the state acquires character as it continues to redefine what shapes its essential being. The intra-national and external forms of pressures influence this definition. It also brings about the class or social problems the state has to contend with due to the different interacting desires and will that arise. But, this is not all Museveni has to contend with. The Manchester School theories would add the need for policing but Fiss would caution against any excesses in regulation, oversight and censorship as they stifle the power for people to participate in a free market economy. People who are not players in the market burden the state, forcing her to divert all resources to the welfare services. This way, she forfeits her larger stake roles in the economy, economic means and the planet’s ecology, cautions Skiter and Williams of the Copenhagen School. What this shows us is that both the people and the state have a stake in the affairs of their country, as concluded by the Copenhagen Controversy approach.

 

 Uganda Manufacturing Trends 1961-2021

Manufacturing refers to industries belonging to ISIC divisions 15-37. Value added is the net output of a sector after adding up all outputs and subtracting intermediate inputs. It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or depletion and degradation of natural resources. The origin of value added is determined by the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), revision 3. Data are in current U.S. dollars. Uganda manufacturing output for 2019 was $5.46B, a 5.26% increase from 2018; manufacturing output for 2018 was $5.18B, a 8.6% increase from 2017; manufacturing output for 2017 was $4.77B, a 0.73% increase from 2016; manufacturing output for 2016 was $4.74B, a 12.78% decline from 2015. Source: Microtrends

 

Uganda had elections in 2020 in which Museveni won. The side opposing him held protests in urban areas but in Kampala Capital City Authority they were quelled down by a unit the president himself bragged about as battle-hardened commandos with several tours in Somalia.

State sponsored anti-violence military ware is used with near spiritual zeal and the materiel in display is like a military parade of a highly industrialized country. 

The argument remains whether it has demotivated internal strife, and the reassured investor appeal fosters confidence within international finance organizations such as the International Development Association (IDA), International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). 

The good news is that the prolonged peace under Museveni, has its dividends in form of pathways leveraging and enhancing diplomatic relations with other countries. Where there is peace, there is tranquility.

 

Countries experiencing tranquility motivate people to put money in high income turnover investments such as real estate, hospitality, infrastructure and urbanization which in the case of Uganda can roll out to rural areas in the newly formed urban cities, municipalities and town-councils.  

In Uganda, one sees two emerging classes. There are those who have access to credit facilities and those who have failed to access such facilitation and end up selling off their land plots to raise capital to invest. There is a rising dissension and mistrust due to the adverse effects of poverty for those who lack the means. 

There is hope, Uganda has checks and balance institutions in place like the Departed Asians Properties Custodian Board (DAPCB) or the Committee on Commission, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE). It is through these institutions that people (the masses) will eventually feel they have a say, are stakeholders in their country and can stifle excesses of some rentiers. However, Ugandans need to be supported and motivated to uphold custodial roles of the different infrastructure such as roads, parks and public service facilities. 

Government has to invest in maintenance and production services too with the same zeal it has done with security, defense, health, education and electrification. As far as electrification goes, only half of the 1,250 megawatts produced in Uganda are consumed presently. Investing in maintenance and production services in Uganda will also increase demand for electric power, improve connectivity and rural agro-based industrialization where almost 70% of the population of Uganda resides.  

 

The freedoms enjoyed by Ugandans should translate into a secured livelihood which promises infrastructure, safe homesteads where income earners can afford healthy living and wealth building. As far as securitization goes, there are other referent objects playing a key role in the security of Uganda and not the security organs only. So, Museveni has to be willing to invest money, training and regard to these as he gives to the security organ