National Pride

This lamentation is not about my condition or me in particular. 

Yesterday’s news showed an individual who was granted the privilege of serving his nation as the Finance Manager of the Uganda National Roads Authority. Somehow, under his gaze, some other lower level employee of the authority was able to sneak a cheque of 1.6 billion Uganda shillings passed him, under the guise of a payment to an energy company for fuel purchased by the authority. The fuel was never delivered. The money has disappeared. How did the low level employee sneak past the Finance Manager, the Managing Director, the Board of Directors, the Public Procurement and Disposal Authority and Uganda Revenue Authority? Who was asleep at the wheel? What did the [dis]honorable Finance Manager have to say? “I was not aware of the transaction.” Mschewwww!

Last week, I had to face the Tax Woman, courtesy of a parcel I was picking up at the post office. A seemingly arbitrary tax rate was applied to the parcel and I was informed of ridiculously large import charge; it was almost double the monthly salary of a university professor. I was picking up juicers i.e. household items; the kind you use in your kitchen. If I was collecting hundreds of them, I would understand the high charges. But for four pieces, this was bordering on insane. When I insisted on establishing how this rate was evaluated and who had carried out the assessment, I was told of a mysterious tax/tariff guide that exists somewhere on the URA website. However, I was warned that the guide was not exhaustive and that it was possible for me to find out that the items I had collected were not on that guide. So who sets these rates? If I were to challenge the system, who would I be challenging? How does one arrest shadows and mirages? It is all the more painful for me because I have to pay an Infrastructure Levy to the Tax Man/Woman, to cater for infrastructural development. Meanwhile, Mr [dis] honorable Financial Manager is unaware that 1.6 billion shillings, which were to be used for infrastructural development, were stolen from the government on his watch! Mscheewwww!

While I am still on a tax rant, let’s discuss the fact that a mere 15-20% of the Ugandan population actually pay taxes! For majority of the population life and living take on a rural or informal nature. The age of the mobile phone has improved access to the remote parts of the nation [and you could argue that URA gets a bit more through VAT on the sales of mobile phones and related services]. However, very few of us use financial institutions like banks or credit facilities. Very few of us are actually paid via these financial institutions, and, thus, pay the mandatory Pay As You Earn to the Tax Man/Woman. Few of us purchase items from which VAT is computed [the majority of the population live off the land and do not need to make regular taxable purchases].

Sadly, in his 2005 campaign for a 3^rd term in office, after he had cleverly twisted the constitution to abolish term limits, His Excellency the Man in the Hat proclaimed a ban on Graduated Personal Tax. This tax had been levied on all adults by virtue of the fact that they are above the age of 18. All adults were to carry a little book that would detail one’s tax payments and home address. If you were Ugandan, you paid. The Man in the Hat declared war on the tax stating that it was a regressive remnant of the colonial era and that it was costly to collect. Now, 10 years later, the same Man in the Hat supports the continual creation of administrative centres [constituencies and districts], knowing that for each additional centre, the Local Government will insist that the Ministry of Public Service must recruit “capable” individuals to run the show. Each centre will also require representation in the already bulging Parliament of the Republic of Uganda. 

If, at least, the Man in the Hat were taxing 20% of the population to feed the other 80%, my fears would be assuaged. We would have roads, schools, electricity, hospitals and a national air carrier. However, the 20% must now pay these “capable” individuals’ salaries. To add insult to injury, yesterday, the 20% watched the [dis] honorable Mr Finance Manager of UNRA declare to the nation that he was “unaware” of the loss of 1.6 billion Uganda shillings, that we, the 20%, had to entrusted the government. Mscheewwwwwww!

I am reading a book on the MAU MAU in Kenya. For the last few years, I have tried to wean myself off of fiction and tried to consume books that speak more about the history of this continent. My conversations with my father have proven that the history I was taught in school was both shallow and hollow. I have also learnt that I was clueless at to the events that occurred when I was younger [for example the Rwanda Genocide]. I have so far read up on Belgian Congo, the English in South Rhodesia [Zimbabwe] and the Biafran war in Nigeria. I’ve read about a boy soldier in Sierra Leone and another in Uganda. There was an account of a Somali who had lived though both world wars and somehow walked from Somalia to Egypt, Palestine, and then ended up in England; but I still need more information about that area, like what happened to Ethiopia and Eritrea. 

Anyway, this month is Kenya month. My history teachers mentioned MAU MAU in passing, as if it was a few Kenyans shouting about Kipande and then they were given independence and that was that. I think the misinformation stems from the fact that the images I have always had of independence were those of 9 October 1962 [I need to ask my parents more about this]. Uganda had a peaceful transition, relative the rest of the British Empire. There were a few struggles but mostly between ourselves. Those loyal to the Kabaka vs those loyal to the nation [including the non Baganda]. The day came, the Union Jack was laid down, the black-yellow-red was raised, Prime Minister Obote and H. E. Kabaka Mutessa II shook Sir Harry’s hand, Grace composed a beautiful song [based on a quote from Sir Winston Churchill, a former BRITISH prime minister], we danced and made merry to the sounds of Congolese Music. Meanwhile, our neighbour Kenya had to fight for their name, nation and land. She had to define and defend her “Kenyanness” and prove that she was worthy to be a republic.

Until now, I never understood the phrase “twalwana ‘ntalo”. Every time a government representative is queried about their involvement in suspicious activity or about their inexplicable wealth, they respond with “twalwana ‘ntalo” [direct translation: we fought the war]. They claim that having participated in the struggle that led to our modern freedom [Liberation War of 1980 - 86], they have earned the right to enjoy the benefits of this freedom. They are more Ugandan than the rest of us. Unfortunately, these individuals tend to stem from a particular people group, making it seem like that group is more Ugandan. 

Each corner of this nation, at some point, was fighting for freedom from the rest of the nation. We each feel deeply for our ethnic groups because each of them was challenged and had to defend its existence and its claim to the benefits of Ugandanness. We, as a nation, have never, really, jointly had our nationhood brought to question. We were not asked to prove ourselves worthy. We were given a nation. And subsequently went on to squabble about it for 24 years, until the General stepped in. Now he owns the nation and we dare not question him, Or do we?

In 1952, much like during Uhuru Kenyatta’s ICC trial over the violence in 2008, Jomo Kenyatta, his famous father, was put on trial to defend the right of Kenyans to exist as a people. He lost the case, the battle. But he won the war. In answering those questions to the judge and the prosecution, he defined “Kenyanness”, their claims to their land, their culture and their right to be treated as humans. So whenever Kenyans sing their anthem, Jomo’s voice is with them, answering all those questions and defending their cause. Kenyan solidarity is the good stuff. Try watching them at rugby or cricket or when the various tall thin men lead in athletic triumph. They sing as one. And when they fell in 2008, they fell as one. Almost immediately, Kenyans, regardless of tribe or family, reached out to help each other.

I am of course biased. Walker was born in Nakuru, so I claim that our children will be part Kenyan. His family was forced into exile by a conflict in Uganda brought on by a statesman from my father’s part of the country. Immediately after that statesman was deposed, my father’s people were forced into exile, returning only after the General’s triumphant victory.

So yesterday, when I watched Mr [dis]honorable Finance Manager claim that he was “unaware of the transaction”, I, sadly, could not blame him. He was given authority over a nation that neither he nor his ancestors fought to defend or define.

A child with no name is like a leaf in the wind. He has no home, no roots. He does not know where he is from or to where he goes. Me