Maravi

(MONITOR UGANDA) Why govt is concerned with gays and not corruption

Why govt is concerned with gays and not corruption
Augustine Ruzindana

For sometime Parliament has been mainly preoccupied with the business of the survival of the regime. The Land Amendment Bill that has just been passed is such business. Having given up the possibility of rekindling friendship with Mengo, the President/NRM has devised a means of by-passing Mengo by seemingly championing the cause of the bibanja owners titled in Buganda.

But the Bill is nothing more than a stratagem to create a perception of a caring government concerned about these people. The Bill is a political move aimed at Buganda, where the legal concepts of bona fide and lawful occupants are relevant. But even in Buganda, most occupants of land do not fall in these categories. The low number of MPs (122) who passed the Bill, many of them ministers who are in a sort of hostage situation, attests to the fact that its political value is not deemed to be high. The side effects of the Bill are, however, countrywide. For example, rural land will no longer be acceptable as collateral for bank and microfinance loans. In Ankole, most evictions are now caused by non-serviced microfinance loans, thus such lending is likely to be reduced.

The other business which has occupied public space is the ubiquitous NRM corruption schemes. The Chogm was used as such a scheme for siphoning public funds through buying second hand cars, paying for supply of air and beautification whose only evidence was demolition of roadside fruit and vegetable markets which put to an end the livelihood of many families. Unfinished hotels were paid for accommodation of guests well knowing that they could not do so. Vehicles were hired and paid for but never used.

However, there is nothing surprising in all this as virtually every government activity is now used for personal enrichment. How otherwise can there be more than 100 ghost health facilities, obviously with ghost health workers and their ghost patients whom they treated and dispensed drugs to? Just as the existence of ghost soldiers prolonged the Kony war, the ghost health facilities have led to the death of many Ugandans and to poor health services for those who still survive. These things happen because of the extent of corruption at all levels of the current regime which has reached irreversible proportions. Uganda is in a situation of the Sherlock Holmes story of Silver Blaze in which a horse was stolen. The clue to the criminal was why the dog did not bark. The thief was its master.

Why does the government and Parliament find the Anti-Homosexual Bill more of a priority than the electoral bills and other governance issues? Already homosexuality is a criminal offence as a “crime against nature” in the Penal Code and marriage is defined in the Constitution as between man and woman. The life and death sentences introduced in the new Bill are to impress an external constituency critical for regime survival. Informed Ugandans know that such sentences will never be passed by any court of law. For example, how many people have been sentenced to death for defilement, even though this crime takes place very frequently and quite often culprits are arrested and tried? How many people have been given the draconian sentences imposed for bouncing cheques?

Ugandan urgent concerns that should be addressed are elimination of day-light robbery and waste of public resources, poverty, poor service delivery, unemployment of the youth and provision of clean water, quality education, health services and roads. The time spent on virginity, abstinence (by people not known for their continence) and of late, anti-homosexuality, is just diversionary (okugumaaza) to facilitate the continuation of unrestrained gorging on State resources.

a_ruzindana *** yahoo.com

Labels: HOMOSEXUALITY, UGANDA

posted by MrK @ 9:57 PM