New ministers tenure should be conditional to service delivery

Newly appointed cabinet ministers

The President has just appointed a new cabinet to lead in the execution of the national development plan. During the last political campaigns, and they asked him to appoint ministers he is sure would be prepared to work for the people of Uganda.

They gave him names of ministers who should be sacked on the grounds of failing to deliver services to the people as expected. To make sure that ministers who had failed the people did not come back into the cabinet, they made sure they were voted out at the polls.

During the campaigns and after the president had been voted back into power, Museveni told the nation how he had been saddened by non-performance of many ministries and he promised the nation how he would not bring the deadwood back into government.

Well, a number were dropped but disappointingly others were returned especially those who were voted back irrespective of how they won those elections. There is no doubt public disappointment has already set in but the president can still allay the fears of the population by telling his new ministers that the security of their jobs was dependent strictly on performance.

Ugandans would also be pleased if the president put into place a system of measuring performance under which ministers would be assessed regularly and transparently.

And since the people of Uganda are the ones who interact with their leaders, we would want the people to have a say in the assessment of these leaders. That way, the president will have been assisted in determining those leaders to be kicked out of the people’s government.

We shall do well as Ugandans to look at our neighbours in the East African Community and see how they are enforcing discipline and hard work. For example, every day we are bombarded with the stories of the meteoric growth of neighbouring Rwanda.

This week, Forbes wrote that according the UN’s Human Development Index, Rwanda is the world’s fastest developing country with an annual growth rate of about 8%. They also wrote that it is the second easiest place to do business on the continent, and the safest to walk at night in Africa and fifth globally.

And all the news from Tanzania is about how President Magufuli is transforming Tanzania at a speed never been experienced before, and predominantly is how he has waged a furious war against corruption in his country. And last week again, with the discovery of helium gas, all the news is about how, with the leadership of Magufuli, Tanzania is destined to become the fastest growing country in our great lakes region.

As for Kenya, the fact that it is the biggest economy in our region puts them at ease with itself leaving us, Uganda, wondering whether we have the determination to compete with our neighbours.

Shouldn’t this state of affairs within our region compel us to really do better than we are doing now?

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