NUSAF II: Museveni launches the past

By Julius Barigaba

Kampala, February 10 2010

Here is the future: nice tarmac roads, fancy homes lit with electricity and well lit streets to boot, but you lot will have to settle for the past, for now.

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This is the message that seems to come out of President Yoweri Museveni at the launch on February 8, of the second phase of the Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF) that will see $100 million spent on BASIC social infrastructure, reconstruction of housing units and road network to help households generate income. Emphasis on BASIC!

Museveni let slip a statement over which his handlers might find themselves called to quickly do major damage control. “My real projects for the north include the $1.3 billion Karuma hydro-power dam,” he said. Underline REAL PROJECTS.

It looks okay at first, but coming from a head of state whose cabinet and bureaucracy saw $160 million of NUSAF I phase blown in corruption ridden deals, this was not just a sloppy but very inconsiderate statement to make at such a time. It is a mockery of the long suffering people of Northern Uganda whom these “real projects” are supposed to help.

Officials emptied the coffers for NUSAF I to deliver a record breaking service: they bought fake farming tools [someone said the pangas and hoes were made from plastic]; they also supplied rotten seeds. To cap it all, they built non-existent roads, schools and hospitals. What more can you ask for?

When Gulu District Local Council Chairman Norbert Mao displayed the farming equipment, true to style, the inept Relief and Disaster Minister Tarsis Kabwegyere and his string of officials that were responsible for this rude joke did not betray any iota of embarrassment, much less remorse. So typical.

Simply put, Museveni might as well have said, “Like the first phase, do not expect so much out of this one. My hungry hawks are ready to swoop, same old style. You guys will have fun when Karuma arrives.” Or may be we should make that “IF Karuma arrives”. In our experience, there have been more than enough promises of things to improve our miserable lives. But those things never arrive. Nothing new there, Mr. President.

Museveni promised better delivery for NUSAF II, and even better projects, for the future. It remains to be seen whether this will happen, considering that Kabwegyere and his thugs are still hanging around. More importantly though, it is interesting to read the line up of projects that will deliver the future for these poor souls: tarmac roads and electricity.

Check out the list. Tarmacking of Gulu-Atiak-Bibia and Arua-Koboko-Oraba roads as well as Muyembe-Namalu-Nakapiripirit-Moroto road, and then Masindi Port through Apac to Kitgum will also be done-up.

Power lines will be installed from Wopuyo to Katakwi and Iri Iri to Moroto and from Corner Kilak through Pader and Patongo to Koch Goma, neon lights will convey the future.

But wait. Isn’t government actually running behind schedule to complete the 3.6MW Nyagak hydropower station? This would light up Arua, Adjumani and Moyo. These are very much part of the north. And then you have the West Nile Rural Electrification Company that suffers more hiccups than a drunk, high on a punch of Lira-Lira, Malwa and Nile Special Lager.

We have heard those stories before. Delays: Contactor mess. Change of design. Unpredictable weather…the list goes on. The ‘mighty’ 250MW Bujagali that is costing you and I a whopping $850 million (inclusive of interest is over a billion dollars) is part of that list. Museveni promised in May 2006 that it would be ready in 44 months, which ended exactly last month!

May be you guys in the north might have better luck but I have my doubts. It seems in Uganda the future never comes.

A couple of reasons why Museveni launched the past.

First, NUSAF II is behind schedule. It was supposed to start in September 2009, but massive corruption in the first phase…you know the drill, don’t you. Have the thieves of NUSAF I been hanged? No. Will they? I doubt.

Two, the president had his math crossed. He dangles the $1.3 billion dream project for the north but is only happy to launch one that is 13 times smaller. That’s bait, and I can bet he caught nothing. You wonder whether the president sometimes gets excited at numbers [you bet he does, he quotes statistics all the time].

NUSAF is one of the many attempts at rebuilding a living hell that has been the northern region. It was ravaged by a two-decade conflict between Uganda Peoples Defence Forces and the Lords Resistance Army rebels, consigning more than 1.8 million people in internally displaced peoples camps.

The north has a great opportunity for trade with Southern Sudan due to its proximity to that country—if only the infrastructure was fixed. Museveni also alluded to donors refusing to fund these projects citing a low rate of return on these roads, below 12 per cent. But we know for certain that the World Bank is funding the construction of Gulu-Atiak-Bibia and Arua-Koboko-Oraba roads, Mr. President. They just signed a $198 million financing agreement with your Finance Minister Syda Bbumba, didn’t they?

Lastly, the president said rail extension from to Juba was in the pipeline. Sort of. He said he has “instructed the construction brigade of the army to develop a railway building capacity to do some of these projects cheaply because we are tired of the problems we always get”.

DEVELP A RAILWAY BUILDING CAPACITY! There we go again. When will that be? Next millennium, perhaps? We need action, Mr. President. Exactly how sophisticated is the army’s construction brigade? Can they handle this? Really? Well then, have them hurry. And while you are at it, the Kenyans are streets ahead. They already have a plan for rail and a state of the art road between their country and Juba. They will surely get there before our army amble out of the workshop poring over some sort of design.

Museveni keeps talking about “modernisation” only to deliver “rudimentary antiques”. Even by their standards of deprivation, Northern Uganda can’t be impressed.

Ends