CITIZEN ACTION FOR A PEACEFUL, SECURE AND PROSPEROUS
UGANDA –
WITH HAPPY PEOPLE
A 2014 New Year Message from the Civil Society.
Preamble
Fellow Ugandans, the leadership of Uganda’s civil society
congratulate each one of you upon completing the year 2013. As always we take
this opportunity to reflect on the past year and most importantly to recommit
ourselves to work towards building an inclusive and just economy, a strong
democracy and national stability in Uganda. Since 2009, the Citizen Manifesto
process has offered an important opportunity for many Ugandans to realize that
as citizens we should always act based on national values and interests. This
statement is informed by the Citizen Manifesto.
In 2014 we continue with the commitment to promote development that is citizen
focused. We call upon all Ugandans to see themselves as part of a democratic
culture that works towards a society where the citizen is central. This should
not be about satisfying only the material desires that we have as individuals
or narrow institutional or political mandates - but our interests should be for
all of us to work collectively towards a common good – a better Uganda. In the
sections that follow we present the three priority areas of focus this year:
1. Promote Citizen Organizing for a Better Uganda:
The Year 2013
witnessed increasing citizen organising, inspired in part by various CSO-led
initiatives including; Black Monday Movement, the Citizen Manifesto activities,
Budget Advocacy work, the Local Government Scorecard, the Uganda Women’s
Agenda, Citizen Assessments in education such as Uwezo, the quality public
education campaign, advocacy on maternal health, work on violence against women
and several other initiatives supported and promoted by civil society.
Under the Black Monday we published and widely distributed our newsletter that
stimulated dialogue on issues of public concern based on monthly themes. These
newsletters had overwhelming demand across the country and we have since
witnessed increasing citizen interest and actions against theft of public funds
and monitoring performance of government provision of social services as a
result of these interventions.
Civil society across
the country will continue with these campaigns with a clear focus on looking
for sustainable solutions that are citizen centered. Under the Black Monday
campaign we shall continue to point out the corruption ills but also profile
various acts of integrity and dignity that Ugandans across the country are
involved in on a day-to-day basis – changing their lives and their communities.
We refuse Uganda to be defined by the corruption we see but affirm that Uganda
is a country of dignity and integrity and across this country on a daily basis
women and men of all walks of life including the public officials are changing
lives in various ways. We shall look for them, affirm them and celebrate them
as our integrity heroes.
But, Uganda still has to address the historical challenges of citizenship.
Uganda has for long faced situations of civic deficiency that are rooted in our
history of conflict, citizen disempowerment and lack of a culture of constitutionalism.
This is manifest in the collapse of values of ‘ubuntu’, rule of law and
community cohesion as well as the erosion of the ethos of hard work. Civic
deficiency therefore makes corruption a way of life and creates a sense of
despondency, despair and helplessness in the country. Civic deficiency is what
makes citizens avoid or dodge paying taxes. It creates the environment in which
drugs can be stolen from the hospitals and rotten seeds can be procured in the
name of boosting agricultural production. Civic deficiency is also what creates
a culture of violence and allows ills such as child sacrifice, human
trafficking and complete collapse of productivity in the villages of Uganda to
thrive acceptable. It is the reason the phenomenon of begging and street
children has become an established industry.
We recognize that
CSOs have often struggled with accepting that civic education and citizen
mobilisation is political work requiring new skills that many of us are
deficient in. It is important for all stakeholders to appreciate the CSO work
is political but it is not politically partisan. In 2014 CSOs will intensify
civic education and practical support models for citizen organizing so that we
counter the ills of civic deficiency by focusing on the rights and
responsibilities of the citizen in shaping a better Uganda through the
following specific actions:
•
Rejecting
a national mindset that accepts a life of poverty, corruption, laziness,
wastefulness, hopelessness and replace it with new national mindset that
cherishes integrity, dignity, accountability, prosperity, peace, happiness and
hope.
•
Rejecting a corrupt, inefficient, ineffective
and wasteful governance culture; and replace these with efficient, prudent,
strong government institutions delivering high quality services.
•
Rejecting
a selfish, arrogant, insensitive, patronizing, dictatorial leadership culture
and replace that with an accountable, transparent, selfless leadership culture.
•
Rejecting the balkanization of Uganda and the
divisions created between our people largely for political goals and strive for
unity in diversity and creating a country where everyone feels valued and
contributes to transformation.
2. Wealth Creation for a Prosperous Uganda in
which citizens live with Dignity
We now know from all our work that a key reason many
citizens do not seem to show concern about the trillions of tax payer’s money
stolen, embezzled and diverted by shameless officials is because they do not
see themselves as owners of these monies. We have also noticed an increasing
delink between the often educated, usually urban based and fairly comfortable
political, bureaucratic and business elite and often uneducated, desperate,
young, largely rural based very uncomfortable majority poor.
We recognize that the government of Uganda worked tirelessly
to tame the galloping inflation that characterized the year 2012 and the
economy grew by slightly over 5% in the financial year 2012-2013. The
government of Uganda signed major contracts for three hydropower dam
construction; as well as road and rail infrastructure constructions with high
potential for employment and increasing people’s incomes, but these have not
yet translated in better incomes for the average Ugandan family. In 2013 most
Ugandan families could barely meet their basic needs comfortably. This reality
is exacerbated by intense poverty especially in rural Uganda and the daily
survival mode that the majority of Ugandans find themselves in 2013. Poverty is
Uganda’s modern day slavery and should be rejected and ejected by all Ugandans.
We also found ourselves faced with the reality of desperate, unemployed, idle
youth looking for ways to make ends meet all round the country. We conducted
studies that revealed that the current situation is not far from the context
that generated citizen organizing for protecting better prices for their cash
crops through cooperatives in the colonial era and later the dream of the
independence struggles.
Consequently the year 2013 has confirmed to us that supporting an effective
citizen wealth creation strategy is our cardinal contribution for a better
Uganda now and in the future. This we have clarified in our minds, is good for
government, the private sector and the ordinary citizen.
In 2014 we shall
intensify supporting citizens with:
•
Equipping
citizens with skills and tools for organizing better, through citizen savings
and investment clubs, across entire value chains so that they can take
advantage of all forms of strategic government and private sector investment
decisions
•
Intensify
youth entrepreneurship and leadership training for wealth creation, gainful and
dignified employment rooted in the ideals of a cooperative movement that is
vibrant, citizen initiated, owned and controlled.
•
Lobby regionally and internationally for
favorable fair trade and market opportunity for Ugandan products and work
towards supporting the development of a competitive economy.
•
Work with the private sector to invest in
social enterprises that serve the needs and promote the dignity of all Ugandans
and reject those that spread discrimination and abuse of women.
3. Peace and Stability for a Secure Uganda
The year 2013
witnessed action by the Executive to narrow the space for citizen’s
constitutional right of expression, association and participation in matters of
government. We have increasingly witnessed a characteristic whipping of Members
of Parliament from the ruling party into passing laws such as The Public Order
Management Act among others. Further, police brutality was a consistent theme
all through the year including rampaging and closing media houses; arrest and
torture of anticorruption activists, illegal detention of opposition
politicians and shameless manipulation of the Kampala City Council Authority and
impeachment of the Lord Mayor of Kampala. The Executive, Parliament and the
Judicial Service Commission have been engulfed in unending ‘ping-pong’ about
whether or not to appoint Justice Benjamin Odoki as Chief Justice even though
he has passed the retirement age. The resultant effect is that for about one
year the Judiciary in Uganda has no substantive head.
Amidst all these developments we have noted with concern that the entire
political leadership of Uganda does not seem to have any national consensus on
a national minimum benchmark for the Uganda we want - that can be defended
regardless of the political divide any person is. This, while citizens through
the Citizens Manifesto actually developed one!
We recognize that in the current dispensation political parties are struggling
with the disease we refer to as “the crisis of individual merit” where powerful
individuals now call the shots at the expense of building party organs and
structures. This situation weakens Political Parties in particular and
undermines building a democratic culture in Uganda. Parties must be supported
to transcend this ‘individual merit’ inertia that has its roots in the Movement
system of governance. This situation has built a consistent lack of trust and
growing insecurity of the political, military and bureaucratic elite of Uganda,
to the extent that they are all in a ‘daily survival mode’ with no strategic
planning for the future of the country. This, in our view is the starting point
of weak institutions of government and is a recipe for future instability and
political conflict in Uganda. It also became clear in 2013 that the country is
clearly in a political transition mode. The critical challenge that remains is
the nature of the transition – whether it will be violent, as has been the case
in our history, or whether it will be peaceful.
While acknowledging that free and fair elections are critical for democratic
and peaceful transition, previous elections have proved that the dual crisis –
of individual merit and mistrust- coupled with the political culture of
patronage, have turned elections into a very expensive routine. We therefore
see no inherent value in going for an election in 2016 under the same
conditions. Therefore in 2014 we shall mobilize the citizens around the country
to recognize the impending crisis and work for a peaceful transition to “The
Uganda We Want”:
In 2014 we shall intensify supporting citizens
with:
•
Advocacy
for boldly addressing the insecurity of the political, military and
bureaucratic elite of Uganda whose uncertain future sets the foundation and
looting of public coffers and political instability in Uganda.
•
Building on the work of civil society
organizations, religious institutions, politicians and the academia we shall
advocate for a National Conference to deliberate and agree a new national
consensus on how Ugandans want to be governed
•
In place of another sham election in 2016 and
the potential political crisis that it could bring to the country, we shall
deliberate on a transitional national unity government to shape a new agenda
for democratization and economic transformations. We shall advocate for a
political process that leads to establishing a Transitional Government of
National Unity in January 2016 for a period of up to 3 years only with specific
mandate to deliver amongst others: (i) Leading a national truth telling,
forgiveness, reconciliation and unity process (ii) Managing a national
constitutional review process for a renegotiated Uganda We Want. (iii)
Investing in building strong competitive political parties as a basis for true
democracy in Uganda (iv) Organizing a free and fair election as a foundation
for peace and security.
•
We shall strengthen a people-to-people
exchange within the Great Lakes Region to secure Uganda within the context of a
stable region especially given the most worrying developments in the last
quarter of 2013 in Democratic Republic of Congo and The Republic of South
Sudan.
Fellow Citizens it is our individual and collective responsibility to deliver
Solidarity, Dignity and Opportunity for all Ugandans irrespective of who they
are and where they are found in this great country. Our country is large enough
for all of us and at the end of it all, every Ugandan can and must be a winner
in this processes!
FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY
January 6, 2014
For Further information, contact the UGMP/Citizen Manifesto Coordination Office
THE UGANDA NATIONAL
NGO FORUM,
Plot 25, Muyenga
Tank Hill Rd, P.O. Box 4636,
Kampala-Uganda,
Tel: 0414510272, 0312260373
Email: info@ngoforum.or.ug, Website: www.ngoforum.or.ug
