Greetings. It’s
barely two weeks since our first confirmed case of Covid-19 and the country is
in total lockdown after a series of presidential directives. The situation is
very pressing to sole proprietors, small businesses and large corporate
organisations. Several countries are on lock-down as well, and boy, do the LDC
economies (and formerly LDC economies) love aggressive implementation of these
directives. There are several videos and news stories circulating of how the
lock-down and preventive measures are being implemented; from spraying chemicalsupon migrant workers in India to caning passengers in Uganda.
As we attempt to
stay home and keep everyone safe, I have listed some recommended reading, video
and audio material relevant (or not) for this period.
Reading materials
Buganda
n’Ensimbi Zaayo by Ernest Bakaluba (translated as Buganda and its Systems
of Currency). Published in 1958, the 20-page monograph details the evolution of
the currency system in Buganda prior to the advent of the colonial-era rupee. From
the sanga (ivory bead), to the nsinda (blue bead), and then finally to the
cowrie shells. The writer also gives a conversion rate i.e. 1 nsinda was equivalent to 100 cowrie
shells, etc. Luckily today in this pandemic scare, mobile money and other
modern financial innovations make it possible to access money at a time when
the dreaded disease could be transmitted through exchange of physical cash.
However,
Eagle Press, the publisher of the text, is no longer in existence and the only
two surviving copies in the public domain can be accessed at the Africana Collection
of the Makerere University Library …. I guess you have to read this once the
pandemic has been mitigated.
Financialliberalisation and its implications for the domestic financial system
by Michael Atingi-Ego and Louis Kasekende. Earlier this week, President Museveni appointed Dr.
Atingi-Ego as the new deputy governor at the Bank of Uganda. The world of
PhD-level economists in Uganda is a very small club and as such he replaces a
man he has previously collaborated with on three scholarly articles, Dr. Louis
Kasekende.
Their 2003 paper published by the African Economic Research Consortium,
surveyed the effects of financial liberalisation on the banking sector
(conducted after the privatisation of Uganda Commercial Bank), and recommended
the linking of the banking sector with the micro-credit institutions. In the
following year, the Financial Institutions Act and the Microfinance Insitutions
Act were enacted, with no less a referral than the two scholars. These pieces
of legislation stipulated the categorisation of institutions under the bank of
Uganda’s supervision, including commercial banks (tier I), credit institutions
(tier II) and micro-deposit institutions (tier III).
Podcasts
50 Things That Made theModern Economy: Episode 12 – Antibiotics. The BBC is a treasure for podcasts, covering current
affairs, documentaries business, history and drama. This particular podcast
series tells the stories of inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped
create the modern economy,condensed in sub-10 minute episodes. The episode on “Antobiotics” is very relevant in our
hygiene-conscious times, charting the evolution of antibiotics and why today more antibiotics are injected in healthy animals than sick humans.
Documentary Series
Networld by Niall Ferguson. The self-proclaimed “international man of history” has an interesting timing of his documentaries. The Ascent of Money (adopted from his book) was published around the time of the 2008 financial crisis, detailing the evolution of money and its role in business and politics. In this three-part documentary series, released in March as the Covid-19 epidemic was taking root, Ferguson explores the role of human behaviour, disruptive technology and the profit motive in changing our world.
Adopted from his 2015 book, The Square and the Tower, Ferguson highlights how every individual has a personal social network and this will determine the probability of getting sick during this period.
Ceteris Paribus.
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