Even if you don’t like a market, those markets exist in practice. The question is not whether they should exist or not but how to regulate them.
Jean Tirole, Morality and the Markets, 2018 Keynes Lecture
Greetings. Jinja has been a hive of activity during the
month of November. From the eighth edition of Nyege Nyege to the Royal wedding
of His Highness William Nadiope Gabula, the fifth Kyabazinga of Busoga. Both events
have attracted tourists to the newly minted city. However, it is the
festivities of the former that I would wish to focus my attention.
A year ago, the first Nyege Nyege edition to be held since
the advent of Covid was met with collective disdain from leaders across the
political, cultural and religious circles. The festival is a leading essential
music and arts celebration held over the course of four days. Noted for its “wanton
and hedonism”, it attracts visitors from the world over. Nevertheless, its
detractors chose to focus on the pleasure-seeking aspects, calling for outlawing the festival.
The matter went as far as the Uganda legislature. One Member of Parliament from Busoga spurn a conspiracy theory of Busoga being chosen to host the “immoral festival” to the ruin of its youth, whilst the other regions were left to maintain their moral values and subsequently prosper. The Members of Parliament voted to have the festival banned on Tuesday 06th September but two days later, the Prime Minister had the ban overturned. Up to that point, that was the highest-ranking government official to back the festival. Ms. Robinah Nabanja’s reasons;
“… cancellation would be challenging. We also have to think about the economy.”
It is the economy, stupid!
The 2023 edition on the other hand has not been met with any
opposition. If anything, it has the backing of previous moralists. The Busoga
Kingdom Minister for Tourism spoke at the Press launch encouraging people to
attend.
What happened between the 2022 and 2023 to make Nyege Nyege
more palatable, could be explained by the nexus between morality and the markets.
To the economist, morality can be simplified to the basic tenet of “do no harm”;
ensuring our actions don’t have negative externalities. As defined by Tirole,
an externality occurs when a non-consenting sub-party who might be affected by a
transaction between two parties. For the case of Nyege Nyege, the neighbours of
the venue who are affected by the noise pollution from the festival serves as
an example of a negative externality.
For a case when the positive externalities outweigh the negative externalities, we are likely to have a net positive social benefit, and there are numerous positive externalities from the festival. The transaction between the revelers and the hosts has a trickle-down effect to the hotels in Jinja, restaurant owners, artisans, transporters and tour companies; these services account for 68.8% of tourism spend in the country.
In 2022, over 8,000 foreign visitors were reported to have bought tickets to the festival, for a country that registered a 2022 average of 2,230 daily foreign visitors to the country, that's a telling stat about the four-day event's impact on tourism. Little wonder the recent tourism report has the Eastern region second to Kampala in occupancy rate. Furthermore, these are 2,000 new people to be introduced to the rolex (not the watch) everyday!
With the extent of the positive externalities, one can discern why Ms. Nabbanja pushed for the festival to be reinstated and the subsequent acceptance it has received.
To cap off, borrowing from the opening quote, it seems we have come to terms with the fact that the market for Nyege Nyege exists and how we regulate it matters. "It should not be a moral posture, but a more practical thing," surmised Tirole.
Ceteris. Paribus.
References
Ministry of Tourism. (2023). Annual Tourism Development Performance Review Report 2022/2023. Ministry of Tourism. https://www.tourism.go.ug/single-post/annual-tourism-development-performance-review-report-2022-2023-launched
Nafula, J., Kamurungi, E., & Maloba, P. (2022, September 08). Nyege Nyege: Nabbanja, Among reading from different scripts. The Daily Monitor. https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/news/national/nyege-nyege-nabbanja-among-read-from-different-scripts-3941010
Ndagire, B. (2023, September 27).76% of Uganda's tourists come from East Africa. The Daily Monitor. https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/business/markets/76-of-uganda-s-tourists-come-from-east-africa--4381708#:~:text=The%20Tourism%20Development%20Programme%20Annual,arrivals%20registered%20in%20the%20period
Onyango-Obbo, C. (2022, September 14). Nyege Nyege and ghosts of Uganda’s north-south divide. The Daily Monitor. https://www.monitor.co.ug/uganda/oped/columnists/charles-onyango-obbo/nyege-nyege-and-ghosts-of-uganda-s-north-south-divide-3947740
Parliament Uganda. (2022, September 06). Parliament perturbed over Nyege Nyege festival. Parliament Uganda. https://www.parliament.go.ug/news/6174/parliament-perturbed-over-nyege-nyege-festival
Tirole, J. (2018, March 01). Morality and
the Market. The 2017-2018 Keynes Lecture, Cambridge University. https://www.keynesfund.econ.cam.ac.uk/keynes-lecture-1718-videos
