What GDP Per Capita Says About Your MP

Greetings. The recent primary elections of the ruling National Resistance Movement have shed some light on the status of our democracy. The age old demons of voter intimidation, bribery and violence were cast in a new light. For years, we've known the political campaigning system is a quid pro quo arrangement between the politicians and the electorate; in such a system one does not need a strong manifesto to contest. 

Political experts have voiced their concerns about the salaries paid to the Members of Parliament being the chief impetus behind the current state of our electoral process. However, are we really paying our legislators exorbitantly?

A Ugandan Member of Parliament takes home UGX 25 million per month, not including allowances. So for the calendar year, the legislator takes home UGX 300 million (US$ 80,475). In principle, these are just numbers, without significance. However, one has to set a benchmark upon which to view these figures. 

How do MPs salaries compare with the standard of living?

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the total income of everyone in the economy. This single measure captures all economic production by individuals, companies and the government. The proportion of this measure to the total population, GDP per capita, gives an idea about the standard of living, i.e. the average income per person in the economy. According to the World Bank, Uganda's GDP per capita stood at US$ 642.78 a year. The annual salary of MPs is 118 times greater than that amount! For each shilling the voter earns, his/her elected representative is taking home 118 shillings, and as noted earlier this doesn't include allowances and other add-ons. 

Voters earning at the level of GDP per capita would have to work for 118 years in order to earn what the MP earns in 1 year! This is appalling for a country whose average life expectancy is 62.52 years, i.e. you're likely to die two years into your retirement! If the average person works between the ages of 25 and 60 (35 years of working), this means three-generations of voters of the same family would have to put in productive work to earn the same amount the legislator makes in one year!

How do other countries compare?

The first point of comparison would be our neighbours. Across the border in Kenya, the legislative arm of government is a bi-cameral house. Senators take home US$200,000 a year whereas the MPs in the lower house earn $58,744 per annum. Kenya has the highest GDP in East Africa, at US$1,710.51 per person each year. The Senators and MPs respectively earn 116 times and 34 times the per capita figure. In comparison with Uganda, this is a modest range from the national average.

One could call the United States the progenitors of the modern democracy - their dubious suffrage history notwithstanding. Their legislative arm is also bicameral, however members of the House of Representatives and the Senate earn the same annual salary of US$174,000 per year, absent of allowances. With a GDP per capita of US$ 63,051, a Congressman/woman earns just under three times that much.

The United Kingdom presents a more self-effacing scenario. Members of the House of Lords, do not earn a salary but can opt to receive £305 (US$ 396) in attendance allowance per day, as well as travel expenses and access to subsidised restaurants. In the House of Commons, an MP earns £81,932 (about US$106,986) per year. This figure is just more than double the UK's per capita GDP (US$ 46,827).

Country	GDP per capita (in US$)	Legislator Salary: GDP per capita
Uganda	956.00	117.8363
Tanzania	1,050.00	18.7550
Kenya	1,710.51	75.6336
United Kingdom	46,827.00	2.2847
United States	63,051.00	2.7597

Studies of GDP find that countries with a higher GDP per capita have better childhood nutrition, healthcare, education etc., than their less-endowed counterparts. A caveat should be added that countries with lower GDPs tend to spend a huge portion of that on their legislators.

Ceteris. Paribus.

References

Awich, L., (May 2019). "New house allowance puts MPs' salary way above world super powers," in The Star.

Dickinson, E., (January 2011). "GDP: A Brief History," in Foreign Policy Magazine.

Editor, (August 2019). "Analysis: MPs Salaries," in The Observer.

UK Parliament (October 2020). Pay and expenses for MPs. UK Parliament, https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/pay-mps/ 

US Senate (October 2020). Senate Salaries since 1789. US Senate, https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/senate_salaries.htm 

The Colonialists Behaving Badly

Greetings. Annually we commemorate our independence, in remembrance of regaining our "sovereignty" from the British Empire. The exploits of the Empire within Uganda are well documented, especially the activities within the central region. With regards to the rest of the country, there's not much popularised about colonial rule in those areas. As with the rest of the country, they do maintain colonial epithets on street names as well as schools. As the Empire was rewarding acres of land to Apollo Kaggwa and Nuwa Mbaguta in return for emasculating their respective liege lords, Kabalega was being banished from his kingdom. In certain instances the colonial era had its downside. The British weren't always honourable in their dealings within the protectorate. 

Samwiri Karugire explained how the British formulated a system of administration across the country. From his examples in Northern Uganda, it is evident how the existing status quo was maltreated and relegated to carrying out orders. It is from his text that I share the excerpt below;

The first challenge to the nascent British administration, therefore, was to establish a uniform system of administration over the whole protectorate and this challenge was not fully resolved throughout the colonial period - and even for some period after independence - because the factors militating against uniformity of administration were to prove intractable.

From the outset the British administrators were convinced that Kiganda model of local government would e the most viable, and probably the cheapest also, and that therefore this should be "exported" into all the parts of the Protectorate. What this meant was that the form rather than the substance of the Kiganda system of government should be the pattern of local government everywhere in the Protectorate.

The first practical problem arose out of the fact that the Kianda system of administration was peculiarly fashioned to suit Buganda conditions and that this fashioning had taken well ove a century to take a definite shape within Buganda. Outside Buganda, the system was a strange one, even in the kingdom areas. The first formal and concrete steps to establish the Buganda model of administration were taken by the promulgation of the 1919 Native Authority Ordinance. The main purpose of this Ordinance was to formalise and clarify the powers, duties and privileges of African chiefs in all areas of the Protectorate excepting Buganda. This was an important consideration because the African Chief was to be the principal grassroot instrument by which British control was to be established and consolidated in Uganda.

The law had been made, but what mattered was how it would work in practice for this is the ultimate test of the effectiveness of any law.

It was naturally in the segmentary and quasi-segmentary societies of Uganda that the Ordinance met its greatest challenges because it was primarily in those areas that the concept of one-man authority was entirely alien. In the small kingdom of Acholi the kings reigned rather than ruled and that the consensus of all the assembled elders of the particular kingdom was the source of the direction of public policy but decidedly not public opinion of the kings or of any other single person.

The Rwot of Atyak was deposed in 1927 "because he failed to carry out government orders", and was replaced by one Jakariya Atoyo from Patiko so that the "rule of Atyak's royal line came to an end at this time". In some instances some humiliating punishments were handed out to these traditional rulers for trivial offences. For instance, the ruler of Pajule, Aliker by name, was put into a latrine pit by the District Commisioner and he died soon thereafter. Lakidi, the ruler of Paimol, was imprisoned and finally hanged in public and in his place was installed one Amet, who was not only from outside the royal house of Paimol, but had also, to the considerable outrage of the Acholi, suffered from leprosy and lost some of his fingers. And this outrage was perpetrated by a European Officer (Postlethwaite) whom the Acholi had nicknamed gweno (chicken) - a very unflattering epithet indeed in Acholi. As a result of all these drastic measures government interpreters, clerks and other obsequious people were gradually put into positions of power over a society in which age and proven merit were the criteria of leadership. The system ultimately worked not because it was initially acceptable but because the British had the physical force to back up their appointees.

Happy independence day.

Ceteris. Paribus.

Source

Karugire, S.R., (1980). A Political History of Uganda. Kampala: Fountain. Chapter 4: The Administrative Framework, 1921-1960, pp. 123-125.

Ideological Godfathers in Ugandan Politics

Greetings. As we approach the 2021 elections, a thought crossed my mind. Modern day political parties in Uganda are often criticised for their lack of ideology and being too focused on the eviction of Museveni from state house. There is some truth in the statement, given even adherents of the ruling National Resistance Movement aren’t joining it for its ideology. Going by the old adage, there’s nothing new under the sun, I sought to peruse through our history on a quest for some godfathers of political ideology in Uganda.

Ignatius Kangave Musaazi (The Pioneer)

"But it must be borne in mind by the African that however good non-African teachers, officials and financiers may be, the problem of true emancipation will still be in his own hands."

IK Musaazi, in Uganda Church Review, 8th June 1930 (joint article with Kenneth Bisase)

Ignatius Musaazi is perhaps the most celebrated political figure in the country who never rose to become President.

Born in Bulemezi County to a Gomboloola chief, Musaazi had his early education at King’s College Budo. He proceeded to St. Augustine’s College Canterbury, training to become a clergyman in the Anglican Church. During his time in the UK, he studied theology and the bible extensively, with a keen interest in the Book of Amos which forewarns of wealth at the expense of the poor yielding “famine in the land”. Musaazi also read the works of British socialist Harold Laski as well as being a witness to the 1926 general strike of the Trade Union Congress. These served to bolster his belief in social justice.

Musaazi believed in paving a way for the Kabaka to "protect his subjects from British colonisers, Indian ginners and Buganda’s self-aggrandizing chiefs". Musaazi’s theological training had grounded in him the idea that God uses kings to tackle the inherent prejudices within a society. The organisations he helped found – Bana Ba Kintu, Uganda Farmers Union and the Uganda National Congress – all sought  to address the grievances of the farmers and merchants, as well as the dismissal of corrupt administrators.

Francis Semakula Mulumba (The Radical)

"Let the People cease to hope that anything will any longer be done for them if they have not struggled and fought for it.”

Semakula Mulumba, in a letter dated 20th December 1948

Francis Semakula Mulumba was a key leader of the Bataka Movement in the 1940s. He received his training as part of the Brothers of St. Charles Lwanga, before proceeding to the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies in 1944. While there, he met young Pan Africans Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah, who influenced him to join the cause advocating for reinstatement of African sovereignty. The Bataka Party which emerged in the 1940s in opposition to the traditional values of (B)Uganda being “adulterated by British culture, a process qualified by hypocrisy and theft”, sought out Mulumba to head their delegation to UK to voice their concerns.

As a member of the Bataka, Mulumba sought to underpin the position of the old clan heads (Bataka) of Buganda. Ever the radical, he strongly opposed the influence of the Native Anglican Church in the country’s state of affairs, citing its role as an agent of the colonial government to grab land and minerals. He was critical of the Mengo establishment, exposing how they were influenced by the church and British culture to ignore the pleas of the common man. 

Eridadi Medadi Kasirye Mulira (The Reformer)

"I think no one who has followed my public life during recent years can accuse me of not having stood for what is right as I know it; of trying to uphold the Christian viewpoint and democracy."

EMK Mulira, "Why I am in the Uganda National Movement", 1960

Dubbed the constitutional reformer of the 1950s, Mulira was one of the earliest proponents of an inclusive Uganda during the pre-colonial period. Hailing from Kooki Principality, Mulira was educated at King's College Budo, followed by stints in Ghana and UK. He was a member of the Budo teaching staff with Musaazi. He was an advocate for equal pay for the native schoolteachers, who earned less than their European counterparts.

Whereas Musaazi and Mulumba were known to use protests to get their points across, Mulira preferred to use his writing which encompassed letters to The Uganda Herald, novels and essays. In his sole novel, Teefe, Mulira portrayed Buganda as a place for commoners, where both the Baganda and non-Baganda lived in harmony working the land. He used land, and agriculture by extension, to envision a utopia absent of any tribal differences. According to Mulira, a weak economy arose from a lack of work intensified by laziness.

As a member of the Lukiiko, he advocated for monarchical powers to be transferred to the citizenry. His motion on constitutional reforms in the Lukiiko following the Kabaka’s exile led to the appointment of a committee addressing constitutional reform, leading into negotiations at the Namirembe Conference of 1955 that returned the Kabaka and confirmed his status as a constitutional monarchy.

Apollo Milton Obote (The "Pseudo" Socialist)

"The biggest of us all, the richest of us all, and perhaps the highest educated of us all, cannot stand without the support of the common man."

AM Obote, Speech at UPC Conference, December 1970

Where Musaazi was the godfather of political mobilisation and activism, Milton Obote is the architect behind most of post-independence Uganda's political framework.

Educated at Busoga College Mwiri and Makerere University, Obote started his legislative career as the representative of Lango to the Legislative Council in 1958. He was in favour of a united Uganda as a one state, and opposed Buganda's secessionist plans to go it alone. He fell out with his Uganda National Congress Party, and merged his faction of the party with Uganda People's Union (UPU) to form the Uganda People's Congress (UPC). In principle, Obote preferred to espouse the ideas of socialism, mainly because at the time socialism in Africa was all the rage. However, he repeatedly acted in contrast to these principles, with examples ranging from his lavish wedding and the appointment of his Minister of Agriculture, John Kakonge, to the directorship of Mehta Industries, a private company.

Perhaps his most committed student has been the current president. Obote believed in uniting the East African nations and was one of the founders of the EAC (Museveni was at the centre of its revival); he seized power by military means (26th January anyone); he made use of military to do his bidding (in recent years the military has been deployed in roles previously handled by the Police); declared a one-party state (Museveni has been smarter in his approach; he has kept the opposition but the process of creating new districts at whim has greatly hampered its growth in comparison to the ruling party, internal conflicts within the opposition notwithstanding). Both men had/have a keen eye for talent on the opposition benches and were/are always willing to recruit it!

Benedicto Kagimu Mugumba Kiwanuka (The Law Abiding Citizen)

“Kiwanuka chose to be honest when being dishonest would have, in the long run, saved (B)Uganda a lot of tears and rivers of blood! It was truly the high price of principles.”

Samwiri Lwanga-Lunyigo, A History of the Democratic Party of Uganda

Benedicto Kiwanuka perhaps had the quickest rise to power of any politician; the Democratic Party was founded while he was studying in UK, and yet he became its President in its fourth year of existence (1958) and rose to be Prime Minister three years later!

Born to a minor chief who squandered his fortune, Kiwanuka received his early education at St. Peter's Nsambya before proceeding to serve in the Second World War. He worked for a time as a Court clerk and interpreter, which sparked his interest in law. He got his legal education in Lesotho and the United Kingdom, from where he still kept an eye on the political developments back home.

As the leader of the Democratic Party, he fashioned its core principles leading up to the elections of 1958, 1961 and 1962. Kiwanuka believed in the rule of law; even when his party members were frustrated and harrassed during the 1962 election preparations, he chose to be impartial and not use his position as Prime Minister to get the security forces to intervene in favour of his party (his successors have continually chosen the unconstitutional alternative). His opposition to special political rights to special regions of the country put him at odds with the Mengo establishment, putting an end to any plan of forming an electoral alliance with the Kabaka Yeka. 

On economic matters, Kiwanuka and his DP colleagues favoured policies that would assist Africans to become capitalists through trade and agriculture, compounding his belief in private property.

Ceteris. Paribus. 

Further Reading

Earle, J.L., "Musaazi, religion and independence politics", The Daily Monitor, 24 July 2012.

Earle, J.L., "Mulira and the commoner’s Kingdom", The Daily Monitor, 25 July 2012.

Earle, J.L., "Mulira’s Constitutional Kingdom", The Daily Monitor, 26 July 2012.

Lubega, H., "Years of tension in Buganda Kingdom end in all-out riots", The Daily Monitor, 19 April 2020.

Lwanga-Lunyigo, S. (2015). History of the Democratic Party of Uganda, 1954-1984: The First Thirty Years. Kampala, Uganda: Fountain Publishers.

Mulindwa, F. (2011). The Bataka Agitation and Resistance in Colonial Uganda. The Journal of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Makerere University, 10, 12.

Mulira, E.M.K., “How Millions of Africans Live in East Africa, According to Sir Philip Mitchell,” Uganda Herald, 28 January 1942, 18.

Mulira, P., "Road to independence: There was more than one school of thought", The Daily Monitor, 10 September 2019.

Summers, C. (2006). Radical rudeness: Ugandan social critiques in the 1940s. Journal of social history, 741-770.

The 'Problem' With Black Panther

Greetings. Last week the world was rocked with news of the death of Chadwick Boseman, Hollywood actor famed for portraying the Black Panther in the movie of the same name.

The significance of the movie on modern day culture is well documented. The 2018 blockbuster was the first superhero movie with a predominantly black cast. Set in the fictional Kingdom of Wakanda, the movie portrays in a positive light some aspects of African culture that have long been misunderstood since the colonial days, i.e. the famous ancestral plane scene comes to mind. The use of African languages in their dialogue was also a welcome sight to a Hollywood movie, as the Panther tribe and the mountain clans use Xhosa and Igbo respectively. It is at the point of languages that I cite the first ‘problem’ with black panther.

Despite being the most widely used African language – the Stanford Language Centre reports approximately 100 millions speakers of the language globally – Swahili is not one of the dialects used in the movie. The language is predominantly used in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. Instead, the languages used in the movie, originating from South Africa and Nigeria respectively, are representative of the dichotomy that is in position to rule Africa culturally and economically. The two countries are the largest economies on the continent and the largest markets for foreign investment on the continent. On the cultural scene, if the BET Award for best international act is our parameter, in 5 of the 7 years before production began on Black Panther, the winner came from Nigeria (out of 12 nominations), with the other two years going to a South African (from 11 nominations) and a Ghanaian (from 9 nominations). The closest a Swahili-speaking artist came to winning was Camp Mulla (nominated in 2012) and Sauti Sol (nominated in 2015), both Kenyan acts, as well as Tanzania’s Diamond Platinumz (nominated in 2014 and 2016). More examples arise when one scrolls through the channel guide on DSTV or watches the European football leagues; there is a high presence of Nigerian content and players. In any case the Hollywood executives were responding to the forces of demand and supply.

Critics of the price mechanism would point out how the other languages (and cultures) will become obsolete as a result. However, if Uganda is an example to go by, native speakers of these languages have been at the forefront of abandoning them. There are over a dozen cultural leaders in Uganda, and none of them has thought of sponsoring a UGX 100,000/= ($25) high school essay prize in their native language! Preservation of a language is incumbent upon individuals speaking, reading and writing it, and yet some of our cultural leaders deliver speeches to their subjects in a mixture of English and their mother tongue. On that note I’d like to point out that at least at CBS HQ in Bulange, Mengo there is an office for Ekibiina ky’olulimi Oluganda (The Luganda Language Society), among whose collection are the writings of Sir Apollo Kaggwa. An important lesson for native language preservation.

Following from the language issue, the second challenge centres around how Africans resident on the African continent are taking a back seat in influencing Pan Africanism. Having been given the short end of the stick for centuries, it’s understandable why African-Americans are at the forefront of celebrating black culture. As one reviewer of the movie pointed out what Wakanda means to African-Americans,

We have for centuries sought to either find or create a promised land where we would be untroubled by the criminal horrors of our American existence.

In the 1950s and 1960s, African writers like Chinua Achebe, Okot p’Bitek, BA Ogot, MSM Kiwanuka, Ali Mazrui were at the forefront of documenting the African experience from an African perspective. Their works spanned poetry, drama, fiction, philosophy and history. Chimamanda N. Adichie is one of the modern day African writers in that mould. The Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o even vowed to stop writing in English and reverting to Swahili and his native Kikuyu. However, not much has been done to push the heroes from these works – the likes of Ezeulu, Kabalega and Shaka – in the mainstream at the same frequency as Sherlock Holmes, Julius Caesar and Abraham Lincoln.

T’Challa’s father, aptly named T’Chaka (no doubt inspired by the Zulu king Shaka), in a way poses a flippant reminder to the inhabitants of the continent how they are lagging behind when it comes to celebrating their own culture.

Ceteris. Paribus.

Further Reading

Morris, L. (2018). To the Ancestral Plane: African Spiritism in Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (Marvel Studios, 2018) and the Desensitization to Spiritualism in Hollywood. Journal of Pan African Studies, 11(9), 73-76.

Wa Thiong'o, N. (1992). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. East African Publishers.

Wallace, C. (February 2018). Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for BlackAmerica. The New York Times Magazine.

On City Status

"There's a chance to build it right the first time, notably with respect to the roads, bridges, water, and power that will determine both economic competitiveness and quality of life for decades."

- John D. Macomber 

Greetings.

As of 01st July, Uganda has upgraded the following municipalities to city status; Arua, Fort Portal, Gulu, Jinja, Masaka, Mbarara and Mbale. The matter was tabled before parliament in April, and all but one MP voted against it. The dissenting opinion of Sarah Opendi was well documented by The Daily Monitor, noting that "it would not be necessary to vote for cities at a time when government is struggling to finance newly created sub counties and town councils."

These sentiments were echoed by The Daily Monitor editorial from last week;

"Too many administrators and legislators will not develop Uganda. Industrialists and prudent public expenditure will."

By the latest population estimates, the 7 proposed cities have a combined population of 640,509 people compared with Kampala's population of 1.65 million people (the daytime population is way higher). In terms of budgetary allocations per head, the new Cities are currently allocated a portion in the region of UGX 210,535 (vs. UGX 231,830 for Kampala), with this figure expected to rise.

With certain sections firmly against the new development, why would we proceed to create new cities?

For starters, there is no problem with having 15, or even 100 cities. As John K. Sentongo often emphasized, the problem is not in the school having a population of 1,000, but at what rate do you get to that population size, with respect to the available resources? At what rate do we get to that number of cities, vis-a-vis the resource endowment?

The cautious move would have been to create one city, to serve as a learning curve in terms of the logistics, administrative needs, public expenditure and institutional performance. From this one city, we would be in a position to gain insight into the mechanics of developing a city for an emerging economy like ours. I got insight on this from a medical doctor, who suggested perchance the powers that be could have considered setting up these cities, with particular specializations i.e. one could focus on industrial production, another on services, another on agriculture, etc. His Smithesque division of labour after all is a vital cog in the laissez faire system, and could work in this situation.

Furthermore, the opening quote of this blog points out the importance of getting this right from the very beginning. The author of the quote, who happens to be a Professor of Finance at a world-renowned institute, goes on to warn of the dangers of developing countries messing up their city projects from the start;

"If this chance is missed, new urban conglomerations will be characterized by informal sprawl and new settlements will be hard to reach after the fact with power, roads, and sanitation."

Why we are getting new cities

Macomber states, as the reason behind the current buzz pushing for smart cities, elites (political leaders and academics) are "distracted by cool technology and tourist-friendly innovations." They are easily seduced by the dream of opportunities available from the emergence of a new city, often citing examples of already existing cities (i.e. looking at Nakuru, Mombasa across the border, one may want to dream). However, they tend to forget "the messy truth that cities are not the same, and even the most innovative approach can never achieve universal impact."

Or alternatively, you could picture a hypothetical scenario of a post-Covid Uganda. During an election year, at a future date, a certain candidate will be introduced by the District (or City) Party Chairperson thus, "Please welcome, the one and only, the man who gave us a city ..."

Ceteris. Paribus. 

References 

Aluma, C. (2020, 29 April). 7 new Cities start July 1. The Daily Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.monitor.co.ug/

Macomber, J. D. (2016, 18 June). The 4 Types of Cities and How to Prepare Them for the Future. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/ 

Editor (2020, 30 June). Government should not create new constituencies. The Daily Monitor. Retrieved from https://www.monitor.co.ug/ 

A Political Lesson from Rugby

Greetings.

The game of rugby, played for close to two centuries, has shaped society and in return been shaped by it. The insistence on maintaining its amateur status (and the underlying class divide in Britain) led to the schism of 1895 that gave birth to two versions of the same game; rugby league (favored by the working class men) and rugby union (favoured by The upperclassmen, who used their position of influence to spread their version to the rest of the British Empire). The other sports of British origin (association football, cricket) took the hard lesson and adopted professionalism without the repercussions of a split. In South Africa, the sport was at the center of the Apartheid system with the native Blacks denied access to the game. Both the game and the country have made great strides from that turbulent past.

It is from South Africa that I'm getting my lesson. However, this is not another trip down to the 1995 World Cup with the iconic Mandela-Pienaar role in uniting the country.

For the first half of the twentieth century, South Africa were the dominant force of the game. They were the only team to have won a series of test matches in New Zealand (1937, long before the 1971 British Lions), and had swept the Home Nations (England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland) - a feat termed as a "Grand Slam" - on four different occasions (1912/13, 1931/32, 1951/52, 1960/61). The key to their success; do the basics right!

A description of rugby play action states "... The team which has possession of the ball will normally try to keep it ... The need to maintain possession means the team with the ball will usually seek to progress towards the opposition by running while carrying the ball ... [or] may choose to kick the ball forward".

Comparing with South Africa's play, the 1912/13 Grand Slam was won on the basis of a "massive pack" led by Billy Millar. Captain Osler's "giant pack and kicking fly-half" delivered the success in 1931/32, with one critic stating, "No one could fail to admire his poise and technique - the tactics were another question."

They have big forwards to advance the ball, gain ground, win the scrum engagements, win the line outs - all these maintain possession and a team can only score with possession. The traditional role of a fly half and fullback included kicking duties, and they've maintained this over time. At the 1999 World Cup they met a much fancied England team in the quarterfinals, and the South African kicker set the world record for most drop goals in a single match. The England coach during that game learnt the lesson and focused on fitness and basics. At the next World Cup four years later he led England to rugby heaven! Clive Woodward emphasized the importance of this to overall success in his interview with the BBC podcast, Don't Tell Me The Score.

By comparison, their running rugby rivals in New Zealand and Australia had not managed a Grand Slam by 1961. New Zealand's first grand slam came in 1978, and a first tour win in South Africa was only secured in 1996! 

Chicanery vs Chickenery

Just this week I stumbled upon a TikTok video of Mukasa Mbidde criticizing the government. In his usual fashion, he was more complicated than eloquent. With all his brilliance, I'm inclined to believe he has a communication problem! In a country with an illiteracy rate of 70%, the population needs a basic version of English that they can comprehend. I think every politician understands this. Museveni definitely does.

Our ruling president has become a master at delivering simple communications. They might be long and dragging, but he'll never be caught using words like chicanery  (I'm assuming that's the word Mbidde used). He even takes time to give an interpretation of his words in the native tongues (sneezing; okwetsyamura). This is not to say that our leader is a genius, but if an English-illiterate person is listening to his speech with his Primary-going child, the child could easily translate the message to the native tongue.

Like South Africa with its three World Cups to its name, there's a reason Museveni resonates with the common man, despite the opposition's futile warnings of do not "Kow-tow to his ways". 

Ceteris. Paribus.

References 

Don't Tell Me The Score - Clive Woodward episode

Sport and the British - Rugby's Great Split

“Bark-cloth and Hoes” – Tales of the Ancient Tax Season

 

Greetings. Tax season is here. And writer’s block is back; it can only mean one thing – I’ll paste an excerpt from economic history.

Amended provisional tax returns are to be submitted no later than 30^th June of every year. June also marks the end of the fiscal year. In the past, before the westernised economy, tax season was usually at the King’s pleasure, as we shall see. If one belonged to a monarchical society, they were bound to pay a higher tax than one who belonged to a decentralised society, headed by an Elders’ council. Buganda and Bunyoro traditional societies levied taxes on their citizens, going towards the King, the chief minister, the county chief and even the queen’s mother was entitled to receiving tax. The Luo states didn’t have that ardous tax system; you only paid a portion to the elders, sometimes respect would suffice!

When the time to collect taxes was drawing near, the King, the Katikiro, and the Kimbugwe fixed the exact date, and it was then announced in the Lukiiko that the taxes would be collected on such-and-such a date. The King appointed the special tax-collector for each county; to these county-collectors, the Katikiro, the Kimbugwe, the Queen and the King’s Mother each added their own representatives, and the county-chiefs also added a representative. These six men who were appointed to a county went to each part of it; the principal sub-chiefs were first visited by them in person, but they chose and sent other messengers to each of the less important chiefs. The King’s tax collector and his associates returned to the County-Chief’s enclosure, where they were entertained while the work was being carried out by their men.

The first thing to be done was to count the number of houses in each sub-county, and to ascertain the number of the inhabitants; the tax-collector would then settle with each chief what amount he was expected to send to the King. One cowry-shell was brought by the collector’s assistants to represent each house, and after these had been counted, the assistants went back to collect the tax. The amount usually demanded was a fixed number of cattle from each sub-chief, and a fixed number of barkcloths and one hundred cowry-shells from each peasant; of the smaller chiefs each paid a number of goats and also a few hoes. It frequently took two months, or more, to collect the taxes, because the barkcloths and hoes had to be made, and the cattle had to be collected. When this was accomplished, each servant took his amount on the appointed day to the County-Chief; the cowry-shells and barkcloths were counted and tied up in bundles, while the cattle were sent on ahead to travel slowly to the capital.

The King’s tax-collector took the whole amount to the Katikiro, who had to examine it, and to hear the details as to the number of houses and people in each sub-county, and as to how many barkcloths and cowry-shells had been collected from them. If the amount was correct the Katikiro took the whole to the King; if it was wrong, the tax-collector was required to return to the county and to gather what was missing, according to instructions which he received from the Katikiro. The chief of a county received a portion of the taxes for himself and for his sub-chiefs; the King took half for himself, while the Katikiro, the Kimbugwe, the Queen, and the King’s Mother also had their portions. Each sub-chief was given a small portion of the amount which came from his own county; the King, the Queen, the King’s Mother, the Katikiro, and the Kimbugwe kept the whole of what came from their own estates, in addition to the portion which they received of the taxes from the entire country.

The tributary states (Koki, Busoga, Ssesse) paid their tribute through the chiefs under whom they were placed, making their payments in cattle, slaves, ivory, cowry-shells, salt, hoes, etc.  

Ceteris Paribus.

References

Kagwa, Sir Apolo K (1918) Empisa za Baganda. Kampala, New Era Printers. Ssuula 15: Empisa Z’Okusolooza Omusolo, olupapula 131-134.

Roscoe, John (1911) The Baganda. Chapter 8: Government, pp. 244-246