Afrikan Super-Predators

(A small comment I made on this topic in The Monitor On-line was delected .So, I write this on the basis of that motivation!) This is what I had posted:

[The man—Mbabazi—is a typical cold-hearted Afrikan super-predator at the top of the food chain. He doesn’t give a damn if NSSF dumped workers’ money in a shell investment. Let them eat grass in their retirement years. Procurement law—what procurement law? If any was breached, blame NSSF, not him, so he says. This kind of arrogance, if unchecked, builds resentments.

One only has to look at the history of the man to understand that he is a cut-throat operator. Remember what happened in Kinkizi West in 2001. James Muzinguzi went to the High Court on complaints for violence and ballot-rigging. He won, and did the same at the appeal. Why then did he withdraw from the fresh by-election and allow Mbabazi to win by default? There is something dark and sinister about this Mbabazi.]


Super Minister, Amama Mbabazi

While their people mire in abject poverty there is a cabal of Afrikans at the top of the food chain who gorge on the available public resources without any conscience. Take the case of one Amama Mbabazi, the super Minister of Security in Uganda. He recently sold a piece of land for almost $7,000,000 to the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) , the US equivalent Social Security Administration. Many workers in Uganda rely on their contributions to the fund for part of their retirement livelihood. Unlike the US’ SSA, the Uganda’s NSSF can invest in the open market, and is known to take some risky moves.
An ex-minister, one Zoe Bakoko Bakoru is alleged to have fled Uganda on allegation of fraudulent NSSF housing development project

Any public official can do private personal business with a public entity in Uganda. While this is a serious weakness in the Uganda’s mode of capitalism, there are some tepid controls that the public entity has to follow in its transactions. This sale was done without a bid, contrary to the NSSF’s requirement. This is a first red flag. Secondly, a meeting memo alleges that a board member voiced reservations in the deal because of the status of the seller. And the CEO of the body advised the seller to name an agent to act on his behalf to alley any suggestion of impropriety. In then comes an alleged partner, Mr. Nzeyi who supposedly conducted the business of one Arma Ltd., the corporation of—you guessed right—Mr. Amama Mbabazi. It gets even worse: some of the land was found to be occupied by tenants, and some of it was swampy.

Let us cut to the chase. Pure and simple—this is influence peddling. The man sold his land to NSSF because he was a minister—a powerful one at that. The explanation of willing buyer willing seller doesn’t even arise. Knowing that he was selling an occupied and swampy land, which availability for its development by NSSF would be fraught with challenges, was cold-hearted and cynical of the interests of the workers of Uganda. Consider this: President Museveni, in the mean time, is raving like a Tasmanian devil in his quest to enact a bill that would make it illegal to evict a tenant from any land. This will, therefore, make it difficult for NSSF to develop the Mbabazi land by tying valuable capital in long legal battle with the tenants. Additionally, tree-huggers may have environmental issue with the swampy part of the land.

This kind of hard-nosed behavior doesn’t come out of the blue—it is not a flash in the pan. Few people change fundamentally—a leopard does not change its spots. One incident that should send chills down the spine of Ugandans is the 2001 election in Kinkizi West—Mbabazi’s constituency. It is alleged that it was marred by violence and ballot-rigging. James Muzinguzi , Mbabazi's opponent, went to the High Court and won. On appeal he also won. By the time of fresh by-election Mr. Mbabazi was already a Security Minister, and it is alleged that he dispatched 7000 military personnel to the constituency area. That was enough to persuade Mr. Muzinguzi to withdraw, thereby allowing Mbabazi to win by default.

These kinds of things create resentments. The nature of this man is dark and sinister. I shudder as I see him jockeying to replace another scary guy at the helm of Uganda. What if we just take a little and give a little so that all have a chance to prosper? What world will it be? After all, whether we like or not, we end up in only six feet by two piece of real estate to be consumed by maggots—that is, if we are lucky. Others' remains have been munched by wild boars in Ituri Forests or the grasslands of Acoli and Sudan.