SO, I MADE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA... (Part 3)

The Discipline of a nation:

"Mr. President, its time for us to leave now", the Head of Protocol just notified me. I was ushered swiftly into the waiting convoy and as swiftly as I was ushered did, we take off toward the Parliamentary precincts, where I was to deliver my Inaugural state of the nation address with my new government. I started to think about the discipline of nations and how it impacts development of nations.

My mind took me to Israel, Iran, Germany, Singapore, South Korea, China, The United States of America, Great Britain and South Africa. All these nations had one thing in common; they were nations built under discipline (never mind what some of their leaders represented to the world). I remembered how Israel moved from being a rag tag bunch of oppressed Jews, whose immediate community turned hostile; oppressed from the world abroad and at home. Once must hear stories like the massacres of the ancient Jewish community at Hebron by their own neighbors with whom they had lived for centuries and the other stories to understand what it meant to be a Jew in a hostile world, home and abroad.

The Jews however, like the proverbial Phoenix had arisen from the ashes of ancient history and now lived on top of our world, a world where any of the enemies of Israel will not dare lurch at them with impunity. How did they get here? one doesn’t have to look far but only understand they way they have run that nation. The young and old each have accepted the reality that they are at war all the time. Young and old, male and female are all trained soldiers and have had a go at national service and protection of their nation. They run a strict regime of discipline for their people at a community level and will not accept indiscipline among them selves.

The Iranian Revolution also known as the Islamic Revolution or the 1979 Revolution, led by the Ayatollahs; they led demonstrations against the Shah whose regime was perceived by many citizens as an oppressive, brutal and corrupt regime. Iran also suffered from some basic functional failures that brought economic bottlenecks, shortages, and inflation. Iran had been rife with corruption before the revolutionaries; a paralyzing kind of corruption where the national services are almost brought on their knees. The formula of these revolutionaries was simple; use religion to bring the nation back to discipline using a theocratic-republican approach.

The Ayatollah team believed that theocratic rule was ultimately more necessary even than prayer and fasting in Islam, as it would eventually eliminate poverty, injustice, and the "plundering" of the nation. Iran GDP/Capita grew from around US$390 in 1979 to over US$5,415.21 per 2017 figures; before then growth of GDP/Capita was flat, and after them it has a clear respectable trend upward. Today no one can dare touch Iran unless you have a death wish. Even by all their enemies they are much respected. They hold their own when it comes to science, independent thought and have made much progress as a nation too.

A lot has been said about Adolf Hitler of Germany, but mostly the gory and negative aspects. But one must wonder how one man got a nation in the heart of Europe to grow so strong so as to terrorize the whole world and sustain to date a national paradigm of achievement orientation and development. It had to take an alliance of nations to bring Germany onto its knees. Hitler understood the importance of mentoring a nation into a paradigm and never underestimated the power of influencing the children. German schools under him spent more time embedding ideas of nationalism and militarism into the children. He also believed that the most effective way to control your nation is controlling mass media. The Nazis took control over culture as well. They banned over 20,000 books during the ‘burning of the books’ to promote German values. “All ‘degenerate’ art was destroyed.

Despite being unethical, Hitler changed the perspective on a whole race. The Nazis leadership philosophy was defined by the "Führerprinzip" German for "leader principle". The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors. The supreme leader answered to God and the people. The Führerprinzip paralleled the functionality of military organizations, which continue to use a similar authority structure today. What is clear is that despite the way in which Hitler took advantage of and abused this ideology, he was able to garner a nation around himself, achieve immense gains and build a national paradigm that still exists in present day Germany.

The stories of Singapore, South Korea and China have been told; One must only read the autobiography of Lee Kwan Yew (From Third world to First) to understand that turning around Singapore was a matter of immense national discipline. The leaders were held to account for the principles that they claimed to stand for; Lee Kwan Yew was not an exception to this expectation. He led the way by living a life of immense discipline and accountability. He held himself to a very high standard of living beyond reproach. Not even his very own friends in this "white revolution" were spared the brutal expectation. The nation was also put under similar stead. It took time but soon Singapore was more than just a city state with no resources to talk about; they were leading the world in terms of Economic growth, and that so leveraging their people as their resource. And it worked! Singapore GDP/Capita grew to $64,581.95 in 2018 from $428.06 in 1960, a growth of over 150 times over a 58-year period. What is clear Singapore inspired many of the nations around her, including communist China; one can argue that China owes her current economic growth to Lew Kwan Yews work. But that work too was founded on a foundation of strict discipline, both personal and national.

The United States story has been told countless times. The founding fathers were men of societal stature and incredible personal discipline, that demanded the same of the nation. The group came from a variety of social, economic, and ethnic backgrounds as well as occupations, some with no prior political experience. They believed in the following seven principles that underlie the U.S Constitution:

1) popular sovereignty meaning rule by the people

2) limited government meaning everyone is bound by the US Constitution

3) separation of powers into branches that make, enforce or interpret laws,

4) checks and balances meaning controls (checks) can be made on the other branches

5) judicial review,

6) federalism meaning power is shared between the national and state governments

7) republicanism meaning the right to vote for representatives

Its no wonder that the U.S is referred to as the land of opportunity. It still comes down to discipline of the nation in order to align to the above seven principles.

China's story has not been told much. The Chinese communist party, with more than 74 million members, up from 50 million in the early 1990s, is the largest political party in the world. Between 30% and 50% apply to join the party and recruiters seek those with top grades, leadership potential and youthful idealism.

However, where does all this governance model originate from? In his book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" Max Weber makes an argument that this begun with reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin teaching their congregations that whatever we do outside of the four walls of the houses of worship was a vocation. Switzerland was changed from being called the sewer of Europe into one of the best places to live in Europe. He argues that the Protestant work ethic was an important force behind the unplanned and uncoordinated emergence of modern-day European ethic.

The Protestant reformation, according to Weber effectively forbade wastefully using hard earned money and frowned on donation of money to the poor or to charity as it was furthering beggary. This social condition was perceived as laziness, burdening their fellow man, and an affront to God; by not working, one failed to glorify God. Instead the protestant ethic encouraged reinvestment of this money which in turn led to increased wealth.

What is clear is that every great nation had immense discipline at a national level underlying its growth into greatness and success. Uganda would be no different and we would rise to write our own script.

The motorcade was now racing through the traffic that had all pulled to the side to let it pass. It was moving so fast at breakneck speed. The sirens were growing louder and louder to an almost deafening din! "Paul, Paul..." someone was shaking me veraciously. A cacophony of sirens and my name being called all mixed into one sound. The shaking felt like a tremor! "Paul!" I woke up, opened my eyes, and it was my wife Susan sited by my side, in our bed, at home! "You have been delirious all night; speaking in your sleep severally; I failed to sleep as you seemed to be having a really engaging dream". "What time is it?" I asked Susan. "it is 3 a.m; and I need to catch some sleep before the busy day tomorrow. Good night again. Lets catch some real sleep now before day break, OK". 

"What a dream!" I told myself under my breath; "What a dream!".

SO, I MADE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA... (Part 2)

So, along the way someone asked about parliament; "Mr. President, since you are talking about cost reduction, how about the many MPs and constituencies we have?". Somehow the same question had bothered me and I resolved early that when the opportunity came up, I would throw this to a national referendum, but not before I have placed my cabinet to the test and showed the nation that it is possible to run the nation better, thinner and leaner. It is important for the people to see the benefits of these drastic changes so that they can believe the words of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (1886-1969),"less is more".

My background was in the corporate workplace where we hustled for the next frontier. Working there I learned that you cannot make money or grow wealthy by borrowing and living above your means. It worked there; it can work here as the parallels are simply mind boggling. I kept wondering in the past why no one in government could see this simple logic. I often got arguments around public service and management of public affairs being different and requiring a different model. The arguments are passionate but simply never cut the logic. In fact, more crazy ideas were up for grabs; I had briefed my line Cabinet Secretaries that the civil service was to undergo a major reform to enable this new model. We were to immediately retire everyone, re-advertise and re-interview. The existing persons by default were to be shortlisted, but competition had been opened to everyone else. The civil servants take home packages were to be raised to align to the best in the market, but the numbers were to be dropped and automation employed a lot more. Yes, we were making the civil service more competitive again. In fact, our dream was to make this the employer of choice in every sense of the word. in the words of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, we could not put "old wine in new wine skins", else they would burst. These new jobs would be performance driven and contractual as well. I remember sometime back some government agencies had done very well with similar models, so they proved it worked. Now the model was being adopted full scale.

"How about the corruption" Mr. President, the Prime Minister designate had quipped in on one of those brain storming discussions we had held at our inaugural cabinet retreat; "...how are we gonna deal with it?". My reply was simple but resolute: "We shall set the tone at the top, chief!" I replied, "I hold each one of you twelve secretaries personally and firmly accountable, you hold the next guys down your chain, they hold others, etc". "If we fail to the break the back of this monster then its you guys around this table that have failed". I however noted swiftly that corruption was a now a cultural monster that transcended government offices, was acceptable in schools and in every small little transaction. We resolved that day that one of our core National values that we would promote in our next five years was "DISCIPLINE". "You see Mr. President" one of the cabinet secretaries had observed in a detailed analysis that he gave us; we cannot continue as an undisciplined nation of people and expect to break the back of corruption. "And discipline begins in the basic things and interactions in our homes, schools, churches and mosques and our marketplaces. This must return as a value at that level; like our forefathers once said, it takes a village to raise a child" he submitted to an attentive room. The point had been made; the nation needed to be spurred back to a lifestyle of discipline at the most basic of cores. This would be now one of the ever-increasing songs we would sing. We would drive the discipline mantra into every sphere of our society and bring back societal accountability to the core of all our dealings; and that, we had the power to do. "Let’s see how this monster will respond to this first phase of treatment" I summed up. But I knew this was the biggest huddle we had to fight and raze down. Many had gone before us that had encountered it with the same passion, and they sadly had been eaten by this queer creature; I quietly prayed for my team of twelve. John Maxwell, the foremost of the leadership scholars of our generation had once observed that for one to improve leadership the leadership lid had to be raised up; we have just resolved to do that by holding ourselves as the first and the last person to blame for this failure.

Growing up, I had seen several traumatic leadership experiences, but I had also been privileged enough by God to see the turning where change became a real possibility. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni had come to the helm of leadership with a lot of promise and several things swung back into place and real growth started. Now people could speak freely and exercise liberties in ways previously only seen in our separate dreams. Over the years a lot of events and in some cases, complacency had set in with many of the actors that should have made continuous change possible. Somewhere along the way some of our leaders had started romancing the devil and somehow had picked up on his diabolical ways. But one of the strengths that I grew to appreciate was the resolute security posture the country took. Uganda had grown from being every bullies punch bag to leading the way in emancipating many now mighty African economies. Many stories of these wars where Ugandan blood had been spilled had been told; there were many more in the dark web where some of the heroic dark operatives only told these stories to their little grand children. The thing though was that Uganda had grown into one of the leaders in this security field on the continent. "Security levels cannot be left to drop even an inch" I cautioned my DEFENSE, BORDERS AND SECURITY secretary. "In fact, many think that a civilian president can't lead a previously heavily military nation but lets now show what leadership we have. We cannot forget the lessons previous leaders in Africa made that birthed the mighty blood births across the continent" I added. I knew with confidence that during the Museveni era professionalism had been rebuilt back into the Armed forces. The key for us was to spur it on and well to ensure that these gallant men and women were well taken care of; they were in good hands as I knew the quality of the team, we had to lead them. A lot of what we could achieve was only possible with a very secure nation. And that was the very idea of creating a 360-degree view of it under one control; to have one centre of command for all matter’s security and defence. A few thoughts this would never work, but I knew better.

Now someone had challenged my ideas on all this and called them "crazy and out of this world". I simply told them that only crazy people ever changed the world. All great nations of the world were made by "Crazy". Israel, Iran, Egypt, formerly Lybia, South Africa, South Korea, Singapore; the list is huge. Some would argue that some of the nations in my list above do not deserve to be on the list. I often gently asked them why, and soon they discovered that they only looked at certain aspects. My measure was always what resolve could achieve in such a short time and yet with great impact. "Why has the story of sub-Saharan Africa been different?" I often asked. "Do we have less brains or are we not capable of honour and good?" This is the real issue I knew we needed to address among our leaders. What I called "the Exit Plan mentality". Leaders that never saw their future among their people, and therefore served them what they could not eat. "How come African businessmen like Aliko Dangote have gotten rich right here on the continent?" I often asked in challenge and sometimes in subtle jest. "How come when South Africa was thrown the bitter pill of sanctions they thrived? they made aircraft parts and thereby learned to make airplanes?". "How did the late Muammar Qadhafi build the biggest man-made river in Africa? how did he manage a green revolution in the desert?". "So crazy Iran, how did they manage a science revolution?". I had many questions on how Singapore made it "from third world to First" in the words of Lee Kwan Yew one of their greatest leaders; how South Korea advanced from a third world economy in the 1960s, onto making rickety Hyundai cars (I saw these ugly cars in the 1980s) and now to being technology leaders both soft and hardware ? I could clearly see that our work was cut out for us.

All these thoughts started throwing me into serious thinking. I thought about the possible opportunities we could exploit; the number was staggering. The people, the natural resources, the geographical positioning, the weather, the educational background; these were countless. I realised we needed to start somewhere and that soon and rather urgently. I realised we need to stop the wishful thinking and get to some serious action. I realised we risked being overrun by those that could see what we could not see in terms of our opportunities and what they perceived as threats to their own existence. I knew we needed to act and that so urgently!

(To be continued...)

SO I MADE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF UGANDA...

By a strange turn of events I wake up and I am the president of The Republic of Uganda. The Parliament had just passed a law giving the Presidency power of decree in cases that were obvious for national transformation. I never imagined the work required to transform Uganda was so immense; now here I was, president! I picked up my list of priorities again and went through them. The State of the nation address was due in the next 3 hours. Uganda was in for a ride. I have been told before that transformation at this speed was impossible and attempting it is simply crazy. My challenge though is that we had already seen enough drama. The people were tired of the corruptions rife in almost every facet of society, both public service and private enterprise. Somehow everyone keeps wondering how we fell into this pit so deep and dark. Anyhow It is not important how I got here, but here I was anyway with a nation on my hands, and the world watching.

On my work list I had laid down several things; these would be my priorities for the nation for the next 5 years. I remembered a quotation from John C. Maxwell, a leadership mentor that I followed quite often; he says, "everything rises and falls on leadership". The sound of the statement reverberated in my heart as I contemplated this crazy plan I was about to announce to the nation. The quotation reminded me that I now had no one else to blame, but myself; I realized I was the ultimate decision maker. I could make or further break Uganda: I could suddenly opt to take a break and slip into the status quo. After all I never participated in bringing us here! But no; John C. Maxwell would not let me go. This had always been my plan in the past that I had carefully written down as I analysed the. But each time I reviewed it, I shut down the document as it felt like a dream that would never be; now here we were about to flip the switch for the roller coaster. I knew it worked, but I had not proof of having ever done it else where. But anyway, who cared; it was now me that everyone was looking at, ready to see if I was "just like them" that had been before me. I finally decided that this was it, the plan had to begin rolling. My priority list was going to be implemented. The bottom line would be to drive Uganda's GDP/Capita to US$3,000 in 10 years. Of course, that had serious implications further down stream where the action happens. It simply meant that it is time for our new government to really work.

The first thing we planned would be to lock down on government expenditure. To be clean, lean and mean as some of the confidants had put it. Why would government be spending like an irresponsible spoilt child? After all nature shows us that you should not spend what you do not have, or what you cannot afford, otherwise you will quickly be making your way to the servants’ quarters of your creditor. Most sane people I know live within their means. So, what will be my strategy on government achieving that? the easiest, and cleanest way to do that anywhere is to cut down on Human resource cost. But if you are going to cut down on resource some compensating factors must apply:

a) Automation must kick in

b) Those that stay must want to stay

c) Those that stay must be paid well

The previous Uganda government had been trying various permutations to solve the problem. "There is simply too much spending and little income" my Prime minister said. "It is not hard to manage a country if you have learned to manage people. People love effective and efficient systems" he added in encouragement. Clearly such a program may take about 3 years of concerted effort to execute, I thought to myself, if so, well orchestrated. It would take resolve to have a leaner governmental system legislated, approved and then implemented. The implementation of this system needs to be closely monitored and followed by a good performance management system that must include good and objective 360-degree feedback mechanisms. It must be setup to be a self healing system that will not tolerate poor workmanship nor poor integrity.

But before we even get there, the cabinet itself had to be lean. I was about to announce to Ugandans the first of those changes; my clean, lean but functional cabinet. I had decided the number would be 12, like the disciplines of Jesus. Some argued that this would never work. However, my view what that this is part of the reasons we never saw much accountability from Cabinet ministers as many hid their non-performance behind others. I also opined that the rest would be setup as departments under each cabinet secretariat. I had my list of 12 cabinet secretaries ready, and below was the list of the Secretariats:

1) DEFENSE, BORDERS AND SECURITY

2) FOREIGN AFFAIRS

3) FOOD SECURITY & INDUSTRY

4) WATER RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT

5) INFRASTRUCTURE & TECHNOLOGY

6) ICT, E-GOVERNMENT & AUTOMATION

7) FINANCE & TREASURY

8) PRIME MINISTERS OFFICE (INFORMATION & COMMUNICATIONS, NATIONAL GUIDANCE, STRATEGY, INNOVATION & ECONOMIC GROWTH, INVESTMENT)

9) VICE PRESIDENCY (INTERNAL AFFAIRS, GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS (Local Government))

10) JUSTICE & CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

11) HUMAN CAPITAL AFFAIRS - HR, YOUTH, GENDER & CULTURE AFFAIRS

12) PUBLIC HEALTH AFFAIRS

Each of the existing ministries will fit into those positions (discussion for a later time); each Cabinet Secretary will have Agencies under their ministry to drive the various arms of delivery. Meritocracy will also be the order of the day for promotions and career opportunities.

Next, how do we make the GDP/Capita to US$3,000 in 10 years work? Following below are the other progressive Economic drivers that will form my governments priorities:

1) Tourism: It is amazing that Singapore a city state with less to see that our Uganda, gifted by nature, rakes in a whooping over US$5bn a year. Singapore's Tourism Revenue reached 5 USD bn in Jun 2019, compared with US$5bn in the previous quarter, (https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/singapore/tourism-revenue). Uganda can surely do much better as we have so much in nature going for us. This requires only better and focused management to begin raking in the earnings. Many players though to coordinate.

2) Farming: Some of the figures show that in 2016, arable land as a share of land area for Uganda was 34.4 %. Arable land as a share of land area of Uganda increased from 18.9 % in 1967 to 34.4 % in 2016 growing at an average annual rate of 1.25% (https://knoema.com/atlas/Uganda/topics/Land-Use/Area/Arable-land-as-a-share-of-land-area). This only happens in Uganda (maybe Israel as well) where Arable land keeps growing. The demand for food will not be overtaken by the 4th Industrial revolution or any tech advancements currently overriding the world; people need to eat their food and they want it good and fresh.  In fact there is a growing craze for natural, organic and non-GMO food globally. We shall add value and begin to export. This possibly will be one of our key investment and growth areas, but we are determined to earn place next to the garden of Eden.

3) Environment: This will be a key driver for the above two development areas. We cannot grow this crazy if we keep with our current trends on environmental degradation. The trends must stop, and the recovery of the environment program must begin. What is at is stake is much higher: The lakes threatening to dry up, the increased incidences of dirt related diseases, etc. But what is key is that if the lakes dry up, then the rain cycles will be affected and then no meeting our Agric objective. The other thing that happens when the lakes dry up is that even basic food becomes a rarity; So, no water and no food means we have the biggest security issue on our hands. So, environment recovery is a top security agenda as well for my government.

(To be continued...)