At the end of every calendar year, right from the household up-to the public sector, we are all busy accounting for our time. What does this mean, make a call to your friend whom you spent the other month hanging out with, the most likely answer is “ I am busy with end of year report” believe me you, this is a critical moment for both parents and managers. Shop keepers are busy making endless journeys to Kampala looking out for the most recent design on market, what about the tailors, the machines are on rampage what has happened, Christmas or end of year. All this is in the name of Christmas and welcoming the new year 2012.
While I was in Holland, I witnessed how the Dutch welcomed the year 2010. It was real spending, don’t mind about the financial crisis making headlines in the Euro zone, The Americas and sub Saharan Africa, orders for fire works to usher in the year dominated the media. One senior citizen wondered if all the money spent on fire works was put in a pool and spent on food security in one of the sub Saharan African countries how many hungry children would be saved? This alone reminds me of how we spend our time and money during Christmas without caring for the next neighbor walloping in abject poverty, never mind we spend our time debating and arguing advancing theories on causes of poverty.
In the name of meeting targets, members of Civil Society Organizations, and Government departments will certainly break for Christmas, but ask how all these civilized citizens will be spending their valuable time. Don’t get surprised to hear somebody mention, ‘I did not finish my end of quarter report, I have comments from my donors to respond to, my boss was not around I will be having a meeting with him/her’. What about the family? With such kind of working, what happens to the children who needed to go out to the beach to make fun with the busy parents?
Again in the Hague, new year is spent in style, imagine temperature at negative two degrees, then you jump into the North Sea! I saw for myself on January 1, 2010 brave people of different odds jump into the North Sea, and I have already received invitations for the ballistic event to be at Schevinengen a famous beach in Den Haag, The Netherlands. Wow, don’t forgot the famous Christmas lights lit allover the streets in town and in public places.
While reviewing my agenda for this year 2011, I realized, many local governments were supposed to have council meetings and budget conferences, but wait a minute, as a concerned citizen, I took time off to review my agenda if I had ever attended any of the consultations by the honorable councilors to collect our views. All I read in the news paper of Monday 12, Dec. 2011 page 9, was “Kasese swimming in Poverty” I was struck by this statement and when I made analysis of the budget for Kasese district, I could not locate money on wealth creation save for the Naads funds which is only benefiting the Naads staff instead of the poor farmers who are swimming in poverty. Did you hear Kasese Municipality passing a supplementary budget of UGX 800M on 15th December, 2011? It all focusing recurrent expenditure what about the garbage in town? Be as it may, if we don’t plan for garbage collection in Kasese MC, Mpondwe-Lhubiriha TC, our leaders might answer for the cholera cases in hospital, simply because somebody plans to arrest those dumping garbage.
What can as CSO activists do to bring the plight of the poor on the political agenda? Its our constitutional mandate to take off time and engage with the leaders to change the statue quo of the flagship programmes like Naads , UPE, Immunization, environmental conservation among others. Its un believable for a government flag ship programme like Naads to allocate 60% of its total budget to administration? Isn’t this another wastage of public funds if we must spend our time profitably then we need to take stock of our priorities. Why are farmers swimming in poverty don’t they spend their time wisely or somebody is working to bring them down?
Following the trends in the 9th Parliament of Uganda, one can now believe that, the power of numbers is working and the spirit of nationalism is back on the political agenda. The news of one of the senior ministers resigning her position paving way for investigations into mismanagement of Uganda Broadcasting cooperation (UBC) was greeted with missed feelings on the evening of December 14th , 2011 (New vision 15th December, 2011 page 13, Why I resigned). While my eyes were glued on the 8 pm UBC news, I swear, the said Hon. Minister read out her resignation and did not welcome any questions from the blue eyed journalists of this country. This is perfect and nice way of spending time other than wasting tax payers money on another Adhoc committee to investigate whether the Hon. Minister really spent her time wisely while holding the Information docket. Wamma, Hon. Minister, you are a ‘Heroin’ come the next generation you will be remembered for giving way.
As we celebrate Christmas and usher in the new year on Sunday 1, January, we are all called to spend wisely and think of the little child who had nothing to serve on Christmas day because their parents were caught up attending to another child in hospital.
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