11 November 2007
editorial
Press reports of a plot to secretly parcel out some 25 acres of public land in Bugolobi in Kampala to some business people made for disturbing reading on Friday. This is the land on which the failed Apparel Tri-Star garments factory sat.
Tri-Star, set up a several years ago to export finished textiles to the United States quota-and-duty free under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, failed despite the President talking up the project and the government sinking in billions of shillings. Tri-Star was run by businessman Vellupilai Kananathan. Daily Monitor reported that a Libyan dealer, the government, and Mr Kananathan are about to cut up the land amongst themselves on a 60:35:5 basis.
Parliament is howling in protest. As it should. The whole thing is shrouded in secrecy. This is very disturbing especially coming as it does on the back of revelations of a loss of Shs1.6 trillion in taxpayer money that the government doled out to chosen businesses many of which failed to pay back.
The criteria used to give bailout loans to those businesses are only known to a few people in the Ministry of Finance and State House. It is particularly galling that people who have benefited from government largesse and then failed such as Mr Kananathan should be popping up again wanting even more of State favours.
No one has ever said governments should not bail out businesses (actually some free market purists say that incompetent businesses must be left to die so smarter ones can emerge and/or flourish) meaning that what the current Ugandan government is doing is not unusual.
All Ugandans are asking for is that businesses or entire sectors of the economy that the government wants to help must be defined. The chosen firms or sectors must be critical to the economy and the criteria for choosing them must be publicly known.
In fact, there out to be some level of public debate on these issues. The backdoor that this government insists on using only leads to ruin and loss of public trust in State interventions however well intentioned. This is just commonsense but we wonder why this government lacks it.
We actually think that the government does not lack the common sense. The executive cannot possibly be this inept. Which leads us to conclude that there must be suspect motives. It is those motives that Parliament must look into, set up a transparent incentives regime, and bring order to what is now obvious executive profligacy.
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