Government wants to spend over Shs 10 billion next financial year on spreading patriotism in secondary schools.

And it is intriguing how they are going about it. First, the money is to be channeled through the Ministry of Education to the President's Office [to be handled by the Security Minister]. Then, the Office of the President will establish a Patriotism Secretariat which will supervise the estimated 5,000 patriotism clubs across the country. If this campaign is indeed about education, why is it not left to the Ministry of Education and Sports?

On top of that, government is to spend Shs 6.6 billion on 80 Deputy Resident District Commissioners (RDCs) who will be specifically ensuring that the clubs work. If this is not having our priorities upside down, then what is it? Several donors who finance part of our national budget have complained about the huge expenditure on public administration, but the government never takes heed.

As if the 70 ministers, 120 RDCs, 333 MPs and a horde of redundant presidential advisors are not bad enough, the NRM government wants to add another 80 deputy RDCs! All this as secondary school teachers earn about Shs 380,000 per month! Indeed the teachers have complained about miserable pay for long and government's rehearsed response has always been; "we have no money." Yet when it comes to politics, it can comfortably find Shs 10 billion to teach patriotism!

If this Shs 10 billion was added to the teachers' salaries, it would make a big difference in their welfare and boost their morale. How are teachers expected to teach patriotism on empty stomachs?

Besides, schools do not need patriotism clubs to instill patriotism in students. Patriotism is about feelings. The leaders have to live by example, not displaying extravagance when deploying national resources. They should fight corruption, avail medicine in hospitals, offer good teaching facilities, and the rest will fall in place. If the government was allocating resources very well, there would be no need to run around purporting to teach patriotism because a satisfied people would automatically love their country.

In fact, some analysts have alleged that these patriotism clubs are being set up to mobilise votes for President Museveni come 2011. This would have been alright if they were not using national resources to carry out partisan work. Surely it is not patriotic to misuse national resources like that!