As the sun sets on an era in Uganda economic leadership, the long shadow cast by Keith Muhakanizi is no more and those of us left behind can now look at the legacy he has left behind.
Keith Muhakanizi first joined the Ministry of Finance in 1992 and was part of the group that was tasked with the effective execution of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) programme, and he played a vital role in the formation and implementation of Uganda's National Development Plans. According to Godber Tumushabe, a policy analyst Muhakanizi and the group he was a part of did a good job in attempting to plan and reorganise the government, "Especially right from the poverty eradication action plan of 1997. I think this country really adopted, attempted to be systematic in terms of planning."
As his career progressed he showed a real passion for not only policy reform but system reform as well. He helped in the development of the Public Finance Management Act, the Bank of Uganda Act among others. He played a vital role in mobilising revenue and created commitment control procedures that drove the development, implementation and reformation of economic policies at the Ministry of Finance for over a decade that re-established the macroeconomic stability of Uganda's economy.
Once a good macroeconomic framework and budget had been set up he realised that this would all fail to come together if there were still the same pitfalls in public financial management. He went ahead with his team to fix this area starting with the laws, systems and processes that were so rotten that the treasury could not do bank reconciliations. One of these being the treasury single accounts, that were secured by IFMS (Integrated Financial Management System) and these all made it difficult to steal from the government like it was the case before.
Andrew Mwenda, a veteran journalist commented on this innovation under Muhakanizi's tenure saying, "What Keith did was to create a single treasury account so that all government money is put on the account and then they created a technology called IFMS where if government had to pay, you had to enter that system......every single thing electronically and then the accountant general and the accounting officer would just put in a password. By removing cash from the government, he closed major leakage nodes in government revenues."
However, he was strongly criticised for the excessive public spending and many supplementary budgets that passed under his watch, but also for pushing for privatisation which some say was not the best course of economic action to be taken.
According to Steven Kitale, former Bulisa MP who was Chairperson for the Parliament National Economy Committee, "Keith was more of a neo-liberal, he was so much for the private sector led and sometimes we did disagree on some of this." President Museveni also blamed himself for listening to them on the selling of Uganda Commercial Bank against the advice of its former Managing Director, Professor Ezra Suruma.
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According to Ofwono Opondo, government spokesperson in regards to the excessive public spending and many supplementary budgets and Muhakanizi's advice on them, "They heard him but didn't listen to him. The reason why the debt the borrowing grew exponentially the pilferage almost went out of hand."
He criticises the late PS saying, "Many people around Keith who were his friends happened to be the same guys who have the new money in Uganda. So you ask how did some of them get the new money?"
Muhakanizi leaves a complicated legacy with many wins but also one marred by controversy and gross mismanagement under his watch, a testament to his very human nature and the duality of man.
