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The record of the cruise ship that capsized in Lake Victoria off the Mukono district this weekend reached 33 dead Monday.
There was a lot of blame and fingering on what happened. It seems true, however, that the boat was carrying about 100 people, double the number of passengers that should have been on board safely.
Second, only a handful had a lifejacket. Third, the safety of the boat raises concerns, but he was allowed to sail either because the police were not serious enough, or because the cruise group overwhelmed the police and left him there. leave (official version that the police publish). .
Ugandan social media strongly believes in the failure of law enforcement and security by the state. However, this could be an idealistic view of what is possible in Uganda today and the functioning of President Museveni.
We are talking here about what you might call the big "Uganda-Museveni affair" in which politicians and the elite have been accomplices.
To illustrate this point, two days after the tragedy of the boat on Lake Victoria, Museveni was in Nairobi for the Blue Economy Conference. Trust Museveni to offer you the best sound clips, making it a hot topic on Kenyan Twitter.
Museveni argued that democracy is "problematic" because "you need the votes of forest invaders and wetland invaders". You must behave well and "spoil" them so as not to destroy the environment. Otherwise, if you apply good environmental practices, you will lose elections.
Many people have found his last statement problematic, but he has nevertheless raised an important point that best explains what happened Saturday on Lake Victoria.
Museveni's unwritten contract with the Ugandan elite from 1988 was simple. In return for their political support, it would give them room for corruption, leeway for tax evasion, violation of building rules, encroachment on forests and wetlands, and the government would close eyes on safety requirements that would save lives (lifejackets on boats, fewer seats with mandatory seat belts in matatus or taxis, etc.), but that would increase their costs and reduce their profits.
Thus, boda boda became the vehicle for the delivery of the NRM elections, its two-wheeled wing and the intelligence organization, which made the application of safety rules such as wearing a helmet protector for many years.
A series of events occurred between 2000 and 2005 and had to change that. Outside, in Rwanda, Paul Kagame officially became president, which allowed him to carry out the reforms that led Rwanda to the top of the tree in a way that he could not do before then that he was essentially the power behind the throne. In Kenya, the liberal Mwai Kibaki was elected president, putting an end to the 24-year-old rule of Daniel arap Moi who wiped out the region's main economy.
Suddenly, Uganda faced competition for foreign direct investment with which it had not faced for nearly 15 years.
At home, Kizza Besigye arrived in 2001 and fractured the "East-Southwest Elite Consensus" which guaranteed Museveni a free political race. And in 2005, there was a referendum that brought the country back to multiparty politics, but Museveni then lost the breath that would have accompanied it, also pushing to remove the boundaries of the presidential term.
Thus, regional factors have undermined Uganda's competitiveness and, together with our domestic political developments, have further increased the capacity of companies, forest invaders and wetland invaders, boat operators, boda boda, obtain more state protection concessions from Museveni.
In 2010, Kampala was lagging behind and was simply not working at a time when her neighbors were starting to talk about smart and technological cities.
Although Museveni almost certainly sought to undermine the opposition that now seemed to dominate Kampala by designating Jennifer Musisi to head a new technocratic and rival authority of Kampala City Council (KCCA), she constituted a significant exit from the market that he had with all sorts of elite groups to trim in exchange for their political support because the economic cost had become too high.
A new conflict emerged as these groups felt that Museveni had broken the contract and withdrew their support, forcing him to resort more and more to violence.
Just two weeks ago, the AppsAfrica.com technical advisory service announced the winners of the 2018 AppsAfrica Innovation Awards in Cape Town.
Of the 14 winners, one was Ugandan. SafeBoda, which allows users to recognize what is touted as the safest boda-boda ride in Uganda, has won the Best African Application Award.
In almost all sectors, from boda boda to the navy, the state had released security because of the "market" mentioned above, according to which it even created a large market for private innovation with applications like SafeBoda. Unfortunately, the Saturday boat crash occurred before we had a SafeBoat app.
Mr. Onyango-Obbo is the editor of Africa Data
view Africapedia.com and explanatory site. Roguechiefs.com. [email protected]
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