Who sets Uganda's Priorities?

Of recent, we have been faced with all sorts of issues ranging from allowances for medical interns, car and special funeral facilitation for MPs to teachers spending months without salaries.

This country boasts of the National Development Plan which outlines seven priority areas including agriculture, infrastructure, and human resource development. What is puzzling is that we seem to consider priorities according to the whims of those who hold higher offices, not in public interest.
I am surprised that government does not have money for medical interns whereas billions sit unspent on accounts of some state institutions; that teachers go for two months without salary yet some individuals are debating on how to own cars worth Shs 200m and have a ‘death’ package of Shs 60m.

We are in a country where it is okay to buy medals, pay transport refund and treat medalists to a sumptuous meal but not okay to clear the heavy water bills slapped on crucial public institutions such as Mulago national referral hospital and Uganda prisons.
Who sets Uganda’s priorities? Who releases money for medals and withholds money for interns and teachers? Who finds it okay to spend the whole afternoon (including receiving plenary allowance) debating to buy themselves expensive cars and state-of-the-art caskets, among others?
Clearly, the country’s priorities have been set wrong!

We cannot continue under pretense that everything is normal! If that is the case, then there is need to re-plan. Does anyone think of the consequences of a Mulago hospital without water for one day? I am at pains that, day-by-day, many messes continue to happen and there seems to be no care to cure them!

I call upon our leaders to put their country first and if this is hard for them, they should resign and leave it to those who feel for it! For how long will voters be ‘raped’?
Respect the social contract and fix the entire mess. Pay teachers and medical interns, revise the public servants’ salaries, deal with corruption, and follow up on the unused monies in the ministries, among others. There is only one Uganda; we should all make it a better place!

By Michael Aboneka Jr.

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