On 20th
September in New York President Barack Obama launched the Open Government
Partnership (OGP, see www.opengovpartnership.org),
a powerful, new effort that seeks to make governments more open to their
citizens. Not anyone can join; eligible countries need to meet a minimum set of
transparency criteria. In Africa only six countries qualified; of which five
(South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Liberia and Ghana) have joined the partnership.
The eligible country that did not join? Uganda.
One wonders
why. At the pre-launch meeting of the partnership in July, Uganda was
represented by no less than its Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic
Development (MFPED), Hon. Maria Kiwanuka. So what happened? Could it be that
the government was not able to organize itself around the tight OGP deadline?
Or does it have a more basic, philosophical objection to the tenets of the OGP,
with openness?
In his
closing remarks at the OGP launch, President Obama emphasized: “the more open we are, the more willing we are to hear
constructive criticism, the more effective we can be. And ultimately,
governments are here to serve the people, not to serve those in power.” Earlier,
at the same occasion, Twaweza Head Rakesh Rajani stated: ‘Perhaps the most
important reason we need open government … is because we acutely need to build
trust. Openness can bring governments and citizens together, cultivate shared
understandings, and help solve our practical problems’.
To be fair,
Uganda has committed to be open in other ways. Of the East African countries,
Uganda is the one that has a freedom of information law, and a whole slew of
ethics laws.
More
specifically, in her June 15 2011, letter of Intent and Memorandum of Economic
and Financial Policies to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Minister
Kiwanuka made a whole set of promises to be open. Studying the letter and its
annexes, one notes government’s mindfulness of Uganda’s post election fragile
economy and its optimism on what the country’s economic future holds. Hon.
Kiwanuka made several policy reform commitments, each pegged with deadlines. I
was attracted by this businesslike approach of clear targets and timelines. These
concrete, measureable commitments also make it easy for citizens to monitor
government progress.
So how well
does Uganda fare? Let’s review a few of the commitments to the IMF
First, to
enforce discipline in issuance of tax
exemptions, Uganda has promised that by September 30, 2011 government will begin to gazette and publish on the internet the names of
beneficiaries (whether individual or corporation) of all tax expenditures
(criteria for tax exemptions, tax holidays and tax rebates). I have checked websites
of MOFPED, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Bank of Uganda and Uganda Investment
Authority (UIA), but the promised published list is nowhere to be found. Secrecy
1, Openness 0.
Second, the
Uganda government commits to budgetary discipline and promoting fiscal
transparency over treatment of unspent budgetary funds. Specifically, the government committed to
publish balances on all accounts in Bank of Uganda and commercial banks by July
31, 2011 and October 30, 2011 respectively. My protracted inquiry and check on
this commitment also reveal this target has not been achieved. Secrecy 2,
Openness 0.
Third, in
order to strengthen revenue collection and combat money laundering and
financial terrorism, the government committed to issue four million identity
cards to Ugandans by June 30, 2012. Eight months remain. Citizens need to watch
the score.
Fourth, the
letter to IMF, beyond disclosure requirements, sets goals for economic
performance. Perhaps the most ambitious one is to contain core inflation below
5% in the 2011/2012 financial year. The present reality points in the opposite
direction. In spite of efforts by Bank of Uganda (BoU) to tighten monetary
policy, consumer price index inflation accelerated from 5 per cent in January
2011 to 28.3 per cent in September 2011, pushing millions of families to
hustling and subsistence livelihoods. Is Central Bank getting it right? Or is
it afraid of accepting failure? Could
open government, admitting failure and inviting alternative ideas to get the
country out of this bleak economic outlook, help?
Fifth, the
specter of corruption and misuse of public funds haunts every corner of the
fiscal landscape in Uganda. Here transparency can help curtail the worst
abuses. Are the oil contracts and the projected oil revenues going to be made
public? Will their management, much like Norway’s oil fund for example, be
managed with a high degree of public transparency? At the local level, can the
ordinary citizen know of and follow every shilling spent for education, health
and roads?
Will Uganda join the Open Government Partnership in the next round and
commit to strengthening transparency? Will the above mentioned and other
commitments in Hon. Kiwanuka’s letter to the IMF (see http://www.imf.org/external/np/loi/2011/uga/061511.pdf)
be honored? Indeed, are Ugandan citizens monitoring these commitments? For in
the end what matters more is not the commitments in New York or in letters to
international institutions, but the practice on the ground, and what is open to
the citizens of Uganda. And that may depend less on the munificence of
Presidents and Ministers, and more on the tenacity of citizens.
Chief
Executive Officer
Agency
for Transformation
Re-imagining agricultural and
environmental policy
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