Back
from my official hideout at planet B! I touched the ground at exactly 2:00PM on
this chilly Friday in Moroto town; the first thing to catch me was the fresh
news on The Daily Monitor website, “Government
Stops Pension, Gratuity Payments”. That more than 60,000 retired civil servants
would eat air for some good months as government mounts an operation on wild
cuts that are allegedly diverting benefits of the dead, the ignorant and the ‘unconnected’
citizens of this Country. The ‘cats’ reportedly direct shares of these
unfortunate groups to their personal accounts.
Uganda
at present in my view, ought to be called ‘the pain... ’, and not the pearl of
Africa any more. The pension recipients countrywide will sob bitterly following
this reported -intended delay. But it is better to cry with anticipation than
stay cheated because of ignorance caused probably by denial of information. I
refer to millions of Ugandans who do not have any ‘connection’ or access to
information or assistance to enable them access such country benefits.
These
defenseless creatures are mainly found in the vulnerable regions. You will meet
them in Northern Uganda; Acholi land and the soils of Lango. You will see them
in Teso, but most of them are also suffocating here in the heat of Karamoja. The
need to dig into this corruption suspicion is crucial, but the other very
important thing that government should do is to release the nuts on procedures
of retirement and processing of benefits- even for the dead ones. Otherwise
millions of former civil servants with no benefits are commonplace. They usually
complain that the procedure takes a lot of time, money and blood.
Our
upcountry beneficiaries are hindered by the transport costs and the absence of
what government employees refer to as ‘connections’ at Kampala level. It would
make better sense for the Country to decentralise some of these offices that
handle benefits of retiring workers so as to reduce the cost to the recipient
and to the central government - in terms of work load and also to make it
difficult for the wild fat cats in Kampala to continue milking poor village
based citizens.
******* ******* ******* ******* *******
Moroto:
A week ago when students –young boys of Moroto High school scored four goals to
just one in a football match they ‘Giraffes” had with Nakapelimen FC here in
Moroto, I had a lot of laughter. One of my friends, my good neighbour is a
super striker for the mighty Nakapelimen FC. During this particular game – the
Semi Final of the famous though poorly facilitated Huhuru Cup, my man did not
even have a shot on target. Yes, they lost to the kids and the excuse he gave
was that “those boys take a lot of porridge!”
Another
colleague in the Nakapelimen league said “our boys took too much of beer the
previous day and you know, they had hangover”. The other thing that another player
was about to say was that “our boys are married and they had a lot of sex the
night before...” these boys almost took away my lungs. Anyway, football is a
very exciting game! I don’t advise soccer stars to get addicted to drugs. I
used to test Lira-Lira but I remember
it affected my speedometer as a trusted winger at Kabalega S.S. I could vomit
form whenever I tried to Inzicruiz so as to cross the line and give the goal
keeper a killer shot. These days am retired, but not tired of playing football.
Soldiers:
I always believe in, and support soldiers because they use military might in
everything they do in this world. I cannot believe that the UPDF for instance
is a weak force. Bush battles aside; we are talking about other tasks like
games, sports. To the Huhuru cup here in Moroto, the army took it last year
using the obvious usual military capacity! After escaping the wrath of
Nakapelimen FC, the porridge boys of Moroto High School mysteriously invaded
the military armoury in Moroto Friday and gave the UPDF a run for their
haughtiness.
Personally
I did not cheer the porridge boys although the whole world present seem to back
the kids against our defence guys. For me, the lession learnt from their game
–the Final play to determine the Huhuru cup champions were two; that
over-confidence is a killer disease, my combatants had it all. They said it in
the bars and in all public places that they at last would retain the cup. It
didn’t work out, and it will as well not work for you bombastic man, lady
outside there too!
The
other is that, luck is for real; even as the match started, everything
indicated that the military would win, but a weak pass, a minor personality created
the lonely goal for the porridge drunkards and it was end of business for the
combatants. Forceful attempts even worsened the UPDF game by producing ‘unfair’
red cards. Sorry dear losers, take care
of tomorrow dear winners...
