Thirty three years ago, President Museveni gave an extensive interview in which he addressed himself to a wide range of issues, including accusations by some of his critics that he had propagated a system that led to dominance of government by people from his backyard in western Uganda.
Other major topics that he addressed in the exclusive interview that was held at State House Entebbe on November 2, 1993, with the Editor-in-Chief of Monitor Publications, Mr Wafula Ogutu, included the fight against corruption, the land tenure system and favouritism.
Details of the interview were published in The Monitor on November 5, 1993.
Western dominance
Addressing accusations that his government was favouring people from western Uganda, Mr Museveni said it was because people from western Uganda were highly educated, adding that this could also be seen from their numbers in university.
‘Yes (they dominate), because of their high level of education. The truth is that, especially Ankole and Kigezi, to some extent, not so….Bunyoro and Tooro. There are simply very many people around you; you can even see this at Makerere University. It is a huge group; those people. So this reflects itself in employment,’ Mr Museveni said.
The accusations of dominance were also sighted in the distribution of jobs in government parastatal bodies and agencies, but Mr Museveni argued that most of the jobs had been given on merit.
‘I am the one who initiated the policy of filling parastatals by competition. It was never there before. They go for interviews, and they get selected on merit…. That means that (are considered) are among the two [or] three. It is true you must decide, but you are choosing from among the top three. Sometimes I even choose myself. My ministers usually come and ask me; they don’t normally do things on their own,’ he said.
He added: ‘Once they choose the three names, they bring to me. And I use the criteria of ability to do the job among the three.’
Mr Museveni also revealed that there were occasions when he would frustrate the appointment of a person from western Uganda even when it was clear the person was the best qualified.
‘And in fact on a number of occasions I have had to be unfair to some people from the west, like my friend [Ernest] Kakwano. He came top on two occasions,’ he said.
It should be remembered that 16 people applied for the job of chief coordinator of the Public Enterprises Reform and Divestiture (PERD) Secretariat, but three, namely Mr Henry Makmot, Mr Ernest Kakwano and Robert Rutaagi, were shortlisted for the interviews which were conducted on June 2, 1993.
The Monitor of Friday, November 10, 1993, reported that Mr Makmot, a statistician and economist who worked as deputy Finance minister during the Milton Obote II regime, emerged first with 85 percent, followed by Kakwano, a graduate of the University of Nairobi who had distinguished himself as a manager at the highest levels in Kenya and Uganda, who had a score of 79 percent, while Mr Rutaagi scored 65.
A year before, Kakwano was hounded into quitting his job at the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA).
Kakwano had reportedly defied a directive by the line minister, Mr Richard Kaijuka, transferring him from UCDA. He insisted that it was the board and not the minister who had the power to transfer him. The government sided with him, but Kakwano still resigned.
During the interview, Mr Museveni suggested that it was because of the fallout from the UCDA fight that Kakwano did not get the PERD job.
‘Yes, yes, Kakwano came top in these interviews, but I suppressed him because of his campaigns. His name had come up; he had been taken to court, he said.
Keen to stay on
Mr Museveni said he would offer himself as a candidate in the first election after the promulgation of the 1995 Constitution, which was still in the making because he wanted to ‘finish big programmes of stabilising and restricting the economy’ and ‘building the image of Uganda’.
Some of the things that he listed included finishing work on 12 major roads around the country and increasing power generation capacity to 400 megawatts and reducing reliance on wood fuel. He said he was keen to stay on in power in order ‘to consolidate, and eliminate poverty. To do what has not yet been done; banish poverty in the rural areas and to expand infrastructure because I now want to cover the country with feeder roads’ but hastened to add that he would not be bothered if he lost the election.
‘But if the people of Uganda don’t vote for me, I will be relieved, [laughter] I will be liberated,’ he said.
‘I don’t care whether I retain power or not. I am not bothered one way or the other. The fact is that the people get a chance. Why should I say ‘I am sure’. It is up to the people. If they want me to help them. Because I have said after 1999, I will not offer myself. I say so publicly,’ he said.
He said he was not confident that he would win the election, but added that he drew a lot of satisfaction from the fact that Ugandans were, through the Constitution that was still in the making, going to be handed a chance to choose their own leaders.
‘Because by fighting we gave them the chance to take their destiny in their own hands. To me, that is more important than whether they vote for me or not,’ he said.
Corruption
Mr Museveni also addressed himself to accusations of double standards in the fight against corruption. The thinking at the time was that whereas he had come down hard on corrupt people in the National Resistance Army (NRA), he was handling corrupt politicians with kid gloves. He insisted that he did not have proof to pin the corrupt politicians.
‘You see, in the army it is easier. There are more cadres there who know what they are doing than in the civilian section. Here (with politicians) you don’t get any facts. Just rumours,’ he said.
He also blamed a breakdown in structures like the Criminal Investigations Department and the Office of the Auditor General and weaknesses in the Inspectorate of Government (IGG).
‘We created the department of IGG, who unfortunately recruited young boys from Makerere who are well-intentioned, but they don’t know what to do; how to conclusively investigate a case so that you are sure when you take action,’ he said.
On accusations that he was at times seen to be justifying corruption on grounds that the corrupt steal and build houses in Uganda, Mr Museveni said that it was ‘just a joke’.
At the time, it was widely believed that investigations into cases of corruption were failing because investigators were not well paid, but Mr Museveni dismissed that argument and instead argued that deploying cadres or employing foreign nationals were likely to be more effective because Ugandans had proved to be ‘thoroughly unethical and unpatriotic’.
‘I think the solution will have to be to scrap some of these jobs and bring in foreign agencies. Yes! People who come from a more stable environment… Or do what I have started in the [Uganda] Revenue Authority, putting in people whom you are politically and who, therefore, because of political inclination, fight corruption because they know its implications on the economy,’ he argued.
Origins
Mr Museveni also addressed himself to questions around his origins and ethnicity. Some of his critics had labelled him a native of neighbouring Rwanda.
‘No. I am not a Munyarwanda. You go and ask those people in Ntungamo and Rukungiri. They have lived with my people since time immemorial. But even if I was a Munyarwanda. Suppose I have now lived here and I have shown my loyalty to Uganda. So what else would they want with me? What would the original Ugandans have done better than me, the immigrant? Even assuming that was the case. You see, this is the type of bankrupt politics we have,’ he said.
He declined to reveal how many children he has.