Of unhappy Ugandans and sick state of health sector

2014 is finally over and many in Uganda are not sighing with relief that the year is over; we are instead taking a deep breath before plunging back into the murky waters.

I salute our government for ensuring the coffers are fat in 2015 in time for the campaigns for the 2016 elections.

We jubilated after being counted in the just concluded census, thinking it would increase the amount of food on our tables.

All sorts of things are happening in Uganda, majority of which are annoying. Our Honorable MPs are trying to pass a Bill whereby everyone will contribute to a national medical scheme.

They seem to forget that our clinics upcountry have been turned into chiefs’ offices and resident commissioners or goat sheds and business stores.

The National Medical Stores hoards drugs until they expire or are stolen by well-meaning staff for dispersing to their personal clinics to avoid wastage of resources.

We shall not even go into the details of our National Hospitals whose staff spend most of their time on strike, or referring patients to their personal clinics for treatment using government drugs.

Hidden children

Ministry of Internal Affairs upon receiving the Census report were quite surprised to see how many foreigners had set up residence in the country.

Ugandans are usually suspicious about anything to do with fine details as we tend to have many wives and husbands, hidden children and multiple loans under various names.

For example I was surprised to see my boda boda guy’s real name on his driving permit — it is totally different from what we popularly know him to be.

The ID project has been highly successful and after viewing the census results, the Ministry of Internal Affairs began to suspect that these were the same people who had registered for national identity cards.

Immigration officials cracked down on all the multinationals with Indian and Kenyan roots. This is because it is very difficult to determine the difference between a local born Patel and an immigrant from Kenya or India.

American twang

I am not being racist but they somehow tend to maintain the Indian accent when speaking English despite schooling in local schools, unlike us who only need to reach the beach near Entebbe airport to acquire an American twang.

As for the other nationals of African descent, our names tend to cut across boundaries; that is how we will have a Kenyan and Ugandan Wafula, and a Malawian Mwayi.

Also among people who annoyed Ugandans was Father Lokodo, the Minister of Ethics and Integrity who became infamous after the anti-pornography Bill was passed. This was a blanket that seems to cover anything that causes titillations or happens below the waistline.

However, he only seems to go for “touchables”, first he went after Desire Luzinda of the infamous “V-Pose” named after her nude selfies, and he is now chasing after our Sengas. A senga is an older woman who teaches women how to keep things steamy in the bedroom. Could it be that he wants to curb our population explosion? We can only wait and see.