#OutToLunch Physical people counting a serious blow to e-government aspirations

By Denis Jjuuko

Some people say that Uganda is a movie on a looping reel with one blockbuster after another. But in this rolling movie that is Uganda, something remains constant. Otherwise, how do you explain that in 2023, the government of Uganda is going around the country head counting its employees!

Apparently, some Ugandan civil servants create employees that don’t exist and then draw salaries and allowances for them. It all started, at least famously (or infamously) with a one Captain Dan Byakutaaga, an army paymaster who used to move around with sacks of US dollars to pay soldiers that didn’t exist. Some people allege that Byakutaaga was a ghost as well as nobody seems to ever have taken a photo of him. Nobody knows where he disappeared to and no family has ever come out to look for him.

But Byakutaaga must have inspired the next generations of civil servants that more than 20 years later, the existence of ghost employees has led to the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) to move around the country counting people, physically. When the “people counters” come to an office to verify whether you exist, they ask for your letter of appointment and then the national identity card. Whether you are sick or on leave or on some life saving assignment, you must be available to be physically counted.

The most intriguing requirement needed by the verifiers is the national identity card. With a national ID, one would expect that a smart phone or web-based application could be developed that can automatically link to the database at the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) and automatically verify whether the person exists or not and bring out all the information that the verifiers need. Every employee would simply log in, provide details, attach a PDF or Word Format or JPEG file of their appointment letters and then they are automatically matched with their national ID and other data that the OAG is looking for.

The app could also take a photo or fingerprints of the person to ascertain the person submitting the data is human or not (again matching it with the fingerprint data at NIRA). Where there are discrepancies, the person can then be asked for more information or appear in person at a certain office in a given timeframe.

Developing this app would actually be more progressive than physical verification of employees. It would be cheaper too and revolutionary. Because, this isn’t the first time government is doing physical verifications. Every few years, they claim there are more kids in public schools than not. A team of people counters is then sent to every school to verify the existence of the pupils. Nobody hears from these people until when another count is being carried out. I expect the OAG to make this counting a routine exercise.

Yet technology would sort it out in one go. The app would just need to be updated from time to time cheaply and efficiently. Government can ensure that whoever dies or leaves government employment, the data is updated by instituting severe penalties for accounting officers who don’t do so. The app can be linked to staff registration systems at all government offices. Like in most private sector organisations, staff log in every time they report to work (even where they may not be in a physical office). Physical counting of people is a symptom of poor governance and a significant blow to our e-government aspirations.

As we were busy people counting, we learned that the highest institutions of learning are teaching expired academic courses. When the information was first shared, universities competed for space on which one has the most expired courses with one public statement after another. Universities didn’t even know that their courses were either expired or have never been renewed. The National Council for Higher Education (NCHE) didn’t know too. They also didn’t know whether there is even a legal framework under which courses expire. Again, an app can send automatic reminders to academic registrars that their courses are about to expire and they should do something about it. It doesn’t even cost much. Any kid with interest in computers can develop one. Yet all our universities have some computer studies course units of sorts. Free such apps exist as well.

Government every once in a while, sings about e-government, ICT, IT or whatever new catchword is easy to roll off their tongues. They even have an authority—NITA—where people are employed to work on these kinds of things but what do we do? We physically count people every few years to establish they aren’t ghosts. We can’t register deaths yet every death is almost announced on public radios and people are largely buried by thousands of people who gather and mourn for days. We need to cut this movie reel and start again.

The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

Tags: Captain Dan Byakutaaga, Denis Jjuuko, National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA), Office of the Auditor General (OAG), Out to Lunch, Prime Time Communications, Ugandan

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Rampant unemployment is a key national security issue

By Denis Jjuuko The public service ministry recently announced that more than 40,000 people applied for 287 jobs across different government ministries, departments and agencies. More than 28,000 of those who applied qualified, meaning they were selected for aptitude tests which were to be held at the Mandela National Stadium at Namboole. It must be frustrating looking for job in Uganda. The news came after a bombshell report emanating from research by the Inspectorate of Government (IG) and the Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC) that indicated that Ugandans pay a whopping Shs42.34b annually to district service boards to get jobs. Averagely, the report indicated, 130,000 people pay bribes to land jobs. The people who ask for these bribes know that the jobs are scarce and people are desperate and willing to do anything to land the jobs. When somebody who bribed their way to a job gets employed, it means a few things. First, the person is not the best for the job. They just had the money to pay a recruiter. The best candidate may not have had the money and therefore wasn’t considered. Because the person knows they only got the job through bribery, they will continue bribing their way into senior positions. That is how we end up with incompetent people in positions of authority. People who can’t execute anything and making sure things don’t work or looking at everyone who is competent as a threat or what people call work politics. The people who are competent end up doing very little at work so that the incompetent boss doesn’t feel insecure and threatened. That is how we end with yes people—they won’t advise their bosses. They will do whatever the boss wants whether it makes sense or not. Remember, there are no jobs and these people have families to feed. Rocking the boat isn’t something that they want to do. Second, the people who bribed their way to jobs will only hire those who pay them a bribe. That way you end up with a corrupt layer at every level and an incompetent lot everywhere. Service delivery is impacted. Government then fails to create jobs that young people can apply for and get on merit. Third, because the public service is corrupted, the private sector suffers too. People can’t start and run businesses professionally. The people who are in positions because they paid a recruiter will endlessly try to get a return on their investment (read bribe). Procurement processes will be compromised. Payment for services and goods delivered will be frustrated unless somebody is paid. The bribery doesn’t end at public service. We recently saw many statements from politicians who lost elections for positions in their political parties claiming their rivals won through bribery. Some wondered why people were bribing for positions that were actually “voluntary.” We hear that candidates for Members of Parliament in some constituencies spend more money than they would get in the five years they would spend in the office should they win. If somebody spends more money than they would be officially paid, it means they are doing so to illegally get something. Somebody who sells their house to get money for election will do anything to get their house back. That is how we end up without jobs and seeing young energetic people leaving the country for the Middle East not to do highly technical jobs but menial ones or being trafficked for sex like we recently heard from a BBC investigation. Government has been saying that they are intending to grow the economy to US$500 billion annually. Great stuff but with rampant corruption, it will be a tall order. There is a need to nip corruption in the bud in order to create sustainable jobs for the working age population. Otherwise, we shall continue to see thousands of people filling up soccer stadiums to apply for a few jobs they know they stand no chance of getting. That is what they call desperation. And desperate people can do pretty much anything. Unemployment ends up being a key national security issue that the government must urgently address. The public have a chance to play a key role here by voting people in 2026 not because they bribed them with a t-shirts or some cheap alcohol but those who can address the challenges they face such as unemployment. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

October 13, 2025

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: What employees should know before launching a side hustle

By Denis Jjuuko On Friday 29 August this year, I was invited to speak to the staff of Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) about side hustles for corporates during their end of month Fireplace session. The Fireplace is an internal meeting where guest speakers discuss various topics every last Friday of the month. Here is an abridged version of my presentation. I believe others could find an interesting thing or two. In August 1972, Idi Amin launched his so-called economic war which led to the expulsion of Asians. In the months that followed, Uganda experienced unprecedent inflation. With the economy in free fall, many workers realized that their salaries were no longer sufficient. At Makerere University, the country’s premier higher institution of learning, professors took to driving taxis to supplement their income. One professor, until recently a minister in Museveni’s government, was the taxi driver. His colleague, an education professor, was the ‘turn boy’ or conductor. Others became teachers in secondary schools. Their wives turned the garages of their residences into unofficial canteens. Amin’s economic war led to the birth of side hustles in Uganda, where employees do something outside their official jobs to supplement their incomes. The importance of side hustles was further cemented in 1990s when the Structural Adjustment Programme led to thousands of people losing their jobs. Recent mergers of government agencies (rationalization as they call it) and closure of funding organizations like USAID continue to make employees think of life beyond their offices with polished floors. So, if you are thinking of starting a side hustle, what key things should one think about? Here are a few points to ponder. Time: Side hustles for people doing 8-5 jobs should not be too time consuming. Get a hustle like buying and selling land, flipping houses, buying and selling cars, bonds and unit trusts (if you can call them side hustles), or even supplies. Bars, salons, and restaurants require a lot of time when starting which you may not have as you have to concentrate on your job as well. Also, workers in such sectors are unreliable. You don’t know which day they will not turn up. Or when they will sell a crate of beer and replace it creating an impression there are no customers. Still, you don’t want to stay awake in a kafunda so that a few men not eager to get home can finish their beer and leave to enable you close the day’s operations. Cash payments: Avoid side businesses where most of the payments are made in cash. You don’t know when the workers will disappear with it. Most side hustles are small and may not have systems to protect revenues especially in the beginning. Side businesses where people pay in the bank are better. There you can protect your revenue. I know there are mobile money payment codes these days but there are still a few issues with them to be fully embraced. Small is beautiful: All business plans show profitability at one stage. Also, however much research you do, there will always be stuff you will only learn when doing the business. Start small and allow yourself to learn the trade. Don’t throw all your life savings in a business at the beginning. Don’t borrow to start. If you are to borrow, maybe from family. Start with your savings or pool money with others. Six months rule: Before you quit your job to fully concentrate on the side hustle, instruct your bank to send 100% of your salary to an investment account or unit trusts or bonds. Don’t touch this money. Now, see if you can rely on the side hustle for six months. Pay all business and personal expenses from the business. That way you will know if the business is profitable or if you have been subsidizing it with your salary. That way you will avoid looking for a job a few months of leaving one. Do what others are doing: Your side hustle doesn’t have to be innovative or ground breaking. Do what others are doing. See a sector you can invest in, where you can easily raise start up capital and get going. But run it better than others. Ground breaking ideas can then be implemented when you have money you can afford to lose or can raise the required capital from angel investors. Cashflow is the lifeblood of business: Look for businesses which have good cashflows. Planting trees that mature after 20 years should be for people investing for retirement. But doing something that brings in money regularly helps keep the business operational without necessarily relying on the salary or salary loans. Do people need to do typical side hustles? Should everyone do business? There is no clear answer. One just needs to find a model that works for them. Apart from some telecoms and banks, many businesses in Uganda that publicly publish their returns show net profitability of around 10%-15% annually. This means that an employee who invests in treasury bonds or unit trusts is likely to earn the same percentage without any hustle of running after the ever-elusive customers. It can also be a strategy of accumulating capital to venture into capital intensive side hustles that don’t require a lot of time like real estate. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

September 25, 2025

Out to Lunch

#OutToLunch: Unambitious delayed projects, potholes creating a self-doubting population

#OutToLunch: Unambitious delayed projects, potholes creating a self-doubting population By Denis Jjuuko A few years ago, I used to frequent Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital to largely attend meetings at the African Union headquarters. If you kept away for a few months, you would return to a city that you wouldn’t recognize. A new flyover would exist within a few months. You would see people laying down railway lines and find these huge buses providing public transport. Addis Ababa in the mid 2000s was a construction site that was turning slums into hotels of certain status and other infrastructural projects. They seemed to deliver their projects without much delays. One thing I also noticed about Ethiopians is that they claimed to have the biggest everything. A cab driver or a university professor would quickly tell you that they had the biggest market in Africa — the Merkato, equivalent of our Owino. They claimed they had the largest number of cows on the continent, biggest airline, largest number of producers of leather products and coffee, biggest army and even the most beautiful women. Although some of these claims may be true and others could be debatable, Ethiopians have come to believe that they have to do the biggest things. And they go ahead and do them. Just the other day, Ethiopian Airlines launched perhaps the biggest hotel in Africa. Ethiopian Skylight Hotel in Addis Ababa boasts of 1,024 modern rooms. That is perhaps why they decided to utilize River Nile a little bit more, they didn’t go around building a 100 Megawatts dam. They went for 5,150MW. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that was launched a few weeks ago is, true to Ethiopian style, billed as one of the largest infrastructural projects on the continent. And like roads and railway lines in Addis Ababa, the hydroelectricity dam, which cost US$5 billion to build was completed in 14 short years. It had many challenges such as protests from Egypt over the use of River Nile — like they do whenever anyone else wants to use the Nile waters as well as funding, technical skills and even bloody wars. But the project never got derailed. Compare it to the Grand Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo, perhaps the world’s wealthiest country, and you will understand what I am saying. Or just look at some of the countries where it takes a year or more to build a single kilometer of a dual carriage road without interchanges and bridges. To build the GERD, Ethiopia got most of the funding from local contributions in form of donations, and selling of bonds locally and to Ethiopians in the diaspora among other sources. They got very little foreign debt to achieve their project which ideally should ensure affordable electricity access to many people in Ethiopia while exporting some to neighboring countries thereby getting much more foreign revenue. Ethiopia is not some country in America, Europe or Asia. It is actually considered part of East Africa and a mere two hours by air from Entebbe. They face similar challenges like us. Wars, famine, draught and diseases among others. Like Uganda, they are landlocked and depend a lot on agriculture. In fact, we have just toppled them as the largest coffee exporter on the continent. They still produce more coffee though only that they consume a lot of it domestically. Since we are so similar and ideally neighbors, what do they have in their DNA that we don’t? How can they run an airline with more than 150 aircraft while we struggle with about six including leased ones? How can they build flyovers in Addis in months while we take decades to complete ours? Or build small hydroelectricity dams with defaults while they complete mega ones? There is a need to dream big by technocrats and be intentional about building a culture that leads us to achieve our targets and on time. We can have as many patriotic lectures as we wish but if people are driving over potholes every day and have them normalized as the way of life, we won’t achieve more ambitious targets like GERD. We will end up with a population that self-doubts itself. Businesspeople will not dream of creating mega factories or big businesses. Their ambitions will remain importing a few containers from China, driving an old Landcruiser, building a storied house in a slummy area, and another in the village and a few apartments. An ordinary Ethiopian seeing the country launching GERD or the largest hotel on the continent will dream of something as big. The writer is a communication and visibility consultant. djjuuko@gmail.com

September 25, 2025