However, when he started out, things were not as obvious as they had earlier seemed.

Magezi started out small and his objective thereon was to get farmers to come together and start processing honey as a group as one way each of them could benefit from the advantages of collective marketing and selling. Bunyangabu Beekeepers Cooperative Limited (BBC) was born.

He explains, “The idea was simple. There were beekeepers but they were scattered. We spoke to them about the need of coming together to process honey. They had been selling their honey using rudimentary methods, one of these being using a spoon.” BBC would also use mosquito nets and buckets to sieve the honey from combs.

But this is a yesteryear story. With hard work, commitment and focus today Magezi leads fellow farmers. He is proud of the fact that their sales have grown from a mere half a tonne of honey to 13 tonnes annually. This has been with support from United National Development Programme (UNDP) through their partners Support Development of Inclusive Markets in Tourism, the group that helped link them to Andrew & Brother’s supermarket which buys their honey.

His story is not different from a good number of rural poor. Many people are actually using their time enterprisingly to better not just their lives but those of others with whom they share business aspirations and interests.

In her speech during the reading of the Budget, Finance minister Maria Kiwanuka said the proportion of people living below the poverty line has declined from 56.5 per cent in 1992/3 to 24 per cent in 2009 and further to 19.7 per cent in 2012/13. This, she added, indicates that Uganda has already surpassed the Millennium Development (MDG) target of halving the proportion of its population living in extreme poverty by 2015. “This is the first and most significant MDG,” she said.

“As Uganda celebrates progress with the MDGs, our work force is growing due to better life expectancy and social service delivery.

Their pathway to stable value-added employment is our economy’s opportunity but also our challenge. SMEs are critical in creating jobs and mobilising the informal and rural economic activity,” the Finance minister read from her speech. She added that government needs to implement the Skilling Uganda initiative in the business, technical and vocational education training with an emphasis on provision of hands on technical skills training, business skills development, and re-orienting the mind-set of potential entrepreneurs as well as enhancing financial literacy and inclusion.

As government works towards achieving MDG 1, the likes of Magezi and BBC will look to them to keep their promises.

Progress made

According to UNDP, Uganda has made great progress in terms of reducing the proportion of the population below the national poverty line. The poverty headcount- the share of people living in households below the poverty line- declined from 56 per cent in 1992/1993 to 31 per cent in 2005/2006.

“Using the former survey as the benchmark, this means that Uganda is well on its way to meeting the 2015 global target of cutting poverty in half, which would correspond to a poverty level of around 28 per cent for that year,” the UNDP assessment report reads in part. According to the UNDP report, the poverty gap, a measure of how far the poor are below the poverty line, has also narrowed. This, it adds, is an indication of improvements in monetary welfare even among those who have not risen above the poverty line.

“Uganda is five points away from the expected target for reduction of the number of people living on less than $1 a day. Between 1990 and 2012, Uganda reduced hunger by 15 per cent. However, there were set backs in the reduction of under nutrition which increased by 30 per cent in that period,” the report states.

In the State Of The Nation address, however, President Museveni gave a rosier picture, saying Uganda has achieved economic growth.

“Consequently, the proportion of people living below the poverty line has further declined from above 56 per cent in 1992 to 24.5 per cent in 2009/10; and now to 19.7 per cent in 2012/13. Uganda has, therefore, already surpassed the first MDG target of halving the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty by 2015,” he said.

However, Kiddu Gozanga, a field research for Hunger Free World Uganda, an international NGO working to build a world free of hunger, says research that was carried out in June last year in Namayumba and Busukuma in Wakiso District, in central Uganda showed some pitfalls.

Gozanga explains that from their findings, there were overall changes in household welfare as they had experienced a significant growth in consumption expenditure since 2000 when the MDGs were set. Central Uganda had registered an increase in consumption while northern Uganda showed a decline in terms of income.

While there has been some success in meeting MDG 1, challenges remain. The government, therefore, needs to find solutions. It also needs to encourage in various ways, individuals who can commit themselves to work hard and smart like Magezi to find solutions that can earn them a source of livelihood and change their lives for the better.

Shortly before he passed away, a frail Bbale Francis, a legendary news anchor on Uganda television, was forced to record an appeal to the public to raise funds for his treatment at a hospital in India.

For such a renowned figure, being reduced to begging for money for treatment was a slap in the face after decades serving Uganda. But he had no other option. Sadly, though, Bbale passed away on the very day the fundraising was to start.

Days later, a similar fundraising activity had to be undertaken for another television personality, Rosemary Nankabirwa, who needed Shs 100m for treatment in Kenya. At least Shs 110m was raised for Nankabirwa following a social media and car wash campaign by her former colleagues at NTV Uganda. Unfortunately, it came a little too late.

On Sunday afternoon, she lost the battle. The two news anchors were both battling cancer. While the duo’s public profiles at least brought their plight to the national conscience, several Ugandans have similarly resorted to begging for millions of shillings to travel abroad and treat certain ailments because no Ugandan hospital has the capacity to do so.

Over the last 12 months or so, The Observer has published appeals by at least five individuals seeking Shs 304.5 million for treatment abroad. This amount is the equivalent of what President Museveni spent on the car he gave Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi as his 60th birthday gift on Monday.

The appeals often come after recommendations from doctors at the Mulago national referral hospital, who concede that they do not have the equipment, funding, etc to handle such cases. Among the ailments for which Ugandans often seek treatment abroad are kidney diseases, renal failure, liver transplant and different heart ailments.

BEGGING CULTURE

The head of the Uganda Heart Institute at Mulago hospital, Dr John Omagino, told The Observer on Tuesday that while the institute has developed capacity to handle most of the procedures for heart diseases, they do not have the funds for human resource and supplies.

“The issue we are struggling with is the operational funds. We are operating the place at a capacity of 20 to 25 per cent instead of 100 per cent. The budget is only 20 per cent [of what the institute needs],” he added.

As if to indicate the begging culture has permeated even the institute, Dr Omagino added: “We are calling on literally everybody to improve on that budget shortfall; if the corporate world or any other group can come in to help... because the supplies are very expensive and all of them are disposable.”

Mulago’s renal unit, on the other hand, had 22 dialysis machines (which replace the natural filtration system of the kidney when that organ fails), meaning the hospital can only handle 30 patients requiring the service daily. A brand new dialysis machine costs $7,000 to $22,000 (about Shs 20.9m to Shs 65.7m) before taxes and transportation costs, according to various sources, while second-hand ones go for $3,000 to $7,000 (about Shs 9m to Shs 20.9m), which is pocket change for government.

The lack of capacity to treat such conditions within Uganda, yet President Museveni continues to dole out millions of shillings, angers activists such as Godber Tumushabe, who says it is a sign that the government has gone “off the rails.”

Giving the example of a health facility in Masaka district he has visited, Tumushabe said the situation is even worse for most ordinary Ugandans who cannot access “even the most basic health services.”

PRIVILEGED FEW

While ordinary Ugandans have to move around with begging bowls for contributions to secure good health services, the government has set aside $2.2m (about Shs 6.6 billion) annually for government officials to secure treatment abroad.

The government says it also sets aside another $76m (about 227.2 billion) for ordinary Ugandans with ailments beyond the capacity of Uganda’s medical institutions who need to seek treatment abroad.

A source who has tried to seek government funding for treatment abroad, however, intmated to The Observer that their request was turned down by the health minister on grounds that the patient was not a government employee.

Efforts by The Observer to speak to senior government officials such as health minister Elioda Tumwesigye, state minister Chris Baryomunsi, and Health ministry permanent secretary Asumani Lukwago were futile as they could not be reached on their known phone numbers.

Mid-last year, Mulago hospital signed an agreement with Yashoda Hospitals in India, which it hoped would culminate in Mulago’s ability to undertake kidney transplants. The Observer was unable to establish the level of progress made in the joint effort by the two hospitals.

Late last year, President Museveni launched a $40 million (Shs 119.6 billion) facelift of Mulago hospital, which will entail re-modelling, restructuring and re-equipping the hospital. However, with Mulago currently receiving only a third of the Shs 100bn that its administrators say is necessary for effective service provision, the renovation alone will not be enough.

STATE OF HOSPITALS

The state of Uganda’s health facilities has been captured in so many studies that the government has all the information it needs about the problems that afflict the sector. For instance, a parliamentary health committee report of August 2012 identified inadequate health workers, poor remuneration, under-funding of referral hospitals, and mismanagement of funds as some of the challenges afflicting health service delivery in Uganda.

And last week, the auditor general released a value-for-money report on regional referral hospitals (RRHs), which paints a grim picture of health service delivery across the country.

The report exposes huge influxes of patients due to operational weaknesses, lack of specialised hospital staff to deliver services, and even an accumulation of expired drugs due to poor management of the hospitals. Yet, in its conclusion, the auditor general’s report says the situation can be redeemed if the leadership can get its act together across the country.

“The results of the efficiency study of the operations of RRHs using the data envelopment analysis technique have shown that 50 per cent of the RRHs were relatively efficient in the utilisation of their resources,” it concludes.

“The remaining inefficient hospitals exhibited potential for improvements if appropriate interventions were made to address the slacks in the utilisation of the key inputs such as medicines, infrastructure/equipment and human resource. With reduced inefficiency, RRHs stand to reap significant input savings from their activities. This would ensure improvements in the coverage and quality of health services.”

The question then, is whether the government can stop the discriminative approach of setting money aside for some individuals and leaving the rest of the country to beg for good health – often with donations trickling in slower than death.

hobenon@observer.ug 

In Uganda Accused police officers  have been put back to work on the job of Shs165b pension probe: Not again!

Suspects in the pension scam Mr Christopher Obey, Mr Kiwanuka Kunsa and Mr David Oloka at the Anti-Corruption Court.

File Photo