The Sembabule mess proves Museveni does not care about standards

Been off all writing here for some time. The broken systems of this country pushed unfortunate incidents down my street that left my heart bruised and battered.

If you are to believe me when I say that I write from the heart, and I see no reason why you should not, then you would know that for as long as my heart was still a home of raw emotions it was never in the best place to construct proper public communication.

Well, thank God it is getting close to where it was before those, reckless and careless inside offices bigger than themselves had sent it.

Now I am not yet over the images of Sembabule and will not be for long. There are just too many questions in my mind on the Sembabule “Kadongo” fiasco.

I shall return to that in a few minutes.

Let me place context to this. I am no stranger to construction of houses in Africa using the most archaic of modus operandi.

In the nineties when poverty visited my house briefly, we built a chicken pen with mad and wattle “Budongo”.

Now since I was part of the making that house, Sembabule brought back those memories.

That’s what you do when you are boke and have no other means possible.

Budongo has all allusions of poverty and being on the wall with few options…Since we had not gone to Sembabule to construct a very cheap house, maybe we had, but to celebrate Labour Day an international event, I am still asking myself why and how did we end up in mud and wattle?

This is where Hon Sam Kahamba Kutesa one of the wealthiest men in Uganda is MP.

The other day he was at the helm of the UN. I am told by those who know him that he has no use for the shilling and all in his pocket is the currency of the nation that hosts his last office…

This is not about Sam Kutesa and it MUST NEVER be.

It is rumoured that this nation has National Organizing Committee (NOC) whose job I would presume is to sit and organize public functions that are presided over by the president. We also have the minister for the Presidency and that of Labour, Gender and social something…Why would a critical thinker like me be forced to believe that this was totally unavoidable?

Fenekansi Kasumba Muwanga my dad raised me to believe that refusing to plan was also a plan.

I was NEVER allowed the luxury of saying the cup is broken. He would cane you for that because in his opinion you are running away from responsibility.

He would question whether it broke without being touched? He would add that such a reasoning is one meant to deliberately excuse oneself from responsibility choosing to lie instead.

He believed in owning up as the first and most important step in development.

Look good people, we are lucky we are in Uganda and this is why no one will lose a job for these things.

We have had parades on grounds where dust fills the air and soldiers match past the president and we accepted that…We never should have done…Since we accepted that, which we should never have we have, we have now ended up with Sembabule…

What does the planning committee consider before it chooses a venue?

How can you not look at the parade grounds and if they tick the boxes of being able to host a function no matter what the weather will be?

We are cannot choose to place the blame on the rain ladies and gentlemen.

We are in the tropics and we should know it may and can rain?

I have asked these questions on what the contingency plan is when chairing weddings meetings for outdoor weddings. Why are they not questions asked when planning events this huge that have adverse effects on the international reputation of brand Uganda?

There is technology that would have solved this problem at low cost. Why give a district that has no all-weather parade grounds meeting international standards an international public function? What control measures and quality standards were and are in place?

Let me ask one more question central to this debate: do we really have standards anyway that we check?

The more I think through this, the more I am frightened that we have not set standards that we use to choose who will host and who will not.

They do this for the World Cup and for serious functions. We seem to say we shall be in Sembabule and then Sembabule is left to do what it can and then we go there expecting things to be OK…

It is just sad that we work this way and the international community was out there looking at us…

If you know it will rain go and study what the rain will do to the place? Speak to the Met office and look at the forecast…Pour water on the ground and see if the ground can hold. Be scientific and for once leave nothing to chance…

Well, someone now wants us to think this was unpreventable??

I would have hoped that this disaster would have forced us to change how we work in preparation and taking us to the place where we become more deliberate…It was good to see the UPDF all in their all weather over coats meaning they prepared more than the organizers did.

They came to the place scanned it looked at the weather and knew how to respond. Bravo and kudos to the CDF. This is expected since they send men to war and always go and check what is needed before they send the boys in harm’s way…

I am sure I shall not hear a job loss because of this and so we shall move on like nothing happened making this a problem of the rain that came to us without informing us and made itself the uninvited unwanted guest as if it does not know that we have resource issues.

Lord Jesus I am lucky I studied critical thinking…

Oh Uganda may God uphold thee as we lay our future in thy hands…He who penned this beautiful master piece also died frustrated by the failure of Uganda’s future to deliver the expected. He I am as well.

See you soon.