In recent weeks the media has inundated us with the tales of woe.
It is evident the donors are not impressed with your management style and are threatening to cut aid to this country. This would not be a problem were it not for the fact that they actually carry about 50% of our budget.
The donors worry that the effort to lift the two presidential term limits will be so economically detrimental that we will be risking the economic gains of the last 18 years. And in fact, for fear of being embarrassed when this ship sinks they have hinted they will promptly abandon this “project” to protect their reputations and careers, leaving us to sink or swim.
Mr President you have argued that we only need to raise our taxes to about a quarter of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and we shall not be beholden to the donors and their meddling ways.
As a keen watcher of this economy it would be easy to advise caution in dealing with our “development partners” but that is the easy way out.
I think I have worked it out. In fact I think we can resolve a host of our political and economic problems with this simple suggestion.
I suggest Mr President that we pass a law, or amend the constitution whatever it takes, that dictates that only registered and paid up taxpayers vote in this country.
If you think about it Mr President—and if I may say so, it is a brilliant idea.
With this single move there will be an immediate widening of the tax base, because knowing how our people are always yapping politics you can be sure they will be rushing to sign up with the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).
In addition our politicians will be more energized to campaign for poverty alleviation because by raising household incomes you create more taxpayers who can vote.
It will have the added benefit of raising productivity – much like the colonial poll and hut taxes did, because to meet tax obligations everybody will have to be gainfully employed.
Sorry but I could not leave the best part for last but with this move we can actually drastically reduce our dependence on donors and then we can decide our developmental agenda in peace.
But also Mr President because more of our eight million strong electorate will be taxpayers, we can then shift campaign issues above tribalism and focus everyone onto matters of national development.
Because we will be joined together as taxpayers to decide the development of our country through the ballot Mr President you can expect us to be more receptive to progressive messages and dismissive of demagoguery.
You can imagine how much improved the quality of our political class will be. Taxpayers will take into account the cost of such superfluous projects as creating new districts and will opt for factories.
Of course there is danger in this for politicians in that they will be placed under greater scrutiny but isn’t the discomfort of a few people acceptable for the greater good of the society?
You obviously know this already but slightly over 10 in every 100 businesses in this country is in the formal sector—paying taxes, submitting files of accounts or even registered.
And in general studies have show the amount of capital we sit on – in our houses and land, if monetised is more than than our $4.7b debt burden. A lot of money.
Of course Mr President this is just the broad outline and I hold no copyright to it, you can pass it to your technocrats to work out the finer details.
For God and our country,