Uganda has had over 70 cabinet ministers but the Members of Parliament felt these were not enough, that the number needed to be increased to a cool 88.

Non-Ugandans may be surprised that a small, poor government that is struggling to collect an annual revenue of $4 billion needs 88 ministers while the United States only needs a quarter of that number. But those who wonder are not Ugandans and do not understand our issues.

Imagine, the whole of our government’s annual revenue are just about a seventh of the price that Microsoft is paying to purchase LinkedIn, but still we need over 80 ministers to manage it.

This is because our situation is unique, and Uganda is not LinkedIn. For our 50 or so tribes must all feel represented in the Cabinet and not appointing a minister from any of them can spell trouble.

In all probability, the number of ministers will keep increasing in coming years until they reach 400, which is when some level of Cabinet stability will be attained.

That is about the number of elective parliamentary seats the country has and agitation for more ministerial posts will continue until every MP becomes a minister. Then for those constituencies that vote “wrongly” and return opposition candidates to the House, their rival from the ruling party will have to be appointed to the Cabinet and then the whole country will be content.

But how did we get here? It is like an addiction that gets out of hand. You cannot have enough of the substance in question; in fact, every day you need more just to feel the same kick as yesterday.

When it was decided that ministers be appointed to represent geographic and tribal groupings, these should have been defined. The country actually has nine natural zones or ecological regions but I wonder how many of our leaders and political strategists are aware of these.

Every informed person in the agricultural sector knows this, as does every geography teacher in the country. All our heritage and destiny are tied to these nine regions and the appointing authority could consider following this demarcation in naming ministers, at least to reduce the cost of managing government. But since this is unlikely, we had better brace for a Cabinet that will soon hit the 400-minister mark.

And before you blame the appointing authority, think again about our people’s mentality. First of all, being a minister is not even lucrative to the individual, though it is costly to service a minister’s office. So small is a minister’s pay that all ministers opt for an MP’s package, which is seven times higher.

But voters don’t want to know that an opposition MP’s monthly package is seven times higher than that of a minister. They just want a minister from their village that they can feel that they have a share in the government.

It has been said before that when a rural fellow is hit by a blast of dust from a minister’s convoy, his heart swells with pride, knowing that it is a son or daughter of the soil inside that air-conditioned monster. So don’t waste time raising your eyebrows over our multitude of ministers. You ain’t seen nothing yet. 

Joachim Buwembo is a social and political commentator based in Kampala. E-mail: [email protected]