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Quality control in Uganda is a polite word for ‘horror story’

Monday September 26 2016

There is a slogan about Uganda that the tourism fraternity uses for self-promotion: “Gifted by Nature.” It captures a side of the country that visitors marvel at: The greenery, shining lakes and rivers, the beautiful landscapes.

Then there is the climate. In most parts of the country, no time of the year is too hot to bear or too cold for comfort. The people are warm and fun-loving, with a “live and let live” attitude towards outsiders, one reason the country has easily the largest number of refugees and illegal migrants in the region.

There are many stories of newcomers “disappearing” into society and eventually becoming citizens without anyone bothering about how it happened. Compare that with countries where, 50 years after their forebears arrived, descendants of migrants are told to “go home,” leaving behind burnt-out homes and looted property, courtesy of neighbours and local law enforcers.

A beautiful and neat little story, you would think. Indeed. However, as with every country, we have some ugly stories too.

And as ugly stories go, the one about the country’s “quality problem” is worth reflecting on by all patriotic Ugandans. It has been in the news a lot lately, and also featured in much discussion among the politically alert. It has been coming out drip-drip style, with each drop demonstrating the extent to which the problem has spread.

A few days ago, news broke that large numbers of primary school teachers graduating from teachers’ colleges were simply not up to the task of teaching. Testing had shown that their proficiency in English, the official language of instruction, left a great deal to be desired. Few could string even simple sentences together.

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The following day another bombshell: Very few children in public schools in a large number of districts could make sense of simple sentences in English. Nor were they any good at arithmetic. Simply put, poor quality teachers are churning out poor quality pupils from our primary schools.

Not too long ago, the umbrella body that brings together members of the country’s nursing profession refused to admit into its ranks dozens of newly “qualified” nurses seeking membership. Apparently many had been admitted into nursing schools without possessing the basic minimum requirements for admission. The umbrella body could not therefore vouch for their quality.

It is hardly far-fetched that some of these “nurses” have been finding and continue to find their way into practice in public and private health facilities, with all this implies for the quality of care they provide to unsuspecting patients.

Even more significant are doubts emanating from the Ministry of Health, about the quality of doctors coming out of some of the country’s institutions of higher learning.

Such is the concern that officials are threatening to introduce a new layer of examinations for newly qualified doctors seeking placement as interns in public medical facilities. And underperformance is not a preserve of the educational sector. Development partners are up in arms over shoddy implementation of projects in water, agriculture and public works. Assessments reveal that in 81 per cent of them, performance is “unsatisfactory.”

As I pondered all this, over a cup of tea, a reliable source revealed that, as part of their crackdown on reckless driving on Uganda’s highways, which has killed hundreds of travellers in recent months, the police have arrested over 500 drivers. Of these, the source continued, over 400 have been charged with one of the following offences: Driving without ever acquiring a driving license; and possession of counterfeit or expired licenses.

And so now we know: Most of the flying coffins plying our road network have poor-quality drivers at the wheel. They know how to move a vehicle from point A to point B, but nothing about the art or science of driving as taught in driving schools and as tested for prior to being awarded a driving license in countries where quality still counts.

A few days before this conversation, I listened intently as someone who knows the agricultural sector well narrated a horror story about the dumping by some really smart counterfeiters, of a whole range of poor quality inputs on the market. Nothing is immune to their industriousness. As a result, now farmers must look out for “improved seeds” that don’t germinate, feeds that cause stunting rather than boost the growth of animals, fertilisers that contain zero nutrients, and pesticides that allow pests to thrive rather than kill them.

And if anyone is tempted to believe that this happens only in agriculture, it doesn’t. One can buy 50-kilogramme bags of ash in place of cement; wheat flour in place of powdered milk, and expired merchandise whose shelf life has been extended via alteration of their expiry dates. Which raises the question: In what kind of country do things such as these happen so often that they become “normal”?

There are numerous possible answers to this question. Here is a simple one: It has to be a country over which citizens feel little if any real ownership; where pursuit of personal interest matters is something of a religion; and where political leaders co-operate only when dealing with individual concerns, not those of the citizens they purport to represent.

Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs. E-mail: [email protected]

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