I always tell people not to trust the tears of a coffin maker at a burial. When that gentleman comes shedding tears while viewing the body, he may not necessarily feel the pain of losing that person, but his pain could be that the relatives of the deceased did not buy the coffin from his shop, or he is using his tears as a password to view the style in which the coffin was made so that he can also make one like it.
This is how some people in government feel the pain that the Karimojong people are going through during this current hunger crisis. I am only convinced that the person who could truly be feeling the hunger pain in Karamoja is President Museveni because that is the only region where no single party can challenge the NRM.
I am very happy about the Shs50 billion that the Office of the Prime Minister has provided for food in Karamoja, but my worry is how sustainable this will be.
This is not the first time hunger has killed people in Karamoja. I am aware that every year, at least hunger has claimed lives in the region.
Delivering relief food is good, but for how long, and how sure are we that the Shs50 billion will be properly used to procure food for Karamoja?
Madam Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, I know you are a hardworking Prime Minister, but I would like to advise that the Karamoja problem does not need relief food alone; it needs an irrigation system.
When you look at the billions of shillings that the government has spent on the construction of valley tanks in every parish and consider the number of parishes in the nine districts of Karamoja, I can assure you that the money could be used to pull water from Lake Bisina, which is about 80 kilometres from Katakwi to Napak Hill, and distribute it to irrigate gardens across Karamoja.
Land in Karamoja is very fertile, and the Karimojong are not lazy as some people may think. These are hardworking Ugandans, but their efforts are being frustrated by drought due to the lack of an irrigation system.
The construction of dams in Karamoja is just an avenue for some technical officers in the central government to benefit. Look at the Shs47 billion dam in Nakonyen, Moroto, which the Ministry of Agriculture has failed to complete, leaving the site deserted. Where has the money gone? Look at the tractors that the Ministry of Agriculture procured in the name of ploughing gardens in Karamoja. Where have those tractors gone? Not even a single scrap of them can be seen in any Karamoja district. Who took them, yet billions of shillings were used to procure them?
Imagine if all that money was put together to pull water from Lake Bisina to Karamoja; the country would now be depending on Karamoja for food production.
There is no doubt that the government has invested a lot of money trying to address hunger in Karamoja, but the problem is that this money is accompanied by too much English. Developing Karamoja does not require projects with complicated explanations but practical solutions.
Unless the government channels all the money meant for water-related activities in Karamoja towards pulling water from Lake Bisina, Karamoja will continue to be the source for the rampant construction of many storied buildings in Kampala.
The writer is a senior veteran journalist.
