Ramathan Ggoobi
Before his ascension to power, Kwame Nkrumah prized himself in being a very ordinary Ghanaian like everyone else.
He was charming, charismatic, and committed to Ghana, and Africa. Not known to many, he was a minister of the gospel, a man of the people. The many hats he wore earned him the moniker Osagyefo which means Redeemer in his native Akan dialect.
Osagyefo kept this act up until he ascended to power as first prime minister of Ghana in 1957 where he reigned until he was ousted by his own people in a coup in 1966 after surviving five assassination attempts. One of those attempts involved a grenade hidden in a bouquet of flowers presented to him by a little girl in 1962.
What changed is that the ‘redeemer’ became self-conceited, paranoid, self-serving, tyrannous and repressive. To this day, this flip-floppy spirit has been passed down to the present-day crop of leaders, and public servants who speak a communicable language to the masses before they take up public office only to burst into inconceivable tongues when they assume positions of power.
In the same light, Uganda’s sitting secretary to the Treasury, and permanent secretary to the ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Ramathan Ggoobi’s come-up revealed a character that the public quickly fell in love with.
Once a writer for a local paper — Sunrise, Ggoobi made a name for himself on the local circuit for having a good head on his shoulders in matters of economics, and public policy. The clean-shaven former university lecturer was endeared for his humility, decorum, and approachable persona always ready to comment on the economy mostly offer- ing solutions to the prevailing economic conditions; swiftly pointing out the cracks and even offering solutions.
JOINING THE FRONT ROW
This put him on the front row, and centre of the mantra he coined and lived by: ‘economics that works’. Nonetheless, the blue-eyed status he once enjoyed is slowly slipping away as his admirers perceive him to be prophesying with the prophets [regime] whose economic ideals he once contested.
His tone has since changed from, “The problem is government doesn’t implement things, they don’t even listen!” to, “When Ugandans say ‘look at the debt numbers!’ I would like to tell you as a person who sits in the treasury every- day, Uganda is a very lucky country…”.
Statements he made at the Tumusiime-Mutebile Annual public lecture in 2022. At the time of this utterance, Uganda’s national debt had risen by 44 trillion Uganda shillings [$12 billion] in the preceding five years alone compared to the $8 billion bill the country had accumulated since its independence.
To rate his performance as permanent secretary and secretary to the Treasury, and de facto member of the board of governors Bank of Uganda [BoU]; it’s critical to pull up his job’s functions as outlined in the Public Finance Management [PFM] Act of 2015.
Statutorily, the secretary to the Treasury, among other roles, is charged with: advising the minister of finance on economic, budgeting and financial matters, promoting and enforcing transparent, efficient and effective management of the revenue and expenditure of votes [schemes] like the Parish Development Model.
Managing the consolidated fund and any other funds as assigned by the minister, mobilising resources including assistance from development partners; monitoring the financial, and related performance of votes; and, where necessary, creating new votes.
A detailed description of his functions is outlined in section 11 of the PFM Act of 2015, and section 10 of the BoU Act 2000 for his role as board member of the central bank. Under permanent secretary Ggoobi’s watch the reality has been grim with little to nothing to toast to as areas of the economy he is directly responsible for are looking bleak.
In particular, it is his ministry’s job to set standards for a financial management system, and to monitor the performance of such a system(s). However, until now, there’s no set criteria for selecting of tax expenditure beneficiaries. This was uncovered by the Budget committee report on the annual budget estimates for the financial year 2023/24.
The report disclosed that foregone revenue in the name of tax exemptions for FY 2022/23 was still unknown yet the estimate for FY 2021/22 was 2.478 trillion shillings [over $677 million] translating to 1.56 percent of GDP. The report also noted that there were no studies carried out to validate the effectiveness and impact of these tax exemptions, suggesting that they are likely awarded on a whim without set guidelines.
It’s Ggoobi’s job to put these structures in place, and yet he hasn’t. The secretary to the treasury is also required to monitor the financial and related performance of votes. A vote is any entity paid for out of the government account known as the consolidated fund.
One such vote is the Parish Development Model [PDM]. Thus far, the PDM has been riddled with massive corruption, gross incompetence and chauvinism with allegations of segregation against women being brought up.
COOKED GOOSE
The PDM is certainly a cooked goose because the funds allocated to each parish — 100 million shillings [$27,459] are insignificant when divided up among the number of parishioners to assess the possible impact of these monies.
A typical parish has got between 450 and 30,000 people. Suggesting that the higher-ups have budgeted between 222,222 Uganda shillings [$61] to 3,333 shillings [$0.91 cents] per parishioner to transform and lift them out of poverty with this model.
As the superintendent of the consolidated fund, it’s appalling that the secretary to the Treasury continues to sign off money to fund the PDM at the expense of say the health sector that has been stymied by the failure to pay off Covid-19 medical workers, and medical interns to this day, bringing the health sector to its knees!
His role of mobiliser of resources, architect and overseer of a sound financial system has taken a slap to the face since domestically the permanent secretary hasn’t offered well-thought-out solutions on how to unequivocally increase government’s revenue.
Instead, tax deficits have been the norm in his tenure with a parliamentary report putting the most recent tax shortfall at 94.8 billion shillings [$25 million] for the first half of FY 2022/23 not to mention a highly corrupt, and choppy tax system in spite of the rollout of the Integrated Local Revenue Administration System [IRAS] set up to seal leakages in the tax network.
Not only that, but also, his seat on the board of the central bank of Uganda, where he collects a hefty allowance, has mostly been redundant. Under Ggoobi’s watch BoU’s foreign reserves have ret- rograded by 2.9 trillion shillings [$775.9 million] to a five-year low.
This has resulted in disorder in market conditions, debt financing, and the depreciation of the shilling against the USA dollar by over six percent in a single year because of a shortage of dollars in the reserves to stabilise the shilling.
Conversely, to Ggoobi’s credit, he has embarked on a drive to purge the public service payroll of ghost workers while emphasizing prudence in the implementation of budgets.
In a recently released budget execution circular for FY 2023/24, the permanent secretary imposed a recruitment freeze on the public sector as a cost-cutting, and containment measure only making an exception for appointments to replace staff.
LAGGARD STAFF
While executed in good faith, the freeze is counterproductive because it’s going to increase the workload on the already laggard government staff who are yoked with years’ backlogs of work especially in the judiciary.
Further, it’s bound to encourage poor performance among public sector personnel who are going to tolerate incompetence of staff for fear of not finding quick replacements. This action is not only going to make the already bad public service delivery horrid, but is highly unsustainable!
When I reached out to the secretary of the Treasury regarding the matters I have raised, I was stonewalled and didn’t get past a smiley emoji, and a “what do you need with my tenure?” comment.
For what it’s worth, it is important that Ggoobi is given the benefit of time to effect palpable change in the financial sector; that is, if he manages to navigate the seemingly worm-eaten system. Until then, he should remember that he won’t be let off the hook easily because he was highly recruited, and talked a good game while still in the trenches.
And unlike Nkrumah who led his country to independence, Permanent Secretary Ggoobi will be despised for less. For that reason, now is the time for him to put his theories to work, and take his doubters to the cleaners because if he doesn’t, echoes of sell-out chants are only going to get louder.
kimaona@yahoo.com
Source: The Observer
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