Bobi Wine's recent TV interview throws the country into a spanner!

Given some of the political flamefests we have here, I'd like to throw in my input on Bobi's interview on NTV a few days ago.I know we live in a time where debates have been muddied, smudged, blended, etc. between Kiiza Besigye and Bobi Wine, but there's no confusion on this one. Yes, dirty campaigning is an unfortunate fact of life now days, and I find it to be totally reprehensible.

There are plenty of people out there who believe every word that comes from Bobi's mouth, and these are people who won't be bothered by any of his blunders on T.V. Most of them cannot debate logically so they descend to abuse.I guess it's just how people perceive things to be. Remember "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit?" Basically, people already supporting him will continue doing so no matter what.

Heck, freedom of speech means that anyone, even Bobi Wine, can say that inflation could be sorted out by arresting the Kyaligonzas (end impunity), and other funny stuff. But the freedom of speech requires that these differences in viewpoint and taste be aired and discussed, rather than suppressed in favor of a mere uncritical chronology of avant-garde fashion. Personally, I'm not happy with people who make fun of Bobi because of some grammatical errors he made on the show-- English is just a foreign language and doesn't determine anyone's capability.

But seriously,what do you guys think Bobi will offer as a president (other than removing social media tax that he has promised)? What are his policies on regional conflicts, the environment, women's issues, diaspora ,health and education, e.t.c? Remember, you can find reports to support any position you choose to believe if you take enough time and effort.

I'll be the last to deny the importance of self-criticism, but Bobi strikes me as a guy who wont take people's criticism as necessarily a bad thing. It will propell him to prepare more for interviews than he did in the past. Most importantly, I hope, it will help him make the right decisions-- especially closely working with Dr.Besigye, as he learns more about politics of Uganda.

But all that aside, making good choices in office has a heck of a lot more to do with economics and psychology than with music and quotes. The ability to think logically--which one learns when s/he studies science and mathematics--is also necessary for interpreting data and making good choices. Take George Bush, for example, he's a business major, so supposedly he should have the economics covered. Yet, his idealism and faith led him to invade Iraq under the illusion that the Iraqis would welcome Americans as liberators--despite many experts who told him otherwise. He believed the war could be paid for by Iraqi oil.These are not logical conclusions. This is the kind of delusional thinking that led to tens of thousands of Iraqis dead and thousands of American soldiers.

Now to my own view - the Museveni bad economy, based upon his extreme taxation,over borrowing from the Chinese and the failure to support businesses that provide jobs, could be cured by the reduction in taxes.Facts are facts, taxes go down, revenue goes up. However, any gov't that cuts taxes must be ready to reduce on public expenditure. If you don't want to cut spending, then tax cuts should be reserved only as temporary fiscal stimulus tools to jump-start a weak economy.

Note also that some adjustment should be made for inflation, though it's very hard to determine just how to do that. But if the percent increase is higher one year, it doesn't mean as much if the inflation rate was also higher that year.There are so many factors--one could probably "prove" anything one wants, just by factoring in certain things and ignoring others.

Better yet the debt should be reported as debt/GDP, also known as the debt ratio. This is a measure of the burden of the debt on the economy. When debt has to be financed from the public that means less money is available for private capital investment which harms the economy.

As citizens, we are all 'doing something about it', we vote but always rigged, pay taxes and hope the people we elect have some sense to use our money in the right way.

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba
UNITED KINGDOM
"In tribute to the United Kingdom and the Republic of Uganda, two bastions of strength in a world filled with strife, discrimination and terrorism."