Political federalism

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unconditional grants, which finance decentralised services and operations; conditional grants, which include disbursements to fund programmes²⁵ and projects agreed upon between the central government and the local governments; and equalization grants, given to some local governments lagging behind national average standards and development targets.²⁶

There are concerns, however, about how this fiscal decentralisation has been implemented, especially due to the above-mentioned high levels of recentralisation, and the central government retaining too much power to maintain and run a patronage system under the guise of decentralisation (Sasaoka and Nyang’oro, 2013; Mwenda, 2007, 2009).

Uganda is, nevertheless, experimenting with fiscal decentralisation, albeit with many challenges. It can be argued, therefore, that as a growing amount of literature suggests, the issue in Uganda, and in many other countries, is not “whether” but “how best” to fiscally decentralise. Grassroots perceptions in this study seem to suggest a preference for an ethnically-based decentralisation of government bureaucracy and service delivery (see narratives in chapter 4).

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main argument for local political autonomy, therefore, is that “it is claimed to give more freedom to the citizens” (Molander, 2004: 3). Other arguments presented by Molander and closely related to this in putting the individual citizen first are:

(1) That the autonomous unit can offer individual citizens the basis of a community of a different kind than the national state can offer them.

(2) That local autonomy provides citizens with more closeness and participation than the national state does. Geographical proximity to decision makers, in other words, translates into a deeper form of political nearness.

(3) That local autonomy guarantees more efficiency, especially in the sense that public service production reflects citizen preferences better if decisions are made at the local level.

(4) That local autonomy permits more experimentation due to adaptability resulting from close participation and efficiency.

(5) That local decision makers know the local conditions better and can ensure needs-related production (Molander, 2004: 3-5).

It is evident from the above arguments that the political will to establish autonomous federal institutions serves to respond to both the socio-cultural and the economic wishes of the citizens. Providing the basis for community, closeness, and participation, for instance, serves to satisfy the inner person of individuals in their ethnic identity and its defining entities: language or dialect, kinship, religion, physical proximity, nationality or physical features of the people (Schermerhorn, 1970: 12). The federal

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provision of efficiency, a spirit of experimentation and needs-related production, on the other hand, is a response to the economic wishes of the people.

In Uganda today, the government system is undoubtedly decentralised, but still it concentrates too much power in the president. For example, Articles 98, 99 and 113ff of the constitution give the president both immunity from prosecution while holding office, and almost unlimited powers to appoint people to key offices including the cabinet, judiciary, and security organs. Indeed, even at district level, the core unit of the current decentralising drive, the government maintains control of key governance mechanisms.

As Tripp has succinctly noted,

The president directly appoints the RDC, who represents the government and the president in the district and advises the district chairperson. The chief administrative officers (CAO) are appointed by and report to the LC 5; however the central government can influence these appointments (and has done so), because it controls the funding of district administration. Such political appointments ensure political control is maintained. These are generally not people with experience in administration; their main qualification is their allegiance to the NRM (Tripp, 2010: 117).²⁷

But Uganda’s heterogeneous societies have different political preferences which are embedded in their unique histories and cultures. They may, therefore, benefit more from some kind of autonomous powers of provincial (read ethnic-regional)

27 The Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) is technically the administrative head of a district. The CAO's responsibilities include spearheading public service in the district and the administration of the District Council. The Residential District Commissioner (RDC) is on the other hand regarded as the President’s representative in the district and reports directly to the President. He is appointed by the central government on top of a popularly elected Local Council V (LCV), its chairman, and the council-appointed CAO.

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administration and legislation as well as guaranteed representation in the central institutional decision-making process. The main objective of designing political institutions is to make them responsive to the wishes of the citizens and the public good (Muller, 2004). In principle, the socio-cultural reality and experiences of the people in a multi-ethnic society like Uganda could map out an almost natural setting for them to nurture their cultural aspirations and social initiatives towards working for the larger good instead of being overly concerned about their personal advancement.

Of the three variants of federalism, therefore, cultural federalism can be seen as an intrinsically essential part of multi-ethnic societies. Political and fiscal federalism can, on the other hand, be negotiated depending on the need and the best means of discerning and providing “the bundles of goods and services that citizens want” (Muller, 2004: 131).

In other words, there is no intrinsic connection between federalism or any other political structure and solving a country’s political and fiscal problems. The historical tragedy in Uganda is that all cultural institutions in the country were at one time abolished with all their centuries-long traditions and cultures. Worse still, the overly strong centrist government has failed over the decades to build strong and reliable political and economic institutions.

There is no causal relationship either between the national self-government path most African politicians chose at independence and the fortunes or misfortunes that have befallen the continent. It can be argued, nevertheless, that ethnically polarized societies are more likely to agree on the provisions of both political and fiscal power if they function as an autonomous unit in a shared arrangement. I will now look at a brief description of

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some of the world’s successful contemporary ‘federations’, some of which are in multicultural settings, before looking at ‘federalism’ in the African and Ugandan contexts.