Thursday, December 11, 2014

Social Media | a disguised weapon

Often times when the phrase social media is mentioned, Facebook, twitter, MySpace, instagram, WordPress and Blogger cloud the mind.
What boggles the mind is the history of social media dates way back to the postal service origins yet most of the sites listed above were never heard of till the 20th century.

The birth of Facebook as a college project in 2004 and Twitter, a micro-blogging platform in 2006 set a whole new dimension in the perception of online interactions and subsequently social media.
These developments presented with them an array of social, economic, political and religious glitches often disguised in hyped applause.

A Revolution Tool: As witnessed in the "fall of tyrants" in west African countries of Lybia (Muammar Ghadafi), Egypt (Hosni Mubarrak) among others, social media (specifically Facebook & Twitter) played a critical role in coordination of the protests that brought down governments that had for long been stable.

Today, the economies of these states are grappling due to political uncertainty turmoil that these spontaneous "revolutions" have resulted into. With their economics grappling, the standard and cost of living is high, unemployment is on the rise, the health sector is in ruins, investment has greatly depreciated and crime is on the increase.

Social Network: With the evolution of social media, staying in touch with long distanced relatives & pals is as easy as a click of a mouse-button; sounds exciting & too good to be true, doesn't it?
It however leaves a puzzle as to why one can be virtually close to a pal or relative overseas but has no idea that the person aboard the same matatu, seated next to her/him lives next door - is a neighbor.

The i-generation (previously the .com generation) is so preoccupied in typing away in smart phones and giggling to online humour to create a relationship with the community around him - a terrorist could be living next door.

Social life that existed pre-20th century does not exist anymore for gone are the days when neighbors got to know each other and discuss the community's social welfare over a mug of evening porridge; community development and its supervision has been abandoned to governments while citizens popularise, indirectly, their irresponsibility online e.g campaigns like #TGE - Tusaba Government Etuyambe (literary meaning "we plead with the Government to help us") in Uganda can be started over floods resulting from blockage of water gutters by poorly disposed off polythene.

Economy Booster: According to a survey done by the Kenya ICT Board, about 77% of Kenyans spend more time on Internet than on Radio, TV and Newspapers combined. These spend between KSH 500 - KSH 1,000 on internet access on a daily basis. Hold it there! Do your computation.... how much does the government get in form of taxes and how much does the "investor" take home as profit?

The statistics from the Kenya ICT board still indicate that about 62% of Kenyans access internet at least 5 times a day, 65% of Kenyans spend at least 1 hour daily on social media and majority of those use office internet - internet in their respective places of work, most of which do not deal in social media management or communications.
Going by these statistics, 65% of Kenyans could be spending at least 6 hours of their weekly productive time on social media sites and, if done in office, are misappropriating office resources: - you do realise that this is corruption, don't you? That is a whole new topic for another day.

~ #yoursTruly.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Why the commemoration of Teenage pregnancies this World Population Day is a Waste of Resources in Developing Nations

As the world marks the July11th World Population day in commemoration of the day in which it is believed that the world's population hit the 5 billion persons in 1987, again as the purpose of the day dictates the world shall be reflecting on “the population trends and related issues” with focus this year on Teenage pregnancies.

In Uganda it is not the first time that the plight of innocent girls and boys – yes boys as well are affected by the problem world over – is being given attention. In 2007 the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) ranked Uganda 9th with 54.1% of girls married off before clocking 18 years in their 2006 survey publication entitled “Too Young to Wed: Education and action toward Child Marriage”. In their 2008 survey publication entitled “Before She's Ready: 15 places girls marry before 15” by World Vision Uganda ranked 13th in the world with 15.9% of girls married off before the age of 15.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Black Monday Campaign: Who accounts for your taxes?

Does it ever occur to you that with direct taxes scrapped-off in the late 90's; the elite citizens of this country more willingly pay their tithe, participate in / give to charity drives organized by Churches, NGOs, Associations etc than give to government.

Unfortunately for every individual Ugandan avoiding taxes is not an option because for every sum of Ushs.10,000/= that is spent in transactions that pay for ones day to day needs about Ushs.1,800/= is taken to the “public” coffers code named “consolidated fund” which is managed by Government. The fund is meant to serve the ordinary Ugandan by offering quality Health, Education, Transport and other services and infrastructure but an ordinary Ugandan does not stand the opportunity to enjoy that right from the delegated government parastatals.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

THE SECOND NATIONAL ANTI-CORRUPTION CONVENTION,

KAMPALA, UGANDA
CONVENTION COMMUNIQUE
3rd December 2012

I) PREAMBLE

We the over 1000 people of Uganda, having met on 3rd December 2012, from various walks of life including the youth, women, business community, persons with disability, media, political leaders, religious leaders and Non-Governmental organizations, met in Kampala, Uganda to discuss the most pressing challenges and creative solutions to fighting theft of public funds.

Since the first Anti-Corruption Convention that was held on 8th December, 2011, Uganda has lost not less than 1.3 trillion shillings resulting into a situation of deplorable health services across the country, ill facilitated educational infrastructure, spiraling poverty levels, growing unemployment, ethnic tensions, land grabbing, declining fortunes of agriculture, environmental degradation.


Aware that the unraveling theft in the office of the Prime Minister, Public Service, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Local Government, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice are a mere reflection of the trend in other government ministries, departments and agencies. The plunder of public assets can and will have worse impact if not stopped.


II) Today we re-affirm, resolve and commit to Individual and Collective Actions to secure our future as follows;

1. Harness the role of people power in fighting corruption through sustained collective actions that are fundamental to building positive change epitomized through the Black Monday Movement.