HEALTH VS SECURITY: TIME TO RETHINK OUR HEAVY INVESTMENT IN NOW SILENT GUNS AND CLASSIFIED EXPENDITURE.

By Oguzu Lee

Breaking News-- Covid-19 has lifted the veil on security and parliament's rubber-stamping role. We're at war and all our guns are silent. Isn't it time to question our usual sloganeering and reimagine our nation's health and security spending? 

In the name of security and classfied expenditure, a lot of money has been pumped in defence and some spent without much needed scrutiny. As such, security has become a sought-after-investment portfolio for many govermnents of least developing countries that often fail to deliver their citizens to middle income status despite heavy military spending. 

A quick  look at Uganda's budgetary allocations from 2018-2021 clearly sheds light on the disparity between defence and health as our nation's investment priority.  According to Microtrends, Uganda's military spending for 2019 was a 58.13% increase from 2018,  for 2018 was a 17.77% increase from 2017, for 2017 was a 8.86% increase from 2016. In 2021/22 Budget, security still has a chunk allocated as health and others get bundled under human development envelop.

While the economic benefit of Uganda's heavy military investment is still unclear in numbers, Africa's Economic Commission estimates that COVID-19, a resultant biodefense and health security failure will drag African economies into a fall of about 1.4% in GDP, with smaller economies facing contraction of up to 7.8% with significant effect on  primary commodity export, losses in tax revenue which will reduce the  capacity of governments to extend public services necessary to respond to the crisis. Regionally, average of about 5% in public revenue loss and a total merchandise exports contraction by about 17% is expected in Africa. According to World Bank, for a minimum coverage to achieve herd immunity, forty-eight Sub Saharan African governments will require at least $12.5 billion to vaccinate 70% of their population failure of which will cost $9.7 trillion according to estimates by International Chamber of Commerce Research Foundation. At it stands now, Ugandans are more indebted. The country's Debt to GDP ratio is about to exceed recommended threshold. This not only eats into the future generations envelope, it increases their vulnerability, something we must all be concerned about.

So where is our expected biodefense and health security?

As citizens get killed by a virus that entered Uganda due to inadequate biodefense, lack of oxygen in hospitals, inaccessibility to ambulances, exhaustion of unpaid health workers,  absence of adequate ICU beds in Regional Referral Hospitals, scarcity of PPEs, etc, tanks, military choppers and APCs lye idle in military bases.  

Although investment decisions are a factor of Return on Investment ( ROI), our budgetary allocations have largely been shaped by what Prof. Jared Diamond called "protecting the shortterm interest of the elite against the long-term interest of the majority society." To Uganda's decision makers, guns and tear gas can help retain power while investments in healthcare merely help keep citizens alive without a look into the toll of a failed health security for the majority.  

The Lugbara coined this approach to decision making into a popular saying that, "a man with bread in his mouth does not easily recognize the severity of famine." This is typical of Uganda's healthcare investment approach. Because less than 1% are insured, it doesn't matter if we must invest in health of the majority. To add salt unto the nation's wound, some of nation's elite had argued and asserted that, "corruption is good for a country like Uganda" until lack of oxygen in hospitals started killing close relatives. I hope that makes the case health investment clearer. 

For far too long, there has been this believe that heavy investment in guns, army and security forces would offer some sort of blanket guarantee against any form of insecurity without thorough appraisal. To gullible population, public display of these security apparatus meant a secured future until the pandemic struck. The Covid-19 has helped lift the veil on our coveted security (conduit for stealing public resources) while exposing how helpless it's been in the middle of attacks as this. 

Despite declaration of this pandemic as a war by the President Museveni, all the sophisticated weapons ( tanks, choppers, spy cameras) have been rendered silent and unable to help restore good health order. Not even the loots have assured safety of the privileged class.

Now Ugandans are waking up to the brutal truth that the talk about gun power/ security is a hollow and exerggerated talk. It cannot insulate anyone in the face of calamities such as this. Health and food security investment deniers are coming to realization that putting too much money in defence alone while ignoring other forms of security won't assure and secure anybody's future.  

Once again the unknown value of a functional healthcare has been brought to the fore. This explains why our guns are now silent and everyone is turning to our often ignored yet overstretched-health-care system for help. 

Time is also right for the nation to come together, identify and tap its various experts, and throw divisive politics out in order to handle the pandemic as a true national challenge in a unified effort by all.

As ravaging as this gets, the pandemic offers unique opportunity for policy makers to rethink and agree in a bipartisan way that security isn't only in the power and sophistication of guns only.  Security equally means better healthcare, food security and other forms of safety nets. Going forward, the elite and ordinary folks must decide; whether to enjoin advocates of increased healthcare funding in pursuit of real, true security or rely on a false and hollow security promised offered by guns, medical insurance and a short-term benefit of corruption and end up in a common tragedy.