Afenila (left), meets Frank Gashumba in his office. PHOTOS BY ISMAIL KEZAALA.
(Bwire met Gashumba at his Industrial Area based office for an afternoon to talk about current affairs)
I’m Bwire, a student at Mubs studying Procurement and Supply Chain Management. I’ve been following most of your ideas in the newspapers and talk shows on radio and television.
Don’t trust newspapers because the only true thing about them is the date most of the time. But when you hear someone talk on radio, that is the real them. You can meet the media in a press conference and they publish the total opposite and contradiction of what you said.
But I don’t think it’s just the media that shouldn’t be trusted!
That’s true, it’s not only the media. Ministers, MPs, policemen, name them, are all two-faced. It is the society we have been bred. Look at the way they are hyping PLE results, making it clear that any child who gets more than five points is a failure and society doesn’t appreciate them, yet we all know most of these children didn’t earn their marks truthfully. Put side by side a child who genuinely earned 13 points and one in the papers with four points that they didn’t earn genuinely and you’ll see the difference. My point here is that the media is a tool that shapes the mindset of people.
Our Uganda is confusing, there is too much corruption!
There is no corruption in Uganda. This is looting, the moment someone goes into my account and disappears with a billion shillings and he gets away with it, it’s not simply corruption. I was reading the story about the MTN staff who were taken to court about mobile money issues and it all starts at the top, people think it’s okay to steal.
But I think people steal because the government doesn’t punish such acts.
Tell me one person who is in prison! Mukula? I would support seeing him in prison but where is the rest of the team that he was accused with?
The way you talk about the government, do you live in fear of assault?
I know they can do something and I have always said it on radio. They can assault us, intimidate us, they can even imprison us but they can’t change the person I am on the inside. The most important thing is the government addressing what we are talking about; bad roads, terrible hospitals, access to clean water, good schools.
