Now Uganda’s 456 MPs, who provide a wonderful core market for Kampala’s moneylenders, are going to be given a security detail comprising a team of crack shots and an armoured vehicle each.
Uganda’s hitherto thriving moneylenders are in trouble.
As you know, the descendants of Shylock are adept at the terror tactics in debt collection that their Shakespearean mentor taught them. If you didn’t read Merchant of Venice, you can even get a Kiswahili version that was translated by Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, and enjoy it while grimacing at the pound of flesh that was going to be cut off a debtor’s chest.
But the moneylenders of Kampala also thrive because they give loans very quickly, even before you ask for them, unlike banks that send you back for a tonne of documents. Thirdly, they thrive because of the killer interest rates they charge per day.
Now Uganda’s 456 MPs, who provide a wonderful core market for Kampala’s moneylenders, are going to be given a security detail comprising a team of crack shots and an armoured vehicle each. So how on earth do you start scaring a debtor who is surrounded by trigger happy guards ready to blow your brains out if you just point a threatening finger at their client?
If you live outside Uganda, you may think this is farfetched. But you will soon sympathise with the ruthless, poor moneylenders once you realise that half or more of the MPs’ salaries and emoluments go to Kampala’s Shylocks.
In recent decades, the Speaker at the start of every five-year parliament cycle warns the newly sworn-in MPs not to fall into temptation of debt. At the end of five years, several MPs who are not re-elected end up in prison over debt, forgotten even by their jailers!
When I visited Luzira Prison, I asked to see a couple of ex-honourables I knew were in there, just to encourage them. The friendly officer who had been authorised to show me around yawned politely when I asked who they were.
But he knew all the inconsequential Kampala “socialites” who were cooling off in jail for aggravated fights, debt or petty theft and were ready to call them for me. Since I didn’t know what to talk with about with them, I declined.
Immediately the elections are done and even before the MPs are sworn-in, moneylenders start bombarding them with loan offers. The parliamentary grounds become a vehicle expo as car dealers bring their best wheels to woo the members, especially those who are just “falling into money” for the first time.
The Speaker’s warning is promptly forgotten and as expected, irrational borrowers start falling behind on their repayments. So many deductions, with those to the moneylenders taking priority, start eroding their salaries.
It has become a predictable cycle for an MP. He or she MP gets total emoluments of about $10,000 a month. But many end up taking home 10 or 20 dollars after deductions. It is not funny.
If you discount a few careful and thus very rich members, we can say half the MPs’ emoluments are paid to moneylenders. The 456 MPs earn some $54,720,000 a year. Half of that is $27,360,000. Take that away from the infant moneylending industry and you see the trouble the poor guys are facing.
What indebted MPs have been doing is remaining holed up on the holy grounds of parliament (where immunity protects them from arrest) until midnight, when the moneylenders have gone home.
But now with snipers and armoured cars, why should debtors fear the moneylenders?
Joachim Buwembo is a social and political commentator based in Kampala.
