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A. LE FLOCH
Whether Kinyara Sugar Works Limited workers are right to be concerned about the security of their jobs or not, it is surprising that the local and national leaders have chosen to remain silent and left the matter in the hands of the employers who, as expected, have sought to reassure their employees.
But, perhaps, the leaders' silence should come as no surprise because the plight of Kinyara Sugar Works workers is not unique; low wages, poor working conditions and allegations of exploiting out-growers are found in many large agricultural and industrial enterprises scattered across the country.
Going by the adage that where there is smoke there is fire, a closer examination of these allegations that are also not unique to Uganda leads to the inexorable conclusion that it is time to re-think the development concept that has, until now, been taken for granted. The concept that has been has been that all economic growth benefits the country and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits.
This belief also has a corollary; that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation. Experience over the past twenty years of Uganda's much acclaimed economic growth but which has obviously failed to trickle down to the masses whether in the rural or urban areas should have alerted the country's leadership that this concept is erroneous.
After all, it is apparent to many observers from around the world that unless the government takes deliberate steps to address the wealth gap between the rich and the poor, economic growth benefits only a small portion of the population and may ,in fact, result in more desperate circumstances for the majority.
This leads to the obvious conclusion that the fears expressed by the Kinyara Sugar workers are real and should be tackled in a wider national context involving other workers in the sugar and other cash-crop plantations owned by companies and individuals, both local and foreign.
The investigations should also involve the salaries, wages and working conditions in commercial and service industries with the aim of determining a national salaries and wages policy that would spur economic prosperity for all and not just a tiny minority.
The skeptics of this proposition, and there are many, should take a look at the economic history of Singapore which is fast approaching the economic status of the developed countries.
Singapore's economy only roared ahead of those of other South- East Asian countries after it raised the minimum salaries and wages to a level where it became impossible for local and foreign investors to put their money into industries churning out low-end products.
Whereas it is true that Uganda would need to solve other economic challenges before it could benefit from raising the general level of salaries and wages, surely, it cannot be too much to ask that all employers pay a living wage and creating a conducive working environment for all grades of workers.
If this means turning away investors currently lured by the country's liberal labor laws which some employers have abused to pay their workers slave wages, so be it. The country is better-off without such investors whose interest is to make huge profits from the setting up of sweat shops which have been banned in many a developed country.