COMMENTARY: Museveni’s Industrial Policy Is Right — But His Crony Capitalism Isn’t
A fierce intellectual battle is playing out on X (formerly Twitter) over the future of Uganda’s industrialisation — and at its heart lies a question President Yoweri Museveni has so far failed to answer: Who gets to be a winner?
The debate began when journalist Andrew Mwenda penned an April opinion piece titled “When Old Age Strikes a Leader,” questioning the President’s leadership capacity. Museveni fired back forcefully. Supporter Elison Karuhanga then took to X to defend the President’s economic record, arguing that virtually every major industrial power — from Detroit’s car industry to Silicon Valley to China’s Huawei — was built on massive government subsidy and infrastructure investment.
So far, so reasonable.
But when Anthony Natif, a governance campaigner, stepped into the ring, he delivered a devastating blow — not to Karuhanga’s thesis, but to Museveni’s execution of it.
‘Pretend businessmen’
Natif’s core argument is brutal and refreshingly direct: “I don’t believe that even in 10 lifetimes, Mr Nelson Tugume and Mr Matthias Magoola are Uganda’s version of John D. Rockefeller.”
His charge? These are not visionary industrialists. They are “pretend businessmen with access to powerful political networks” — “more trusted guarantees of kickbacks for their political pathfinders.”
It is impossible to read this and not recall the images of former Speaker Rebecca Kadaga introducing Magoola and his team to President Museveni as national champions. What exactly had they built? What innovation had they risked capital to develop? The question hangs unanswered.
Natif insists that “no amount of state largesse will turn them into winners of a complex game of capitalism that actually respects merit.” The marketplace, he notes, “doesn’t care about political colour” — it “respects smarts, strategy and execution.”
Where Museveni is right
To his credit, Natif concedes the President’s larger point. Ugandan entrepreneurs cannot build regionally competitive companies while borrowing money at 28% annual interest. “They’d have to sell cocaine to get there.” Government must play a role in de-risking enterprise, providing patient capital, and building infrastructure.
He cites the US pharma industry, built on NIH grants. He cites Obama bailing out Detroit. He cites Samsung and Huawei. On this much, Museveni is “bang on the money.”
The masses, Natif argues, actually understand this. What they don’t understand is the selection criteria.
The unanswered question
Here is the wound Museveni has refused to dress: “Must we all first personally know an Odrek Rwabwogo or a Rebecca Kadaga before our ideas are found palatable to state bean counters?”
That question — which Museveni “skirted” in his ferocious response to Mwenda — is the real story. It explains the public’s cynicism. It is not that Ugandans oppose industrial policy. It is that they have watched state resources flow repeatedly to well-connected insiders with no track record of genuine business success.
Museveni, Natif argues, is “a victim of his failed hiring practices.” His ministers cannot defend his policies because they were not chosen for their smarts. They were chosen to “fill a regional representative slot.”
Investment Minister Evelyn Anite, whose docket directly covers this issue, would rather “debate online hoodlums about an ambulance” than engage substantive economic argument. She understands “she wasn’t chosen for her smarts.”
This is damning — not because it is unfair, but because it is recognisably true.
The lesson
President Museveni is 81 years old. He has governed Uganda for four decades. He has genuine achievements in stability and infrastructure development. But on the question of building a capitalist class that can compete regionally and globally, he has consistently chosen political loyalty over economic merit.
The result is a crony capitalist system where access matters more than ability — and where genuine entrepreneurs with good ideas but no political godfather struggle to access capital or state support.
Natif ends with a pointed observation: None of Museveni’s communications people have “bothered to get into the intellectual ring” the way Karuhanga did. They have merely “parroted his words” and “made AI-generated fliers.”
That silence is its own confession.
The President cannot escape blame for the public’s failure to understand him, Natif concludes. “He chose fishermen for ministers.”
Until that changes — until competence replaces connections as the currency of state support — Uganda will continue to produce Tugumes and Magoolas, not Rockefellers. And the country will remain poorer for it.
About The Author
