Is Uganda for middle income status or middle class citizens?

In Summary

As our leaders call for a middle income status, they should remember that this will be accompanied by citizens who have a greater stake in politics because they have a greater stake in the economy with durable assets, paying more taxes and hence have a direct interest in making government accountable.

I was motivated to write this article because of a piece I saw in the Daily Monitor of June 22 titled, ‘What does the Middle Income Status mean?’ by Matsiko Kahunga.
He argued quite eloquently about the futility of statistics in describing economic phenomenon and illustrated how a country with two people, Mr Bucks and Mr Pauper, can lead a deceptive measure that assigns an income to both that can take Mr Pauper – one of the parties- 500 years to earn.
While this is true, I would want to add a rejoinder that takes this debate in another direction. We need to talk, not only about middle income status country but middle class citizens. For starters, I wonder if our leaders are thinking about creating a middle income status country with middle class citizens. If that is the case then how we proceed with such a project requires a real change in mindset and how we do development.

For starters, middle income citizens should be earning at least between $6,000 and $30,000, which roughly translates to between Shs20 million to Shs100 million which is a monthly income of between Shs1.5 million to about Shs9 million per month. These figures come from Goldman Sachs, the global consultancy firm in investment banking and securities.
While I do not have figures for Uganda, I know that the number of people earning a salary within this bracket has been growing in the country. If we were to use some rough indicators of how many houses have been built across Uganda, or even the number of cars in Kampala and other towns in Uganda we can also claim that there is some growth leading to middle class citizens in Uganda.

Globally, it is projected that the number of middle class citizens will reach two billion people by 2030. This is from a study by the European Union Institute of Security Studies. This is good because anyone who owns a supermarket and or works for Uganda Revenue Authority would love for these numbers to increase because it means a larger market, higher consumption and more taxes hence a vibrant economy.

This, I presume, is behind the thinking in the declaration by President Museveni that the next Cabinet will propel us to becoming a middle income status country.
But while my economist colleagues define middle class in terms of monetary status and level of consumption, it is important to note that it is more than that. Middle income status is also about the level of education of citizens, the occupations of citizens, the ownership of assets by citizens and even the general political behaviour of citizens. For instance, it is not surprising that in places where we find the semblance of middle class citizens, especially in urban areas, we also find significant political activity that questions that status quo.

In fact, there is a study that shows that when people are educated they do attach higher value to democracy, individual freedom and tolerance for alternative lifestyles. For such people, middle class is not about security of their families – the ‘kasita twebaka otulo’ (at least we can sleep at night) mindset, it is also about new choices and opportunities for themselves and their families. In a middle income country, the middle class will inevitably be more aware of world events and be more connected to people with similar social classes outside Uganda. I know many Ugandans who now cannot leave Uganda to go for Kyeyo because they feel they can attain that lifestyle here at home.

As our leaders call for a middle income status, they should remember that this will be accompanied by citizens who have a greater stake in politics because they have a greater stake in the economy with durable assets, paying more taxes and hence have a direct interest in making government accountable.
It is also important to note that the newly arrived middle class citizens, who inevitably are younger, will be more likely to engage in political activism so that they can get their way. So while we all want to become a middle income country, the attendant consequence is that this will lead to a rise of middle class citizens both economically and politically.

In this case, our leaders should not rest on their laurels, simply because they hold elections every five years and the opinion polls continuously give them over 60 per cent popularity. The technologically empowered middle class that is on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp will be highly demanding of their politicians and government and that is the price of creating a middle income country with middle class citizens and the price is not negotiable.
ssewakiryanga@ngoforum.or.ug