Uganda’s quiet crisis of service delivery

_________________

OPINION

By Douglas Mabirizi

Uganda does not suffer from a lack of vision. The long-serving government has consistently expressed a desire to improve the lives of its people, and many national programs reflect this intention. However, good intentions alone do not build nations. Systems do. And in Uganda today, those systems are failing the very people meant to implement them.

At the heart of this failure is a dangerous contradiction: patriotic, competent public servants are ignored, weakened, and silenced, while individuals driven by personal interests thrive within the same structures. This reality has turned public service from a calling into a struggle for survival.

Across ministries, agencies, and local governments, there are officers who know what must be done to improve service delivery. They see inefficiencies, corruption, and waste. They have solutions. Yet their voices go unheard—not because they are wrong, but because the system has been designed to protect comfort rather than truth. Superiors, blinded by self-interest and shielded by hierarchy, have become deaf to honest counsel.

Worse still is the quiet violence of neglect. Patriotic public servants are expected to deliver results without the most basic support. Many lack decent accommodation. Health insurance is either nonexistent or meaningless. Transportation to duty stations is left to personal struggle. Their small families live without security, medical cover, and dignity. A worker worried about rent, illness, and school fees cannot be fully effective, no matter how committed.

This neglect has consequences. Fear has become institutionalized. Speaking the truth is risky. Refusing to participate in wrongdoing is costly. Doing the right thing often leads not to promotion, but to isolation, transfers, and quiet punishment. In such an environment, corruption does not need to be defended—it survives naturally and becomes normalized.

The result is what Ugandans experience daily: poor services, stalled projects, wasted public funds, and a growing distance between the state and the citizen. These are not isolated failures. They are symptoms of a system that crushes integrity and rewards silence.

This is not a rejection of government leadership; it is a challenge to it. A government that truly wishes well for its people must confront the reality that patriotism is being punished within its own institutions. Development cannot be achieved when those meant to implement it are exhausted, fearful, and unsupported.

Uganda does not need more speeches. It needs systems that listen, protect, and empower the honest. It needs leaders who choose national interest over personal comfort. Until welfare, merit, and accountability become non-negotiable, service delivery will remain broken, and development will remain a promise repeatedly postponed.

The nation’s greatest loss is not money and time, it is the silencing of its most patriotic servants. And no country survives for long when its conscience is forced into silence.
The true test of leadership is not intention, but whether the system allows the right people to do the right thing.

The writer is a patriotic youth