By Namuli Elizabeth
The Controversial, arrogant renowned Ugandan economist who had running battles with President Yoweri Museveni over economic policy issues -long serving Permanent Secretary Ministry of Finance & Secretary to the Treasury Keith Muhakanizi, has passed on at an Italian hospital where he was receiving treatment for a long illness. He was 64 years old.
Before his death, he was serving as the Permanent Secretary -Office of the Prime Minister. Muhakanizi, sources said has been in and out of office since 2021. He was also flown out of the country during the covid 19 period for treatment in the USA.
One of President Yoweri Museveni s hitherto most feared and equally brilliant technocrats, perhaps after Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Amama Mbabazi, and the Bank of Uganda Governor, Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, Muhakanizi was loved and hated in equal measure locally and in foreign capitals -for his straight talk to emancipate Uganda and Africa’s s economies.
Sources told this publication that President Museveni respected Muhakanizi because he was one of the few who never presented populists’ ideas to ” please the principal”.
“He was a straightforward man who loved his country and Africa. He opposed ancient economic ideas by the imperialists that were meant to keep Africans backward. He strongly believed in the model of African s self-reliance because we have everything for our wellbeing “- a senior economist who worked with the late told this publication.
” He was also a very prudent man. Very frugal when it mattered to the national budget. His shortcomings notwithstanding -he honestly wanted every Ugandan to have a share of the ” national care ” another close associate of the late stated.
The government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo on his official Twitter handle briefly paid tribute to Muhakanizi’. He said of the late,” friend to many”.
Keith Muhakanizi was born in Rukungiri District to the late Rev. Kosia Kajwengye and the late Zeridah Kajwengye. He was born to a family of 7 children, 4 boys, and 3 girls.
Mr. Keith Muhakanizi was an ardent Development and Macro- Economist, and a Public Sector Management Specialist with over 40 years of experience in government, rising from an Economist to Permanent Secretary to the Treasury at the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development and recently OPM.
In the 1990s, he played a central role in the formulation and implementation of economic reforms that restored the macroeconomic stability of Uganda’s economy.
Muhakanizi guided the technical and policy development work in the preparation of successive National Development Plans plus more policy reforms and enhancing public financial management to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of public resource use to promote enhanced domestic resource mobilization.
He was at the Ministry for more than a decade and has been instrumental in designing major policy changes along with the late Chris Kassami. Muhakanizi was also a board chairman of the National Housing and Construction Company and a member of numerous other boards.
He served as a Board Member, of the Bank of Uganda, and Chairperson of Housing Finance Bank Limited, Uganda. Muhakanizi is the Chairperson/Ex-official Member of the EPRC Board of Management. He’s a former Director of Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance and former Deputy Secretary of Treasury at the Finance Ministry.
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