Tag Archives: factors

External factors in Uganda politics

It would be a big mistake to discuss Uganda politics since independence in 1962 without a consideration of the role of external factors. External support can be in the form of commission or omission. The pre-independence politics was manipulated externally to defeat DP and Catholics and pave the way for Protestant UPC/KY and Obote as leader of the coalition and executive prime minister at independence. The coming to power of Amin in 1971 had a huge external involvement and sustained him in power until 1979. The overthrow of Obote II government in 1985 involved a heavy external hand operating from within and without Uganda. Obote was denied external funding at a particularly difficult time under the pretext he didn’t stick to one of the conditions set by the IMF and the World Bank cut off funding after Kanyeihamba and his colleagues convinced it at a conference in one of the Scandinavian countries on the basis of human rights violations and the World Bank switched support to NRM while still in the bush.

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Salient features in government’s reports to parliament

This week, we received one report and two speeches that were presented to parliament: report on the background to the budget for 2011/2012 fiscal year; Museveni’s address to parliament; and budget speech to parliament delivered by the minister of finance on behalf of the president. This is an annual exercise. The mandate, criteria used and data selected have distorted or omitted vital information.

1. The mandate of the background report to the budget is to highlight priorities of the coming national budget in the context of key economic trends and recent performance of government programs. The president’s mandate is to report what was done in the last twelve months and to appraise members of parliament of plans and strategies for the next twelve months. The mandate in the budget speech is to present to parliament estimates of revenue and expenditure for the financial year. Thus, in the three documents there is no specific mandate for reporting on the impact of government programs on ecological and human conditions such as soil erosion, poverty and malnutrition reduction. This is a serious shortcoming since development should be sustainable and human-centered.

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