Uganda’s development is being sacrificed again
Uganda is sacrificing its development – for the third time – as government directs its attention to hosting the United Nations peace keeping force of 50,000 military and police contingents, and 11,000 civilian staff budgeted at $5 billion (about 11 trillion shillings) a year. Ugandans who don’t know the challenges and implications of a project of this magnitude may dance in jubilation, hoping jobs will be created for Ugandans making poverty history. First of all the peace keepers will be internationally recruited with few jobs if any going to Ugandans with connections. Secondly, besides being the best political donation for Museveni and his NRM party a few months before presidential and parliamentary elections which is bad news for opposition parties, Uganda will also experience unprecedented shortages and high prices.
Uganda’s development has been delayed twice already because of ideological wars – the cold war between the capitalist west and the communist east which began in 1945 and ended in 1990; and the economic war between market forces and state intervention or socialism which began in the 1980s and is still with us although it was officially abandoned in Uganda in 2009. Uganda did very well economically and socially, especially in the 1960s before the impact of the cold war became evident. Donor funds and Uganda taxes were put to good use with tangible results. Quality education and health care were realized, infrastructure such as roads were paved, agricultural production facilitated by cooperatives increased, food security improved and more money was put into the pockets of farmers and those who provided services to the agriculture sector.