Tag Archives: inflation

The people of Uganda are demanding their rights

Enlightenment and dialectics have entered into Uganda’s political economy discourse. They have developed a questioning mind about who is governing them, why our institutions and systems (education, health, nutrition, agriculture, ecology, urban housing etc) are collapsing, why Uganda’s population growth is excluding migrants and focusing on natural growth alone (births minus deaths) which is half the story.

The people of Uganda are beginning to understand their inalienable rights – God-given rights – that no leader can take away. These are not privileges. When a leader denies the people their inalienable rights, they have a right to demand them back. And that is what the people of Uganda are demanding their rights right now. Through disenfranchisement, many Ugandans were denied their right to elect their representatives at the presidential, parliamentary and local levels.

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Has Museveni’s star fallen at the MDGs Summit?

Since 1986, I have attended annual debates of the United Nations General assembly in New York. From this vantage point I have watched, listened and heard world leaders deliver speeches including those by President Museveni.

During his initial visits to the UN in New York, Museveni portrayed an image of a new breed of African leaders. He conveyed a clear political, human rights and economic development message which immediately won him international recognition, causing his star to rise rapidly. He spoke eloquently and convincingly about his determination to end corruption and sectarianism forever; launch full scale democracy based on regular, free and fair elections, full participation of Uganda citizens, transparency and accountability; restore the rule of law and full respect for human rights; and end poverty and its offshoots of hunger, disease and illiteracy in Uganda.

To remove any ambiguity Museveni stressed that his goal was not to reduce but to eradicate poverty! Within a short time, he declared, Ugandans would break the poverty trap and get on a path of sustained and sustainable economic growth, social development and environmental protection for present and future generations. He was soon christened the ‘dean’ of a new breed of African leaders which included the president of Eritrea, prime minister of Ethiopia and president of Rwanda; and a regional ‘leader’ in the Horn and Great Lakes regions of Africa. He was seen as a stabilizing force in a region that for long had been marked by political instability, civil wars and economic backwardness.

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Is Uganda’s new development plan dead on arrival?

Before we examine the emerging fear that Uganda’s new development plan may be dead on arrival, let us outline the background to, and major players in the death on arrival of NRM’s mixed economy ten-point program launched in 1986.

The serious development challenges of the 1970s marked by slow economic growth, rising inflation, unemployment and external debts undermined the Keynesian economic model based on state demand management with a focus on full employment and welfare benefits. The model was replaced by the neo-liberal economic model with inflation control as its principal goal. (It was feared that inflation rather than unemployment constituted a more serious challenge to governments).

The 1980s witnessed elections of conservative governments in developed countries including in the United States and United Kingdom. The leaders in USA and UK believed that governments were the problem and not the solution to development challenges. Consequently, they favored a return to the invisible hand of market forces and laissez faire capitalism. There was no room for mixed economy models because they contained elements of socialism and central planning.

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