The article in Uganda’s New Vision dated March 10, 2010 written by Baroness Kinnock, UK’s Minister of State for Africa is a balanced one. It has touched on areas where progress has been made and where more needs to be done. I wish to highlight a few areas – not for criticism – but to inform the public.
The historic economic relationship between the UK and Uganda has been marked by inequality in the sense that UK determined that Uganda would produce raw materials (cotton, coffee, tea and tobacco) in exchange for manufactured products. Winston Churchill and Fredrick Lugard decided that Uganda’s comparative advantage was in agricultural raw materials although at that time Uganda had a vibrant manufacturing sector and was not producing any of the export raw materials just mentioned above.
With the advice of Baroness Linda Chalker former minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government Uganda government entered into an agreement with the IMF and later the World Bank and adopted a stabilization and structural adjustment program (SAP) beginning in 1987 that has done a lot of damage to Uganda’s society, institutions, infrastructure and the environment. Diversification into non-traditional exports including of foodstuffs (beans, sim sim and fish etc) traditionally produced for domestic consumption has resulted in under-nutrition with serious physical and mental disabilities especially of Uganda’s children. The extensive clearing of vegetation to increase the production of export crops has resulted in serious de-vegetation with adverse hydrological and thermal changes including droughts and floods. Late last year the government did the right thing like other governments around the world: It abandoned the Washington Consensus or SAP.
Uganda has a long way to go in alleviating poverty, promoting development and meeting the MDGs by 2015. With unemployment above 80 percent of the economically active population, 50 percent of whom are university graduates, with the spreading diseases of poverty, crime, alcoholism, human sacrifice, violence and environmental degradation that have reached scary proportions and an economic growth rate that is less than 7 percent as a minimum required for meeting the MDGs, one has great difficulties in applauding progress in Uganda’s development since 1986 when the Movement government came to power through the barrel of the gun with external support.
On political developments, the minister wrote about multi-party dispensation. Multi-party politics at gun point does not serve any useful purpose. All elections in Uganda since 1996 have been marked by violence, intimidation and harassment as well as rigging by the governing party making democracy and multi-party politics in Uganda a mockery. Ugandans have already expressed fear about what is going to happen as we approach the election time in 2011. Uganda is increasingly becoming a one-party state with a life president.
Last year’s demonstration by unarmed citizens in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala was met with brutal armed force that was authorized by the Chairman of the Commonwealth and resulted in more than 30 dead and many more wounded without condemnation by the international community including the Commonwealth.
The minister praised Uganda’s role in the United Nations Security Council. It would have been helpful to elaborate how Ugandans are benefiting.
Finally, we hope that the UK government will continue to put pressure on Uganda government to end corruption and blatant sectarianism and ensure that the forthcoming elections are conducted in a free and fair atmosphere.