CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
|
Uganda |
POLITICS
International donor organisations may consider Uganda to be an example
to follow.
But do the country’s citizens think along the same lines?
Last Christmas was very bad for Donozio Wasswa, a government worker, because he did not get his salary in time for Christmas, so had very little to spend on enjoying the festive period. His situation was very similar to that of many Ugandans who are now beginning to suspect that something has gone terribly wrong with their country.
Donozio wondered whether this has anything to do with the war in Congo RDC as there is an on-going suspicion everywhere, that the war in Congo RDC is causing a huge haemorrhage in Ugandan finances. Donozio recalls what happened a few days before Christmas 1999. «I went to my bank to see if my pay cheque had been deposited there. I found nothing and the bank staff asked me if indeed I was expecting anything!» It must be remembered that shortly before Christmas 1999, government workers had complained that they did not get their usual bonuses.
The non-payment of salaries and bonuses had a ricochet effect on the traders in the markets who were hoping to sell more goods over the Christmas period — which did not materialise. Hamid Mukasa is a butcher. He explains: «Ignoring cautious advice from my colleagues who warned me there was less money in circulation than in previous years, I slaughtered three cows. In fact, I only managed to sell 57 kilos of meat».
Both civil servants and businessmen are crying foul. They think the government is up to something. Just before the Christmas period, the computers at the Ministry of Finance jammed. The explanation was that despite the Ministry’s computers having been certified as millennium-bug free, a virus had entered the system and destroyed some vital information. This resulted in delays in payments.
«This needs to be investigated», says Kanyike, another civil servant. «We knew everything was okay, because donors had given money to correct our computers. So what happened? Where did the money go?».
Suspicions
There is a general suspicion that the government is spending Shs. 1bn every month for the war effort in Congo RDC, an investment which is only making the situation even more murky, resulting in tribulation for all. The government has never come clean on this matter, because the financial implications Uganda’s involvement in Congo’s war is classified as «privileged information». But this has allowed room for rumour-mongering especially with regard to the way the tax-payers’ money is being spent.
Suspicions have been further fuelled by a gradual weakening of vital sectors of the economy as everything is slowing down. The Ugandan shilling which was believed to be stable, lost 25% of its value in a single year. The job-creation situation is pathetic. In seven years, only 80,000 jobs have been created which is a fraction of the country’s job-creation needs.
There are indications of growing frustration among the ordinary citizens and the Ugandan leadership is being talked about as being unable to solve the country’s problems, let alone the whole region! Some political analysts believe that Uganda’s leaders have had a tendency of mis-diagonising problems facing Uganda and the region as a whole, and therefore they may not be the ones to come up with answers that will cool the situation. Some of Museveni’s critics accuse him of thinking in terms of a military solution as the only way out for the region’s problems.
Such analysis’ are obviously annoying Museveni. In his New Year Message for the year 2000, he said: «I read in the newspapers that some political analysts accuse my government of running out of ideas and having no solutions. It’s not true, as we have changed our strategies». (The President is possibly referring to the fact that he has already passed an Amnesty Act pardoning all rebels who “come in out of the cold”. In December, Museveni met with President Bashir of Sudan and the two agreed to exchange diplomats. He has also been battling to extinguish the flames of war in Burundi. He chaired a commission that unanimously agreed to appoint Nelson Mandela as mediator for warring factions in that country.)
But again, all is not well. In Burundi, the Council for the National Defence of Democracy (CNDD), a Burundian opposition group, have said they don’t want Mandela as their mediator because his choice is one-sided and apparently may favour the Tutsis. Also, Museveni’s progress in seeking an end to Congo RDC‘s war, is beginning to falter. Especially when Uganda is accused of «taking sides». However, to those doubting Thomases who thought that Museveni’s government may not lead them into the biblical promised land of Canaan, his message at the dawn of the new millennium was clear: «The National Resistance Movement Government is stable, strong and in a position to shepherd the country into the new millennium, just as it rescued the country from previous chaos.
Let’s wait and see if the President can deliver the goods!
ENGLISH CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 2000 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement