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By Oweyegha-Afunaduula
M23 rebels have been disturbing Kinshasa for a long time in their quest to either break Eastern Congo away from DRC or capture power in Kinshasa, and the Government of Uganda has been fighting ADF rebels in DRC.
The Uganda Government has said it can crash M23 rebels at the speed of lightning. Why hasn’t Uganda defeated both M23 and ADF if its priority is to free DRC of rebels? Isn’t it true the Government of Uganda has said it is using UPDF to build a road or roads in DRC to promote trade between that country and Uganda? If Uganda government has failed to crash ADF what capacity has its military to crash both M23 and ADF? What interest exactly do the rulers of Uganda have in DRC that has made them tolerate the operations of M23 and ADF?
Government of Uganda spends most of the national budget on conflict generation and conflict crashing. It has a hideous classified budget to fund wars, politics and may be the corruption of the already rich and powerful. I don’t know how much of the 1.7 trillion shillings that Parliament of Uganda has allowed the Government to borrow at the exorbitant 15% interest will go to wars, politics and corruption.
We have not been told how much of the money will go to human capital development, agriculture, health, pensions or salaries of Government workers. We know a big chunk of the money will go to State House. We now know that each man, woman, child and unborn will have to pay a million and a half to make good outstanding loans to international and domestic money markets.
We also know most borrowed money is for things, not development. All this amounts to one thing: Retrogression; development in the reverse. Why should we develop in the reverse when countries around us experiencing forward development?
During the reign of Apollo Milton Obote in the 1960s, the countries now called the Economic Tigers of Asia, which include South Korea, Singapore and China, would seek advice from Kampala on how to grow an economy. The government then spent a miniscule of the national budget on accumulating weapons of war and more on the agricultural economy, education economy and health economy.
Government wanted an economy in which the people were food secure, health secure and education secure. That is no more. The focus of the Government of Uganda is on wars and refugees, not agriculture, economy, health, education. As a result, impoverishment of Ugandans in terms of food, health, education and total economy is rising astronomically.
For the love of war and refugees, Uganda has become the lame duck of East and Central Africa. As I have said many times in the past, Uganda is like a car stuck in mud in reverse gear with a driver who is stuck in stagnancy, not sure how to go forward.
I have already written about the dangers of growing a refugee economy. One thing is true. Refugees eventually capture countries, capture economies, capture power, capture countries and capture the future of those countries they capture.
All decision-making is by the invasive refugees. Aboriginals do not make decisions in Australia; Red Indians do not make decisions in USA, Canada or the countries of South America; and the Maoris do not make decisions in New Zealand. Refugees make decisions for them – even decisions as policies and laws to serve their selfish interests. If you want, you may ask why the rulers of Uganda are interested in accumulating refugees and securing them while increasingly exposing Ugandans to rising insecurity.
Uganda will not develop, be transformed or progress in the 21st Century unless leaders acquire new knowledge, wisdom, understanding and insight in how to manage a budget in the interest of Ugandans rather than foreigners, or the narrow interests of some of our rulers.
God will help Uganda if the rulers do not continue to play “God”, humble themselves and become human enough to work to change the lives of the poor and needy of Uganda for the better, not worse. The poor and needy of Uganda these days include some of our best educated. They have been rendered so by an economy oriented towards wars, refugees and enriching a few individuals at the expense of the majority of Uganda.
For God and my country
The Writer Is a Ugandan Scientist And Environmentalist
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