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Uganda’s parliament excitedly passed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023 after it was introduced by Bugiri Municipality Legislator Asuman Basalirwa. The bill had suffered a big blow when Andrew Mwenda and his other colleagues petitioned the Steven Kavuma led Constitutional Court which struck it down in August 2014.
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While passing this, parliament made sure all the loopholes are fixed to deny Andrew Mwenda, Fox Odoi and others a chance to gun it down like they did 10 years ago. The bill was signed into law by Museveni in May 2023 and it’s implementation started immediately.
No sooner had Museveni signed the bill than the western powers went on a rampage to protest, calling it a bad law which will hinder development and hamper future funding to the Pearl of Africa.
These spelt doom for Museveni’s government which depends largely on loans, grants from foreign agents. America’s president in his statement regarding the law threatened that Uganda braces for the worst if the law is not repealed.
He said PEPFAR which supports the 1.4million Ugandans risk loosing their lifeline of ARVs which are bought by the agency, Biden said his country would pull out several funding in the Health, Education, Defense and Security, Agriculture among other key sectors of Museveni government.
Indeed the words of Joe Biden came to reality when World Bank on 08th August 2023 suspended any more funding to Uganda because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023. This caused panic as Museveni’s government moved to cut expenditures and even make salary cuts to keep moving. The US has since announced several visa restrictions and also delisted Uganda from it’s lucrative AGOA business forum.
Despite throwing all jibes and words at the World Bank by Museveni, it was clear from the onset that his government will engage the bank since Loan’s and Museveni government are inseparable.
Now in the desperate search for funding to cater for the extravagant expenditures and supplementary, Museveni’s government has revealed that it has implemented most of the demands that the world bank tabled prior to funding suspension. These included creating a conducive environment for World Bank’s staff who are homosexuals to work undisturbed in Uganda.
Speaking recently, Ministry of Finance permanent secretary and Secretary to Treasury Ramadam Ggoobi revealed that a lot has been taking place behind the doors and all the engagements are fruitful and will bring a sigh of relief to the Museveni government which had opted to run to China for loans.
According to Ggoobi, most of the measures demanded are all in place and have all passed through several tests to assure the world bank that Homosexuals won’t be discriminated in the implementation of current and future projects.
“..I want to tell you that we are at the tail end of putting in place these measures, personally i’ve issued a number of circulars to all accounting officers of government, DPP issued a circular to all prosecutors in government, the various high risk heads of health and education issued circulars and we have also gone and tested some of these measures with our project implementing units of the various high risk areas and we are now at the tail end of working and ensuring we put away this risk all together…”-said Ggoobi
He further said that they are not only basing on the measures put in place under the close eye of the world bank but also counting on courts of laws to have the risk the law posses to the homosexuals handled in Uganda. Going by Ggoobi’s words, he draws to a prediction that the constitutional court which is yet to issue judgement might make a 2014 repeat and gun down the Anti homosexuality Act 2023.
For us we are not relying on what’s going on in court, we are doing our work inspite of that layer of intervention by the constitutional court, we have been working at the bank asked us and we have made very good progress”-Ggoobi further said.
Upon signing the bill into law by president Museveni, the same group comprising of veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda who contends that same sex intercourse between people of consenting age and his other colleagues MP Fox Odoi, Prof Sylvia Tamale, Dr Busingye Kabumba, Salome Nakaweesi, Dr Frank Mugisha, Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera, Richard Smith Lusimbo, Eric Ndawula, Williams Apako and the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum petitioned the constitutional court.
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The government side led by the Attorney General and the petitioner’s all submitted their defense and in December last year the justice Richard Butera’s bench said judgement will be issued soon. The fate of the law which has now led to visa restrictions to majority MPs lies with the Constitutional Court bench but Ggoobi’s revelations draws at the otherwise of the ruling.
Uganda has been wondering why of all the countries which have passed the Anti-Homosexuality tough laws including Ghana recently, Why World Bank decided to suspend to Uganda alone but the United States law Makers who appealed to the Bank to take such a decision focused on human rights abuses, corruption and the nature of law which comes with life imprisonment, hefty fines and a death row for people convicted on Homosexuality related cases.
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