Friday, May 3, 2024 - President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has claimed that the West and various international monetary lenders keep Africa in continuous poverty.
Speaking at the World Bank’s International Development
Association summit for African Heads of state, held in Nairobi, Kenya, Museveni
took a bold swipe at world leaders saying that most of Africa’s problems
predicted over 60 years ago were a result of philosophical, ideological, and
strategic economic mistakes.
He claimed that a fundamental African problem is that aid
from the World Bank and other Western bodies was majorly for profiteering.
“The crisis which is in
Africa today is because of philosophical, ideological, and strategic economic
mistakes which we have been talking about since the 1960s. It is not an
accident when you see the crisis in many African countries, the collapse of
States. We predicted this in the 1960s – philosophical, ideological, and
strategic mistakes. I don’t have time to amplify each one but I was very happy
to hear the president of the World Bank talking about prosperity instead of
profiteering.
“Aid has been for
profiteering, this has been the problem. Now, the World Bank people and other
groups have been talking about sustainable development. Even in your documents,
I have seen those words there, sustainable development”, Museveni stated.
He argued that what Africa needed to thrive as a continent
was not a sustainable development as suggested by the World Bank, or other
world lenders but social and economic transformation.
He urged the World Bank and world leaders to quit pushing
sustainable development as a key factor in achieving a developed African
continent.
“I would ask you to change
those words in your documents. Africa does not need what you could call
sustainable development. Africa needs social and economic transformation. The
main reason why there’s no growth is because the growth factors are not funded,
they are not even understood. What are the growth factors, we now talk of
private sector growth. Yes, but for the private sector to grow what does it
need? It needs a low cost of production”, he said.
According to him, adequate funding for the transportation,
power and agricultural sectors will boost low production costs.
“Ministers of finance, what
are the low costs of production? Number one is transport. You must have low
transport costs. Where do low transport costs come from? The railway? If you
don’t fund the railway how will you get low transport costs?
“Wonderful people, IMF, where
will low-cost operations come from if you don’t have a railway? If you don’t
fund the railway, how would you get low transport costs? I have been here for
the last 64 years, I have been watching as a student leader, as a freedom
fighter and now as the leader of a country. How many railways have been
constructed or funded in Africa? The few that have been was by China, the
Tanzanian railway to Zambia, and recently, another one here in Kenya. Tanzania
on their own is building a railway line. So if you’re talking of developing
Africa, fund the railway. If you fund the railway, you will have a low cost of
transport and you can produce cheap products which can be bought all over the
world.
“The second cost pusher is
electricity. If you don’t fund electricity and you talk about sustainable
development, what are you then talking about? We must have low-cost electricity
not exceeding 5 cents per kilowatts, per hour. That is what I insist on in
Uganda. I am tired of all these stories, I have put my foot down saying I don’t
want to hear those stories. Uganda is a developing country and it will continue
to develop because I don’t entertain nonsense anymore.”
Speaking further, Museveni who has ruled Uganda for over 40
years accused the World Bank and Western leaders of refusing to lend him money
for capital projects such as establishing the Uganda Development Bank.
He lamented the rate at which loans are promptly approved
for ‘’frivolities'' but not for serious projects that would yield economic
gains.
“Borrowing, for what?
Capacity building! Imagine! They call you to a hotel where you eat Chapati and
mandazi, and they say that is capacity building. Capacity building should be on
the ground and not just in seminars. So, the second point your Excellencies is
electricity. The third one; is for those people who talk about private sector
growth, I have been trying to borrow money for our Uganda Development Bank, a
bank which funds manufacturers, but no, I don’t get support for that.'' he said
“They say they want my people
to go to commercial banks. Those commercial banks are to encourage import
because the only person who can borrow money from a commercial bank and pay it
back is a trader who goes to China, Dubai buys goods, sells them quickly and
pays the loan back. So, if you are serious, I need it here, about the low-cost
funding for manufacturing, not stories.”
“How about funding for
irrigation? Because if you want to stabilise agriculture, a country like Uganda
is very rich, we have got everything. But sometimes, we have some erraticness
because of the rains. So, to stabilise irrigation I’ve been trying to look for
a loan for irrigation but I can’t easily get it, it is very difficult to get.
But a loan for seminars is very quick.”
Watch the video below
AFRICA: 'FROM SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT [IN FACT UNDERDEVELOPMENT] TO SOCIO-ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION - PRESIDENT YOWERI MUSEVENI TAKE
— Prof Jonathan Moyo (@ProfJNMoyo) May 2, 2024
In a signature address to African heads of state and government at the International Development Association (IDA21) for the African Heads of State… pic.twitter.com/ICK8bLC2Hb
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