{UAH} THE STATEMENT BY H.E. YOWERI MUSEVENI PRESIDENT OF UGANDA

68th United Nations

General Assembly

New York

24th September 2013

 

 

President of the General Assembly,

Secretary - GenerciJ,'

Your Excellencies Heads of State and Government,

Ladies and Gentlemen;

In the year 2000, we met here and agreed on the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs) for 2015. These are:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;

2. Achieve universal primary education;

3. Promote gender equality and empower women;

4. Reduce child mortality;

5. Improve maternal health;

6. Combat HIV/ AIDS, malaria and other diseases;

7. Ensure environmental sustainability;

8. Develop a global partnership for development.

As you can .see, these cannot be sustainably achieved unless

you" achieve socio-economic transformation. - This means to

build a new society comprising of the middle class and the

skilled working class out of the pre-capitalist societies that

normally characterize under"'-developed countries. Our old

society of traditional Africa had and has to undergo socioeconomic

metamorphosis ~ just like the insects do - take on

new forms of life - egg, caterpillar, pupa, adult, etc. of the

same organIsm.

This means less people in agriculture than in industry and

services; more people in urban centres than in the rural

areas; no illiteracy; modern agriculture rather than

subsistence traditional agriculture or uneconomic colonial

cash crops that bring in little for the affected families.

I hope nobody imagined that you could sustainably attain the

MDGs at the same time as you maintained a backward

economy.

In Uganda we discovered the following bottlenecks to SOCIOeconomic

transformation:

(i) Ideological disorientation.

(ii) A weak State - no army, weak police, judiciary and ,

civil service.

(iii) Inadequate infrastructure such as inadequate

electricity, lack of roads, lack of the railway system,

lack of leT infrastructure, etc. Lack of these,

means high costs for doing business in a given

country. This scares away business. .Without

business, there \X/ill be no emnlovment. no J.. -' '

(iv)

production of goods and services, no expanding of

the tax base, etc. It is avicious cycle.

There was also the questi6n of the undeveloped

1

human resource on account of lack of education

and poor health. An illiterate and unhealthy

population cannot be agents for socio-economic

transformation.

(v) There was the question of small internal markets on

account of the colonial balkanization. These had to

be worked on through Regional Market Integration.

One cannot sustainably produce if sufficient

numbers of people do not buy from him or her.

(vi) Lack of industrialization and lack of the

modernization of the services meant that we

continued to export raw-materials at 10% or less of

the final value of the final product, thereby losing

money and jobs to the outside world. Lack of

modern services meant that we would not attract

tourists and had to import the services from outside

in the form of professional .services, medical

services, etc. apart from missing the jobs that

would be created.

(vii) Failure to modernize agriculture, again, inhibits the

earning capacity of the affected portions of the

population and the country, stunts job creation and

affects food security.

(viii) Then there was the additional mistake of interfering

with theptivate sector - influenced by an incorrect

analysis of the national interest. Was the private

sector causing a haemorrhage to the national

economy by repatriating dividends or was it

creating an infusion of fresh money, knowledge and

expanding' the size of the economy? Fortunately,

this mistake has been corrected in Uganda and in

much of Africa.

These are the bottlenecks that directly affected the rate of·

socia-economic transformation. I do not want to go into the

political bottlenecks here.

In Uganda, therefore, we were clear about all these from the

very beginning. You could not talk of the MDGs sustainably

. without talking about these strategic bottlenecks. You could

not sustainably base yourself on donor support to cause the

achievements of MDGs.

In spite of some mistakes by some of our actors, Uganda has

been able to achieve and will achieve the follo-wing MDGs by

,2015: .

(1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger - already

achieved;

(2) Achieve universal pnmary education ~ already

achieved;

(3) Promote gender equality: already achieved;

(4) Reduce child mortality: achieved;

(5) Improve maternal health: slow in achieving it;

(6) Combat HIV/ AIDS, malaria and other diseases:

on track except for new AIDS infections;

(7) Ensure environmental sustainability by increasing

the electrification of the economy so as to stop the

cutting of· forests for fire-wood (enku) and for

primitive agriculture by modernizing agriculture

and shifting a greater portion of the population to

industry, away from agriculture. :

(8) Develop global partnership by, first and foremost,

working for economic and political integration in

Africa and for mar:ket access to the rest of the world

on the basis of mutual advantage. The process of

market integration in Africa has already started in.

the form of EAC, COMESA, SADC, ECOWAS and

ECCAS.

As part of the global partnership, we should be very careful

not to lose the relaxation in global tensions that came with

!

the end of the Cold War. In the Book Matthew Chapter 7

verses 16-20, it says: "By their fruit you will recognize them.

Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?

Likewise, every good tree bears good jnlit, but a bad tree

bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad

tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good

fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit

you 'will recognize them".

A good system will prove its superiority by ·example. In the

Book of Matthew Chapter 5 Verse 16, it also says: "In the

same way, let your light shine before others, that they may

see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven".

We do not have to kick up new global tensions in order to

deal with the bad guys. \Vhere there is need for international

action, then regional and global consensus should be sought

so that ((we unite the many to defeat the few and isolate the

enemy to the maximum))) as the late Chairman Mao Tse tung

used to say. Where there is need to fight for freedom, the

oppressed people can fight for themselves. They do not have

to be sponsored by external forces. Those who seek external

sponsorship as their primary aim, are suspect to say the'

least. Still on the issue of global partnetship, I cannot forget

to pint out to the Assembly our anger vis-a-vis actors who are

beginning to .make it a habit to ignore African Union

positions on African matters. One of our slogans in the

decolonization struggle was: "African for the Africans". Some

people seem to think that that was an empty slogan. Those

actors are wrong. Although the patriotic forces have been

taken by surprise by this renewed arrogance by the old

. mistake makers, they will react appropriately to insure Africa

against hegemonism. The latest· manifestation of arrogance

is from the ICC in relation to the elected leaders of Kenya.

Many African countries supported the setting up of ICC

because we abhor impunity.

However, the ICC in a shallow, biased way has continued to

mishandle complex African issues. This is not acceptable.

The ICC should stop. Our advice to them is from very

capable actors who know what they· arc doing· and saying.

Kenya is recovering. Let her recover. We know the origin of

the past mistakes. The ICC way is not the right one to

handle those mistakes.

In our struggle for socio-economic transformation, our

biggest problem was funding. The sill.all colonial modern

economy of Uganda had been destroyed by Idi Amin.

Initially, as we struggled for minimum economic recovery, we

had to depend on external funding. Although useful, this

external funding was limited, slow in comIng, not always

focused and erratic.

Although our economy was able to achieve the average

annual rate of growth of· 6.50/0 per annum, over the last 20

years, with reliable funding for infrastructure especially, we

could have achieved much higher rates of growth.

Now that we have a little bit of our own money, we are able to

implement infrastructure projects much faster. Even without

oil and gas, we were already able ~o move much faster in

terms of infrastructure development.. Of course, additional

external funding, if it is focused, sizeable and on time, can be

very useful. Without any doubt, Uganda and much of Africa

are moving forward robustly. With the resources from oil

and gas, we shall be able to fund all our infrastructure

needs. The future is bright and our forward movement IS

irreversible.

I thank you.

 

 

           Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
           Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"