{UAH} WHAT WAS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE IDDI AMIN AND UPC GOVERNMENTS IN UGANDA?

Friends

 

As the UPC party gets erased from Uganda politics, we will continue to line up what it did in our country just before we place its casket in the ground. We have spent literary months raising the violence committed in Uganda by Acholi through the protection of UPC, and UPC members have continued to take a stand against the series in so doing protecting such violence. The series are continuing for we are not yet done, but today in a special posting I need to raise a different factor, which will be the difference between how Amin ran Uganda government and how UPC ran Uganda government. One of the major issues I take very seriously on a government is how does it respect the tax payer’s money, so how did UPC and Iddi Amin respect the tax payer’s money? And I will start with Iddi Amin’s government.

 

When you look at the commodities Amin bought for Uganda, they each have individuals that bought them. Honda Accords/Civics were purchased by Moses Ali. Tata trucks were bought by Alamanzani Bamya. Fiat 110NC were purchased by a kid now in UK I forget the name, the tractors that were handed to sub county level were purchased by Ali Fadhul. Police Land Rovers/Toyota and Nissan 260c’s,  were purchased by Ibrahim Mohammed Bilal. And the list continues on and on. There are kids that bought tanks and different assortment of things. Because Iddi Amin believed that we all were Ugandans and we all worried about developing the country, it was the job of whoever is running the system to find out where we can buy what commodity and at what price. But we also had pumpkin heads as Henry Kyemba and Stephen Malinga that got that money and stole it. We had thieves like Paul Muwanga that stole an embassy building and sold it. But by far and large very many Ugandans were handed money and purchased what we needed to run the country and they brought it home. Because Amin was buying cash, we had the ability and a right to negotiate with the buyer, but we had a right to buy from any one with the lowest price, commodities were coming in from United States, from UK, from Japan, from Yugoslavia and you name it, because we had the cash at hand to do so, and in that way we had massive bargaining power.

 

UPC government was purchasing through importation and through bank of Uganda, and they were using a third party always, much of what you see of East African Industries Ltd.  in Kenya is money they got from Uganda for UPC was purchasing through them. In as much as we blame Museveni for allowing Rwanda to suck Uganda dry, UPC government handed Uganda to East African Industries. The British government and The Israeli government were also a major buyers of our imports. By UPC doing that, and by buying from borrowed money, they had no control at what price we are buying but the third party was deciding that. Uganda did not have control at who we are buying from, and they had no control at what price. Many times what UPC did was to list what we  need and hand it to the third party who looks for a company in favor of it, and the commodities show up in Uganda and we pay up. Many of the things they bought were paid by borrowed money at criminal interests. Let us throw in some numbers so that you get a good picture on how UPC abused the tax payer’s money.

 

During Obote two government, Uganda government wanted to buy supplies for UNLA, they did not have the money to do so and unlike Iddi Amin they never had a friend to fund such a massive intake. They went to their very close friend United Kingdom and asked for a loan to refurbish UNLA. They got that loan on a condition that the money was to be put in The Standard Bank Uganda Limited, and it is the bank to purchase what they needed. Among the supplies they so needed was army boots, so they came to Standard Bank with the sizes and number of units they need, the bank found and decided the company to sell to Uganda and the bank decided the price it was willing to pay, and it pays. Defense used to show up at the bank and the bank kept on buying until when the bank tells them that the account is now dry. By doing this we lost literary millions of dollars and the bank made millions of dollars for UPC neglected the powers of price negotiations to a foreign bank.

 

When Iddi Amin was buying army boots as an example, we had a kid that would check the prices we have around, many times we ended up buying them from Kenya, and in Kenya there were two quotes, a government official quote, or a quote the kid would get for he has bought so many boots and they know he is going to come back in a couple of months for another purchase. When you look at the price UPC government bought the army boots through Standard bank Uganda limited, they were purchasing one pair of boots at a price Iddi Amin’s system would have got us 8 pairs out of  Kenya, if you only use the official government quote. If you use the quote the kid was handed for he is a usual buyer, UPC was paying for one pair of boot at a price we were importing 12 pair of army boots. We were screwed way badly by the UPC government for it handed over the authority to a foreigner to buy us the supplies.

 

There are very many ways to look at this problem, {a} UPC can  be taken to be irresponsible and {b} One wonders what they would have actually done to save us some money for they were using only borrowed money, and in borrowed money you became the slave to lender, the master. It is this becoming a slave that Iddi Amin refused and got an open check from good friends that allowed him to look for everything we need and just send the bill. At the sitting of OAU as an example, we needed a whole whack of tires, and on reaching in Good year London office, there were no tires. Good year stated that they had no supply for Tanzania had taken the entire stock and it is on a ship heading into Dar Es Salaam. Iddi Amin wanted to know the conditions of payment for the whole ship, Tanzania had taken them on a loan and they were going to pay in 6 years. In 12 hours the man that was in London got instructions to go to The Libyan embassy and get a check required and pay the whole ship load cash.  The ship captain got his new coordinates which were now reading Mombasa. Uganda got the tires for we controlled the seller for we had the cash.   And these are just a few examples of so many economic decisions that UPC made which were based on atrocious reasoning, where Uganda lost massive amounts of money for we were simply signing authority to foreign interests. Now you know why United Kingdom loved UPC in power and Iddi Amin out of power.

 

Enjoy the weekend with all your truly.  

EM

On the 49^th Parallel          

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