Global Policy Forum

By Joachim Buwembo

If you thought you understood Ugandans, think again. Here is a nation that has been suffering from poverty, a huge debt and general deprivation, now standing on the threshold to great wealth, after literally striking oil. You would have expected general excitement in the population, right? Wrong. The common reaction is cynicism. At best, caution and at worst, outright anger. Many of our people are reacting with the uncertainty of a man who has been in prison for decades and is unsure whether he will be able to utilise the freedom when it is finally granted.

Many Ugandans feel that not only do our weak institutions not have the capacity to deliver the benefits from the oil wealth to reach the general population, but our woefully corrupt public officials will ensure that nothing of the sort happens, once exploitation and exportation start. Tests for quality and quantity of the few oil wells so far checked are more than encouraging. It is a question of time; probably, in a couple of years, the country will start exporting oil, a commodity whose prices and demand are rising worldwide every day. We should all be excited and in high spirits. So why aren't we?

Part of the answer lies is our post-independence history. While the pre-colonial and colonial rulers used to devote the bulk of national resources to the benefit of the country, post-independence governments were characterised by mismanagement and embezzlement. They stole the little collected in taxes, stole donations and even stole borrowed money.

Still vivid in the public mind is the way officials have been stealing Global Fund money meant for the treatment of Aids patients. If public officials could not spare the little money that was meant to save lives, how can they resist looting the royalties and taxes from the oil bonanza?

In Uganda, nobody is under any illusion that there is any shred of goodwill and honourable intentions among the senior leaders of government. The public have it on the recent authority of none other than the Vice President of the Republic of Uganda, Prof Gilbert Bukenya, that the government is in the grip of mafia ministers whose sole aim is grabbing public resources for their private enrichment. In such a situation, do you blame an ordinary Ugandan for not being excited to hear that their country is joining the ranks of the oil exporting nations?

Today, everyone is talking of the curse of oil in Nigeria. Will we also fight a civil war with Bunyoro, that neglected kingdom that the British colonialists hated with a passion because King Kabalega resisted them? Today, the Banyoro have sued the Queen of England for trillions in reparations for colonial plunder and murder in the 19th century. Now the oil is in their kingdom, and it is the rest of Uganda that is set to "plunder" Bunyoro.

Are they going to set some conditions like investment in the environment, which we shall duly ignore while proceeding to kill a few Saro Wiwas there? Do we have the honour and common sense to invest a large portion of the oil proceeds in environmental protection and high-quality education for the future?

Even if our public officials become honest overnight, do they have the negotiating power to get the best from the foreign investors who will be exploiting the oil? Our informed people are painfully aware of the story of our East African partner, Tanzania, where rich gold reserves are being exploited at negligible benefit to the nationals, leading MPs in Dodoma to helplessly cry that the country would be better off if the gold were left undisturbed in the ground.

There are others who claim that oil will breed dictatorship in Uganda. They say it will be impossible for leaders to avoid the temptation of clinging to power and hence remaining in charge of the billions of dollars from oil.

Is it right to have such a low level of trust in our leaders or are they the ones who have caused the distrust over the decades? The next few years are going to be interesting to watch. Donors who have just forgiven our foreign debt should wait before they close their wallets. We might still be begging for aid 10 years from now, having scattered our oil wealth to the four winds.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.