Editorial
Dec 12, 2003
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First it was the eccentric chairman of Luwero District, Haji Abdul Nadduli, who took it upon himself to encourage simple folk in the villages to procreate with abandon. Mr Kirunda Kivejinja, who is the minister for the Presidency, has now joined him in proclaiming the alleged benefits of large families. In the spirit of free speech, the two men cannot be begrudged the right to hold and express an opinion � however suspect it may be. But note that the last official wealth survey placed Uganda�s income per capita at below $ 300, with most households surviving on less than $ 2 a day. Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, two institutions that have for long held out on Uganda�s purported bright economic prospects, have recently confessed that the future is pretty dim. They have admitted that Ugandans are rapidly getting poorer � and without very much hope of a brightening of things. This reality is being blamed on the failure of the previously hallowed Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). For instance, private sector-led growth (a subsequence of the total privatisation doctrine) is in free fall. The new thinking is for government to get back into �strategic sectors� of the economy in the hope that some life will be injected into them. SAPs have generally maintained macro-economic stability, with inflation particularly being restricted to a single digit figure. But a worsening balance of payments situation, coupled with a dearth of new local investment through which the tax base could be widened has severely constrained revenue collection. The war in the north has equally exerted a strain on the scarce resources available for public expenditure, and since government is the biggest source of business, the implications must not be difficult to see. In a word, Uganda is in the middle of what is euphemistically referred to as an economic downturn. The more appropriate definition, however, would be a �recession�. When the reality of the country�s poverty is juxtaposed against the clamour for larger families, the inappropriateness of bearing many children becomes starkly obvious. The two gentlemen playing around with this romantic view of having many children must be able to see our point. |
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