Like I have stated before, who ever pays the pipper call the tune. Kaguta must have
forgoitten that his dictatorship depends on the donor commuinty for the very survivul
of his dictatorship. That stated, the donors have every right to reject whatever
Uganda budget which does not server their interest.
speaking of this so called Uganda soverenity thing, that I am afraid was and has
been sacrified a long time ago by the NRM military dictatorship on the high alter of
NRM political expedience.
Matek
Donors Cannot Reject Budget, Says Museveni
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New Vision (Kampala)
May 15, 2004
Posted to the web May 17, 2004
Kampala
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has said only Parliament can reject the budget of Uganda.
He was reacting to newspaper headlines after the donors on Thursday refused to endorse
the draft budget for 2004/5 prepared by the Ministry of Finance.
"Our budget can only be rejected or approved by Parliament," he said.
"What you call donors cannot reject the budgets of the sovereign Republic of Uganda,"
said Museveni. "What the newspapers could have said is that the Government and donors
disagree."
"Our budget is not for them to approve or disapprove. We get support from them. If
they don't agree, the only thing that they can do is to withdraw their support but our
budget will go on," he said.
"In the event that we don't agree, we will stand on our own resources. And our economy
will develop even faster than it has up until now."
"Our budget can un-depend on the donors if necessary. We can stand on our own if
necessary because that is what we have done in the past when we had serious problems."
"Finally what you call donors are in fact people who are bringing back some of the
resources that they have been taking out of Africa for a long time. In fact Uganda has
been the real donor. We lose more money through unfair trade than we get from aid," he
said.
"What I cannot do is to stop thinking and someone thinks for me," he said.
However, Museveni said he would meet the donors to discuss the details of the budget.
He admitted that the high cost of public administration was problematic and said he
had asked the finance minister to draw up proposals to solve it.
"However, some of that high cost is due to our enthusiasm for empowering marginalised
people, both in local and in national government," he said.
He said he would be calling a meeting of the National Executive Committee and then a
National Conference of the Movement to discuss proposals on how to reduce the cost of
public administration.
He said this was necessary because the whole country would be affected and it might
even require constitutional amendment.
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He defended the cost of presidential advisers saying that they do not cost much yet
they "help us maintain political cohesion in Uganda while we carry out serious
reforms."
On the proposed further increase in defence spending, Museveni said, "We have been
underspending on defence for the last 14 years since 1991 when we reduced the size of
the army. We cannot repeat that mistake again."
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