Let’s put an end to Ugandan aid
Three years ago, the Irish Government diverted €10 million in direct budgetary support, which had been destined for the Ugandan government, to poverty alleviation programmes, citing corruption and mismanagement concerns.
A further €2 million in aid was cut to Uganda last year.
These corruption concerns have not yet been allayed, with Britain - Uganda’s biggest aid donor - cutting £15 million in aid and freezing another £5 million last December over the arrest of a political opposition leader and concerns about Museveni’s rule.
This was preceded by cuts to budget support to the Ugandan government by Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway and the World Bank over problems with political transition, human rights, the fight against corruption and macro-economic management.
During the summer the independent public-private partnership, Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, suspended its grants to Uganda after an investigation uncovered evidence of “serious mismanagement” of the funds.
The Minister of State for Development Cooperation and Human Rights, Conor Lenihan, has explicitly stated that Ireland advances direct budget support only to those recipient governments who are evolving “along a proper democratic road”.
This followed the department’s decision to re-route money pencilled in for Ethiopia for the period 2005-’07 as a direct consequence of the heavy-handed way that Ethiopian security forces responded to post-election demonstrators, shooting dead 82 protesters in two separate incidents and imprisoning thousands.
Yet despite pronouncements to the contrary, Uganda, a notoriously corrupt country, continues to receive direct budget support as a standard way of administering Irish aid.
The east African country received over €9 million of Irish taxpayers’ money in 2004.
In power for the last two decades, President Museveni arrested his main political rival, has continually intimidated the opposition and allowed the military to interfere in the courts, as confirmed by countless reports from various reputable human rights agencies.
The first multi-party elections in Uganda for two decades are unlikely to be free and fair because of the government’s ongoing harassment of the political opposition, according to a recent report from Human Rights Watch.
A report from a local election monitoring group confirms this, stating that “the unfettered use of public resources by the incumbent presidential candidate has promoted biased media coverage and is undermining the integrity of the electoral process”.
Isn’t it time for us to take a serious look at how the Government channels aid in the developing world? The lives of thousands of the world’s poorest depend on it.
John O’Shea
GOAL
PO Box 19
Dun Laoghaire
Co Dublin
