Museveni halts Buy Uganda Build Uganda policy
- Written by Alon Mwesigwa
President Museveni has reportedly ordered that the on-going campaign for Buy Uganda Build Uganda (BUBU) should not discriminate against businesses owned by foreign nationals.
This, according to people familiar with the order, came after a group of foreign investors approached the president and told him that the BUBU policy was working against them.
“The president has said that [the policy] should not be allowed,” Bank of Uganda's executive director of research Dr Adam Mugume said while addressing the Africa Economic Research Consortium (AERC) in Entebbe this week.
AERC was hosted by Bank of Uganda as a forum that supports research-based policy implementation. BUBU is a policy government had adopted to ensure Ugandans buy products produced by citizens to boost local enterprise growth and innovation.
The policy was also in response of the fact that most supermarkets in the country stocked foreign products, including basics like fruits which are produced massively locally.
The policy quickly sparked controversy with Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, the Bank of Uganda governor, saying it was ill-advised. Mutebile said last year that the policy was inconsistent with the East African common market and customs protocols.
He said Uganda would be in trouble if its peers in East Africa where it sells most of its goods also asked their nationals not to consume foreign products. When the investors approached Museveni, we have been told, he accepted that the policy implementation and wide marketing be stayed.
He said all companies registered as Uganda, regardless of the roots of owners, should be supported. Last year, Julius Onen, the ministry of Trade permanent secretary, said the campaign would be rebranded to Zimba Uganda and then be re-launched. This has not happened.
Meanwhile, the AERC meeting said effective regional integration on the continent was being hampered by national interest, with a lot of countries failing to give concessions.
Bruce Byiers from the European Centre for Development said the ongoing squabbles among some EAC members explain that. Tanzania burnt day-old chicks being imported from Kenya in November last year and January this year; Kenya has also refused wheat flour from Tanzania.
Burundi does not see eye-to-eye with Rwanda. At the EAC summit in Kampala last month, these rifts were not discussed. This cannot allow effective implementation of common policy in the region, Byiers said. He added that countries must go through a self-discovery process and try to first understand where there is a commercial value.
Prof Lemma Senbet, the AERC executive director, said regional blocs on the continent should embrace research-based policy implementation.
amwesigwa@observer.ug
Comments
The Chinese are there to exploit the resources of Africa to sustain it's massive population back home.
The old Chinese saying " if you want to get something just build a road to go and get it".
Kagame would NEVER do like museveni because be belogns to Rwanda!
When will Ugandans wake up to stop museveni?
Without UNITY, the only other option left for Ugandans is 'Independent Tribal States', more so it's our tribal land riches that these wolves are interested in & want to own/control!
Why do Ugandans want thier land riches controled/owned by foreigners?
Why is museveni still chief tribal leader in Uganda, a country he has no tribal land in, but is trying his best to own?
They know that they are using him to plunder, squander and advance their own goods.
Honestly, they must be despising him as I also do despise him. But hey, he's doing his fellow foreigners a service of plundering our Country.
If Ugandans are able to produce the equivalent why should they not get first priorities to boost our local industries?
They should be given chance only but not priorities as they are only looking for markets.
That isn't segregation but priorities which is world wide to protect our infant Industries.
Security wise local investors are more vital because they can't betray their country on harmful goods and services and can easily be discovered.
Recently when a road construction company ( which is wholly owned by foreigners but is registered in Uganda) was being rightly terminated because of violating their terms of contract, including doing shoddy work, the one and only ORDERED KAGINA with the threat of being sacked , to reinstate the said company because " we must give our OWN local companies work to give our people jobs" some rubbish along those lines.
NOW , why did they not take away the work from this local UGANDAN company , which is doing shoddy work, and give it to HIS Chinese investors who would have done a better job.
Do you go and take the whole family to eat at SHERATON (though I suspect that such people will go alone and then buy beans and ugali for the family) because they cook better food than what they cook at home?
Just buy them the right food and ingredients and sent the Mama oh house help to YMCA/YWCA to do a short cookery course.
He even resembles those old photos showing local chiefs bowing to Brit colonialists.
Well done our so-called men in arms who came from that remote bush, ushering a new Uganda over-weighed by modern colonialism from Asia. You have done better than those barbaric, traditional African chiefs
Odongo Otim, it seems you just don't get. Mr. M7 hatred for Uganda/ans is in his bone marrow.
Just to remind you: Mr. M7 is not only the master of violence against Ugandans, but also the master of economic sabotage.
E.g. he maliciously sabotaged the cash economy of Uganda/ans by decimating the financial and productive sector of the economy, which were in the hands of Ugandans: the Cooperatives, the Marketing Boards, the commercial banks (Cooperative/saving societies), Uganda Railways, UCB, etc.
Sembule Steel Mill e.g. came before Roofing e.g., but nobody gave it the support & credit it needed, until it got buried.