How Uganda became the neoliberal apocalypse

A European friend who has spent time in Uganda recently told me that once one lands into this country from another African country, they are hit by the ruins of neoliberalism to a scale they have never seen before.

He called it an ‘apocalypse’ to underscore an absolute condition of foreign takeover, and domestic collapse. It is a zombie-like condition, something like life after a nuclear apocalypse with zombies and the half-dead roaming the place.

(Well, the ministry of Health said 14 million Ugandans were mentally unwell – and that there could be many more). Because of the ruins around the country, everyone wants to suck the blood of the other.

Everyone is a vampire, not because they are genetic vampires, but because Museveni’s neoliberal embrace has really forced us to the wall. It is not just that everything is broken down or that core public infrastructures have been simply forgotten and left in ruins (especially as regards public transport, education and healthcare).

But that foreign corporations run the country. They are in charge of our economy and are milking every part of it, leaving the natives with bare bones.

Consider the banks, which charge extortionist interest rates – between 20 per cent and 35 per cent – sadly on entirely racist grounds (that African are untrustworthy), while making sure local competitors are closed down – as Auditor General John Muwanga shocked parliament in 2021.

Consider the gold miners, who have decided to remain unknown to the Ugandan public. The telecoms (specifically, MTN and Celtel/Airtel), which signed monopoly contracts with the government of Uganda – and any new player has to work through them, which actually means paying them – in a supposedly free market economy.

Consider our agro-business sectors, Lake Victoria, coffee, et cetera. All these things are dominated by foreign bullion vans. Consider that while foreign businesses enjoy tax breaks – for over ten years and can close and open the same business under a new name for another tax break – in addition to free land and other perks, the Ugandan businessperson is taxed straight from the acquisition of a loan.

Startups have noted that if a business borrowed Shs 5m from a bank, while the books show Shs 5m in credit; the borrower’s account is debited by less than Ush5m because of related charges and taxes. What world is this?

OUR BLIGHTED LIVES

A white businessman I randomly spoke to aboard a flight to Kampala would, nonchalantly, tell me that they – as foreign businesspeople – are ever shocked by the amount of stuff they can get away with in Uganda especially as regards breaking international labour laws.

While neoliberal policies were enforced onto all of sub-Saharan Africa (except Ethiopia then), Uganda is a special case. It is an apocalypse. For folks that have been lucky to visit the rest of black Africa, things are really different.

The biggest banks in both Kenya and Tanzania are public banks. These countries actually have a functional public transport system, which includes busses and trains.

A Kenyan mother soon-to-go-into-labour, told a Ugandan medical worker at a supposedly fancy private hospital that she had to return to Kenya because their public hospitals were way better than anything Uganda offered on the private market.

To this end, while those countries are still under neoliberal occupation, they have managed to craft space for their natives to thrive. Tanzanians, Zambians or Kenyans might not be really well-off – say as North Africa – but their condition is not as bad as Uganda.

The leaderships in those countries still have a bit of heart for their nationals. They fight to empower them and create space for them. Indeed, Kenyans are standing up against William Ruto because he is trying to do a Museveni on them – fully embrace this neoliberal virus.

MUSEVENI IS A WEAK PRESIDENT

In our time – under this neo-colonised world – the measure of the strength of a president is not in how much they stay or stand over their people.

But how much they are able to stand up against an empire – against his new wave of colonialism masquerading as Western benevolence: against the marauding corporations, against IMF and the World Bank.

Measured against this yardstick, Museveni comes off as the weakest in our history. Indeed, this explains his longevity in power. Pundits tend to humour themselves about Museveni’s genius.

They claim that the man is a ‘strategic thinker,’ with a good ‘intelligence network’, and ‘is also very brutal,’ and these things have kept him in power. On the contrary. These are things that one pulls off when they are confident about their backers.

Even Israel cannot pull these things off against helpless Palestinians if they didn’t have America holding their back. Dear reader, had Museveni attempted to empower his compatriots economically – exactly by refusing to auction our economy to foreign corporations – he would be branded a ‘communist,’ (which he is not) and either bombed out of office or sanctioned to the bone. In just one phone call, they will demand that he leaves office.

See, American problem with Cuba’s Fidel Castrol was that he “listened to his people too much.” Indonesia’s Suharto had his 32-year-old rule come to an immediate halt the moment he exhibited hesitance to embrace neoliberalism. You cannot imagine the amount of pressure Prime Minister Meles Zenawi came under for choosing to empower his people.

The beauty with other countries is that they have found life through change. Because every time a new president comes on the scene – especially through elections (I know) – they are allowed or are able to craft themselves a small space to wriggle themselves out of the IMF-WB conundrum.

Because these new colonial institutions are forced to deal with a new team entirely. This is what Uganda has been denied all this while and explains our condition in the context of our neighbours.

yusufkajura@gmail.com

The author is a political theorist based at Makerere University