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2022: The hits, misses of President Museveni
President Museveni arrives at the 2nd Annual East African Court of Justice Conference in Kampala. PHOTO/DAVID LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- This year Mr Museveni has scored goals and had misses in politics and the economy of Uganda.
On January 21, President Museveni dispatched Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba for talks with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame. A day after the meeting, Rwanda announced that the common border which had been closed for 35 months would be reopened to both human and cargo traffic on January 31.
The two presidents have since visited each other’s country, a sign that relations between the two countries and their leaders were warming. Mr Kagame visited Uganda in April to attend Gen Muhoozi’s 48th birthday party. He also held bilateral talks with Mr Museveni who on his part attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) held in Kigali in June.
Fighting bail
In February while presiding over the launch of the new law year 2022, President Museveni renewed the fight against the granting of bail on grounds that it is highly provocative. Mr Museveni has since last September urged the Judiciary to stop granting bail to suspected capital offenders.
“The Judiciary also has some problems. There are some wrong elements in the Judiciary. The Constitution says bail may be given. Someone kills another and you give them bail. Really?” the President said in February, adding: “Don’t provoke people into mob [action]. I am mobilising. You will get a very big demonstration here in Kampala by the wealth creators. They are tired of thieves. Some are arrested and given bail.”
Coffee deal
The President spent time defending a controversial agreement the government entered into with Uganda Vinci Coffee Company. The agreement committed to set up in Namanve a coffee processing facility with capacity to annually process 60,000 tonnes of coffee.
Vinci Coffee was under the agreement exempted from the payment of stamp duty, excise duty, and VAT. The government also committed itself to Pay As You Earn (PAYE), local service tax and withholding tax that should have been paid by Vinci Coffee. Power to the processing facility was also to be provided at five cents by unit.
The Uganda Law Society (ULS) joined sections of the public in questioning the agreement, saying it was done in bad faith. ULS said it was shrouded in “a great deal of stealth.”
Stinging the West
Elsewhere, Mr Museveni took time off to sting the European Union (EU) after it passed a resolution calling on Uganda and Tanzania and Total Energies to delay work on the oil pipeline by a year to allow for resolution of concerns around environmental and rights abuses.
“Recently, there was yet another manifestation of imperialistic arrogance and hegemonism by elements in the European Union Parliament whereby they decreed from Brussels that the East African Crude Oil Pipeline should not be constructed until those arrogant actors permit us to do so,” Mr Museveni said.
He accused parasitic elements from the west of having been the cause of Africa’s problems over the last 500 years, but said they would not succeed in torpedoing work on the pipeline.
Mr Museveni also went on the offensive in November as world leaders converged in Egypt for the Sharm el-Sheikh Climate Change Conference (Cop27). He accused governments in the west of “reprehensible double standards”.
“As Europeans switch their coal-fired plants back on while still demanding fossil-fuel generation remains beyond the pale for Africans. It makes a mockery of Western commitments to climate targets and their promises to help speed African development all in one breath,” he said in a statement issued in Kampala.
Mr Museveni, who did not attend the summit, called on Africa to stand up to the West.
“Dialling down the brazen double-standards is what we desire, along with the lifting of the moratorium on fossil fuel investments for Africa herself so we can meet the needs of our own people,” he wrote.
Guzzling billions
The war in Ukraine precipitated a sharp rise in inflation. That led to, among other things, a rise in the prices of fuel and other consumer goods, especially food. That led to a chorus of demands for government intervention.
There were mostly calls for the government to introduce a subsidies regime and also reduce public expenditure. That however did little to whet the State House’s and Office of the President’s appetite for money. The two were recipients of huge supplementary budgets.
Shs481 billion out of the Shs4.7 trillion that the government sought late in January went to support funding the recurrent expenditure on salaries, wages, and other expenses under the State House. Again in April when the government sought Shs900 billion in supplementary funding, Shs168 billion went to the Office of the President.
Shs77 billion out of the Shs617.9 billion supplementary budget which was approved late in May was allocated to the State House for classified expenditure.
Shs2.2 billion car
Whereas Mr Museveni rejected proposals to introduce subsidies, he turned up at Kololo Independence grounds on June 7 to deliver the State of the Nation Address chauffeured in a car believed to be a Mercedes-Benz Maybach S 680 4MATIC.
It is not clear how much government paid for the car, but the cost of a 2022 Mercedes-Benz Maybach ranges from $380,198 (Shs1.4 billion) for the basic trim level SUV Maybach GLS600 4Matic to $574,000 (approximately Shs2.1 billion) for the top of the range Sedan Maybach S680.
On September 13, President Museveni flew to Nairobi to attend the swearing in ceremony of President William Ruto. It later came to light that a convoy of at least 10 cars, including a mobile toilet, had been deployed earlier. They arrived there in time for his use during Mr Museveni’s one-day stay.
Shifting goalposts
In October, Mr Museveni found himself in an awkward position of having to eject his son from the office of commander of Land Forces and also offer an apology to Kenya. This came after his son fired potshots at Kenyans via different Twitter tweets.
Despite ejecting him from the said office, Mr Museveni promoted his son to the rank of General—a move which Mr Museveni defended on grounds that “there are, however, many other positive contributions the General has made and can still make. This is a time-tested formula—discourage the negative and encourage the positive.”
The UPDF has always come down hard on its officers who talk politics or take positions deemed to be controversial on any public affairs issues. Col Dr Kizza Besigye was threatened with arraignment before the General Court Martial for having authored the 1999 document, “An insider’s view of how the NRM lost the broad base”, in which he concluded that the Movement had lost its way. He was accused of airing his views in a wrong forum. The charges were dropped after elders from Rukungiri intervened.
Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde was also court martialed for making political statements. He was deemed to have breached Article 208 (2) of the Constitution and Section 3(a) of the UPDF Act 2005 that requires UPDF officers to be “non-partisan, national in character, patriotic, professional”.
However, in what appears to be a massive shift of goalposts, Mr Museveni arguing that not ‘‘every matter needs action or punishment’’, told this newspaper in a December 13 interview that no action would be taken against the General who has been making political statements.
