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How Museveni became a disciple of IMF, World Bank
What you need to know:
- Lessons. This is when Museveni learnt two crucial things. One that the Uganda economy was a peripheral capitalist economy and as such has hardly any independence. Two that the Uganda economy is ultimately run by the IMF and World Bank.
In his book review of William Pike’s book, Combatants: Memories of Museveni – A Memoir of the Bush War and the Press in Uganda, Edward Clay who was British High Commissioner in Uganda from 1993-1997 wrote:
“It will be an invaluable source for historians. But it has important gaps. It hardly deals with Museveni’s ‘conversion’ to the donors’ nostrums in return for huge economic assistance to Uganda. There is a different or further story to be told.” (The review was published in Democracy in Africa of June 28, 2019.
I am surprised that the high commissioner of Great Britain could write the above. As someone charged with monitoring the interests of Britain in Uganda, he should have been sufficiently equipped to realise that the economic policies that Museveni initially pursued was infantile leftist.
What the high commissioner calls conversion is not simply an economic matter. It is the whole political maturation of Museveni. At the University of Dar es salaam, Museveni read the writings of both Regis Debray and Franz Fanon and got persuaded that he could bring about a revolution in Uganda. And when he stumbled into power, he actually believed he had brought about such a revolution. In that frame of mind he thought he could do without the IMF and the World Bank.
One of NRM’s top economists who later became Secretary to the Bank of Uganda, the late Dr Joshua Mugyenyi, records in his article published in the book, Changing Uganda: The Dilemmas of Structural Adjustment “...President Museveni believed that once order had prevailed in the country, economic recovery would be initiated and sustained without necessarily involving the IMF.” (Page 62).
Mugyenyi also recorded in the very same article thus: “In time the NRM has lived with the reality that the IMF is a reflection off the global distribution of power in contemporary economic system in which Uganda happens to be pretty much on the margin. It has also had to recognise that the IMF, through cross-conditionality, is even more powerful.” (Page 74)
This same view was to be further emphasised by Tumusiime Mutebile who later became governor Bank of Uganda and one of those who persuaded Museveni out of his illusion. Mutebile wrote in an article, “Institutional and political dimensions of economic reforms” published in a collection articles titled Uganda’s Economic Reforms: Insider Accounts:
“Born in 1944, Yoweri Museveni had been politically active since secondary school. He studied at the University of Dar es Salaam, where he majored in Political Science but also took courses in Law and Economics. His reading of Marx, Lenin, Mao, Fanon, and Rodney, shaped his intellectual and political outlook. He was also influenced by president Nyerere’s attempt to build his brand of socialism and central economic planning in Tanzania. So it is fair to say that when he became President of Uganda, his instincts were not for developing a market economy.
“Indeed, several months after he came to power, when a Cabinet memorandum recommended the continuation of some of the IMF/World Bank supported economic stabilisation measures initiated under Obote, President Museveni was furious. He said that he could not be expected to implement the very policies that he criticised in the 10-Point Programme, which he had written to guide the NRM in the struggle to overthrow Obote.”
It is clear that when Museveni stumbled in power in 1986, he had no clue that Uganda was a peripheral capitalist economy. That such economies are ultimately run by the IMF and World Bank. Apart from the advice the Mutebiles were giving, Museveni was to hit a brick wall in 1987.
On May 1987, the Uganda government announced a comprehensive IMF supported economic programme which involved, among other things, a massive devaluation of the Uganda Shilling from 14 to the dollar to 60. The IMF was to disband funds to support the programme.
However, before the funds were disbursed, the government published a financial budget which was totally inconstant to the earlier agreement with the IMF. Shortly after this, a Uganda team was in Washington to negotiate with the World Bank.
This is when Museveni learnt two crucial things. One that the Uganda economy was a peripheral capitalist economy and as such has hardly any independence. Two that the Uganda economy is ultimately run by the IMF and World Bank. The team in Washington was helped to draft another budget which was then sent to Kampala by telex. It is this budget which came to be humorously known as the telex budget.
And from then on Museveni got converted to what high commissioner Clay called the “donors’ nostrums”. I hope I filled in the gaps the high commissioner was talking about.
Yoga Adhola is a leading ideologue of UPC.
