RE: ugnet_: A blind govt lets her people die of hunger
IMF Approves Three-Year, US$17.8 Million PRGF Arrangement for Uganda The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today approved a three-year arrangement under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) for SDR 13.5 million (about US$17.8 million) for Uganda. The Board determined that Uganda's poverty reduction strategy set out in a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) progress report provides a sound basis for Fund concessional financial assistance. As a result, Uganda will be able to draw SDR 1.5 million (about US$1.9 million) under the arrangement immediately. Following the Executive Board discussion, Mr. Sugisaki, Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair, stated: "The Ugandan authorities are to be commended for the continued implementation of sound macroeconomic policies and structural reforms, which have helped to sustain high economic growth rates with low inflation. This strong economic performance, combined with determined implementation of a comprehensive poverty reduction strategy, contributed to a substantial decline in the incidence of poverty in Uganda over the past decade. "The new three-year PRGF-supported program, which is based upon the authorities' Poverty Eradication Action Plan, aims at reducing poverty further by increasing the rate of economic growth and maintaining macroeconomic stability, through prudent fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies as well as continued structural reforms in the areas of budget management, tax administration, fiscal decentralization, governance and the continuing fight against corruption, and financial development. "To ensure sufficient resources for key social and economic priorities, fiscal policy aims to increase revenues—through measures in both tax policy and tax administration—and to curb nonessential expenditure. Measures to improve reporting, monitoring, and accountability at all levels of government are important to enhance the effectiveness of government spending, including notably that supported by donor assistance. The program also includes steps to further improve the operation of monetary and exchange rate management. "The authorities' initiative to expand and diversify the export base will strengthen Uganda's external position. While the economy will still remain dependent on donor support in the foreseeable future, the program is expected to result in an improvement of Uganda's fiscal and external debt sustainability over the medium term. The strength of Uganda's continuing policy effort underscores the importance of timely and comprehensive support by creditors, particularly by non-Paris Club creditors, in providing debt relief under the HIPC Initiative process," Mr. Sugisaki stated. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of gook makanga Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2003 5:06 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ugnet_: A blind govt lets her people die of hunger A blind govt lets her people die of hunger This & TThat By Henry Ochieng June 18, 2003 All that is left of Ms Florence Nyangireki is in a wooden box buried in a tiny corner of the public cemetery in Kampala. On Monday, she died of hunger -related causes. She died because for more than a month she and many others have been living rough in Lugogo. Deceased: Ms Nyangireki Ms Nyangireki died because she was trapped in the triba lclashes between the Banyoro and the Bakiga in Kibaale. I will resist the temptation to refer to the Bakiga as settlers as has become typical definition in various essays on the subject. This lady, in the prime of her life at 36 years of age, died because she found herself in the harsh environment of Kampala city with just her God and a few earthly possessions. Presumably, in Kibaale Ms Nyangireki could have been the proud occupant of a stretch of land from which she fed her family. But today she is dead because nobody cared. Remove your mind from the polemics that have characterised the debate on whether or not the Bakiga should be in Kibaale. Now ask yourself what a responsible government should have done for Ms Nyangireki. A responsible government, which allocates millions of shillings every year to a ministry for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, should not have allowed that woman to die of hunger. But she is dead today, buried with only a few friends to sing her swan song. They put her in an unmarked grave because the government of President Yoweri Museveni has gradually grown a skin as thick as a rhino’s hide. This government has got to a point where it is wrapped up in the more pressing business of signing loan agreements with the wealthy West even when it is clear the national foreign debt at nearly $ 4 billion is unsustainable. Mr Museveni’s governm
ugnet_: A blind govt lets her people die of hunger
A blind govt lets her people die of hungerThis & That By Henry OchiengJune 18, 2003 All that is left of Ms Florence Nyangireki is in a wooden box buried in a tiny corner of the public cemetery in Kampala. On Monday, she died of hunger -related causes. She died because for more than a month she and many others have been living rough in Lugogo. Deceased: Ms Nyangireki Ms Nyangireki died because she was trapped in the triba lclashes between the Banyoro and the Bakiga in Kibaale. I will resist the temptation to refer to the Bakiga as settlers as has become typical definition in various essays on the subject. This lady, in the prime of her life at 36 years of age, died because she found herself in the harsh environment of Kampala city with just her God and a few earthly possessions. Presumably, in Kibaale Ms Nyangireki could have been the proud occupant of a stretch of land from which she fed her family. But today she is dead because nobody cared. Remove your mind from the polemics that have characterised the debate on whether or not the Bakiga should be in Kibaale. Now ask yourself what a responsible government should have done for Ms Nyangireki. A responsible government, which allocates millions of shillings every year to a ministry for Disaster Preparedness and Refugees, should not have allowed that woman to die of hunger. But she is dead today, buried with only a few friends to sing her swan song.They put her in an unmarked grave because the government of President Yoweri Museveni has gradually grown a skin as thick as a rhinos hide. This government has got to a point where it is wrapped up in the more pressing business of signing loan agreements with the wealthy West even when it is clear the national foreign debt at nearly $ 4 billion is unsustainable.Mr Musevenis government has succeeded in giving the lie that it cares for the people. High-sounding programmes under equally fascinating titles have become the lingua franca at the annual State-of-the-Nation addresses and other national events. The peasants have been told that a miracle-working holistic approach has been discovered as the ultimate cure for the de-humanising living conditions under which they have subsisted these past many years. They have heard about the magical Poverty Eradication Action Plan, and the equally intriguing Poverty Action Fund which together with the Plan for Modernisation of Agriculture should have them without the ever-present hunger pains in no time at all. Many peasants have actually believed these sweet nothings that have dripped from the mouths of the regimes spin-doctors. The men and women of the regime have come to them with these lies while clad in designer suits and driving fuel guzzling 4WD behemoths.But the truth must have flashed before Ms Nyangireki in one instant of clarity in her last moments. Just before her broken body gave up the ghost, just before she was freed of the physical and mental anguish she has suffered this past month, Ms Nyangireki must have understood that the government does not feel hungry. If the government also felt hungry, if it also did not have money to pay the doctor when it is sick, if the government was aware that people are dying at its very doorstep, the government would have not allowed that woman to die like that. The minister for Disaster Preparedness would have cast aside any fixed positions the government has on the Kibaale land crisis and made it imperative that the fellows who had somehow found their way to Lugogo lived in relative comfort. This is what it means when you have a Constitution that recognises the right to human dignity as one of the fundamental human rights and freedoms. The government should have given them food, water and medical relief of a sort. But it did not, may be because some politician with a warped mind put the politics of their presence at Lugogo ahead of the fact that they were first and foremost Ugandans. Ms Nyangireki died because Mr Musevenis government has been around for such a long time, and is presently engrossed in the involving business of seeking ways to perpetuate its stay, that he has forgotten what Article 99(3) obliges him to do. All the presidents men have become insensitive to the hunger of Gods people in this country. This is why they have forgotten to remind Mr Museveni that Article 99 says, It shall be the duty of the president to abide by, uphold and safeguard this Constitution and the laws of Uganda and to promote the welfare of the citizens . If that basic fact had not been obscured by layers of fat the result of feeding off the citizens that now press against the politicians brains, they would have remembered that they have a duty to the peasants. The death of the woman in Lugogo shocked those who thought the peasants mattered beyond the cynical price paid for their votes in election years. It shocked them into the reality that Ms Nyangireki is free to die and be buried in a strange land so alo
