Live Feed: Museveni addressing parliament

The Amir of Kuwait gave the African Development Bank 100 million dollars in the 90’s when Saddam Hussein had invaded his country. He was in exile but able to give such a donation. He was even uncomfortable to make such an offer which he thought was small. He was getting that money from Kuwait Oversees Development Company that generates money for Kuwait.

15:40 EAC: We need to diversify the economy from agriculture and minerals. We had the will but no capacity. The oil will give us the capacity. Even without oil, we had started UPE and USE and the emphasis for science education in Uganda. Oil money will also be used to construct roads, to improve agriculture though irrigation. 

15:35 EAC: The money from oil should only be used to build durable capacity for future generations. We need at least 40,000 MW of electricity. We now have about 800 MW. That level of electrification will enable us to run our economy with or without oil. We shall be able to manufacture. We shall prosper even when oil is exhausted.

We need to train scientists, relying only on human muscle cannot improve our economy.

15:30 EAC: They wanted us (oil companies) to swear that we don’t tax oil companies because it would change the profit levels that had extimated. But what if you make super profits above what we would have agreed upon?

It was eventually agreed but it took us time. We had wanted Net Presence Value as a scientific formula to calculate profitability levels and eventual taxes. That has been settled and we scored.

15:26 EAC: That is why I went to Iran and found out that they have nine refineries and are planning to construct more seven refineries.

There will be a refinery in Uganda. They know that I will not change. Now they (oil companies) have started advising us that we can share a refinery with Sudan and Kenya. You block them here, they resurface from elsewhere.

15:24 EAC: The disadvantages I have given you are the disadvantages that will be suffered by countries like Ghana and Nigeria that are near the coast line. We shall suffer when we just export crude. Being landlocked, we shall be charged transit charges to transport the crude. For example, if we use 20 dollars per barrel, to pass through Kenya, and the products another 20 dollars. That is 40 dollars being lost per barrel. Because our petroleum is waxy, you must continue heating the pipeline and this is additional expense. It will make us lose more money.

15:16 EAC: The other mistake that occurs in African countries is the failure to build oil refineries. All the associated jobs are exported to foreign countries. You also lose the by-products like diesel, PVC for plastics, bitumen, paraffin, aviation fuel etc. That barrel you export has all those products and you now start importing them. So without a refinary, you can miss about 20 by-products of oil. That mistake, we avoided. Uganda avoided that because we knew. There was some campaign against getting a refinery, but we defeated these people by facts that Uganda needed the refinery.

15:12 EAC: Before 1990, the whole soviet block was closed and that is why Shell BP came to Uganda. When communism collapsed, they forgot about our oil in Uganda and went to Russia. I called them to discuss what they wanted me to discuss in 1986, but they refused to come because they argued that there was no oil in that region. These are the same people who were interested in the resource in 1986.

Following our success, oil companies are now scrambling for the resource. For Hon. Ssekikubo, Nuwagaba, etc, to malign the achievement of our own scientists

What they are doing is an unforgivable sin. It is sacrilege. To stand here and use the forum of Parliament which I created for you through sacrificing blood, in unacceptable.

Uganda is the first African country to discover the oil itself.

15:08 EAC: When we signed these production and sharing agreements, we had no proof that we had oil by that time. Even me and our scientists didn’t know. When you spend time talking about minister, minister does not work alone. She has a team of experts.