The economy and society in the 1990s

Optimism. A feeling of optimism and revival of the economy begins to spread among Ugandans with the opening up of the foreign currency market, the birth of FM radio stations and the telecom industry.

However, even with this sense of upward mobility and rapid economic growth, there were still many problems to confront and some who brought up these issues did not win many friends in the government, even though they tapped into a large segment of an increasingly frustrated Uganda.

The birth of Monitor
In July 1992, a number of editors of the Weekly Topic newspaper resigned from the paper citing editorial interference by the paper’s Publishers Jaberi Bidandi-Ssali, Kintu Musoke and Ali Kirunda Kivejinja and started a new weekly paper called The Monitor.

The Monitor --- whose original idea was conceived by James Serugo and Kevin Ogen Aliro --- went on to comprise their other colleagues Charles Onyango-Obbo, David Ouma Balikoowa, Wafula Oguttu, Richard Tebere and the Editor of the corruption watchdog, the Uganda Confidential newsletter, Teddy Seezi Cheeye (which Cheeye founded in December 1990).

It adopted an editorial policy of questioning government policies and defending freedom of debate and expression. The paper in 1992 devoted much space and commentary on the economic distress facing the average Ugandan, even as the economy seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds.

Many of the paper’s first batch of reporters, notably Lillian Nsubuga and Onapito Ekomoloit, did extensive reporting on the privatisation of the economy, the flaws in the process and in 1992, a major economic and social upheaval brought on by the large-scale retrenchment of soldiers and civil servants.

Effects of economic reforms
The reduction of the civil service starting in 1992 was supposed to create a leaner and more efficient government, save on waste in vehicles and salaries and help sustain the economy’s growth.

What happened was that thousands of civil servants, who had devoted their lives since the 1960s to public service, suddenly found themselves with no homes to go to, no pensions to speak about and with subsidies rapidly being removed and most economic activities now requiring cash, destitution.

This retrenchment of the civil service, the sale of the government pool houses all over the country and civil servants starting to pay rent on the open market, marked the beginning of a sudden and steep increase in the greatest scourge of them all: corruption.

Ugandan society was becoming more and more unequal and stressful to live in.
And as life in Kampala and the urban centres in the southern half of the country were seeing overall improvement, a human catastrophe in the northern half of the country was just getting underway, as this series will later explain.

In the next part, we shall look at Uganda’s foreign policy in the 1990s: the tensions with Sudan, Zairë and the biggest story of all, the 1990 RPF invasion of Rwanda and the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Continues Monday
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