Museveni’s friends in the past year named

At least 20 African presidents visited Uganda in the 2022/23 financial year, with none from Europe, America and other parts of the world, a new government report indicates.

The second Annual Governance and Security Programme Review report released on Tuesday in Kampala indicates that the highest number of visits were made by Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the president of Somalia, who came to Uganda five times.

President Salva Kiir of South Sudan visited Uganda three times while William Ruto of Kenya, President Évariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi and President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania all visited Uganda twice each.

Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ismail Omar Guelleh of Djibouti, Brahim Ghali of Sahrawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed and  Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan Abdelrahman Al-Burhan of Sudan all visited the country once.

Uganda is becoming increasingly isolated, particularly by Europe and the US after the country’s Parliament in May passed the anti-homosexuality law, which the President assented to.

The World Bank and a number of donors have withheld funding to support the country’s budget, while President Joe Biden of US earlier this week, announced that his government is expelling Uganda from the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa), which African heads of governments negotiated and agreed upon with the former president, Bill Clinton in 2000.

The new government report indicates that the President never received any foreign head of state from Americas, Europe and Asia.

Mr Museveni has been critical of the European and American governments, accusing them of arrogance and attempting to force their foreign values down the throats of the African governments.

Last year on the sidelines of the US-Africa Heads of State Summit, Mr Museveni said he was not the President of Uganda because of the backing of the Americans, but because of the will of Ugandans.

During the same period, President Museveni visited eight foreign countries across the world, stretching from the US in the west to Vietnam in the east, dotted with visits to Burundi, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Algeria, Kenya and the United Kingdom.

This is in stark contrast to his Kenyan counterpart William Ruto who is said to have visited 45 cities in 38 countries over the course of 83 days.

The report says the presidential visits have enhanced bilateral relations between Uganda and the visiting countries or those he visited.

Mr Farouk Kirunda, the deputy presidential press secretary, yesterday said the President’s visits to other countries and visits by the presidents of other countries have been beneficial to Uganda in attracting investors and other opportunities.

“The impact is measured basing on outcomes such as investors flocking Uganda to set up factories here and tourists. Uganda is a top investment and tourist destination. Ugandans are already benefiting from opportunities around these exchanges, in getting jobs and supplying these factories with raw materials,” he said.

Mr Kirunda said when the President signs a bilateral agreement with a foreign counterpart, it is the responsibility of the line ministry to follow up for implementation.

“Line ministers and technocrats in the different dockets are charged with following up implementation of MoUs, in conjunction with Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Every MoU has signatories who should track their implementation,” he said.

 He added: “The President travels to market Uganda and search for markets for Ugandan products. On these trips, he markets our coffee, matooke and tourism endowments, among others.

Some countries are now removing visa requirements as a result of these engagements and this will ease movement of goods and services. It’s up to Ugandans to produce more and add value to their produce to earn higher foreign exchange,” he said.

 What Museveni did on  foreign visits

In December last year, the President first went to UK where he opened a meeting for off-takers of food and investors in Uganda’s agricultural and industrial sector, followed by a meeting with fund managers, processors of food and large commodity buyers. He later on commissioned trade envoys in the Balkans, UK and USA to positively portray Uganda as a preferred investment destination.

During the launch, he appointed Mr Bratislav Stoiljkovic as the lead search for the Ugandan product market in the Balkans, Mr Mark Pursey was put in charge of the UK market, Mr Codey Lawrence and Mrs Olive Kamanzi in charge of the US market. During the same visit, he also met UK government officials led by Lord Andrew Mitchel, the minister for Development and Africa.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, the President attended the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington DC at the invitation of President Biden, where he also met several investors.

During the same meeting, he held talks with Victoria Nuland, the US Undersecretary for Political Affairs, where they discussed a number of continental issues on the regional security challenges and East Africa.

He later opened the first ever Uganda-US Trade Investment Summit that took place in Chicago.

However, last week, the US state department issued a business advisory, warning American businesses planning to invest in Uganda that the country’s corruption was worsening following passing of the anti-homosexuality law.

The advisory was followed by the announcement of expulsion of Uganda from the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

On November 23 last year, Mr Museveni visited Vietnam and later held talks with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc.

During the visit, he toured FPT Corporation, Vietnam’s leading IT firm, and the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences, followed by the Vietnam-Uganda Business Forum, where he met potential investors.

After their talks, the two presidents signed an agreement on visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders; and four memoranda of understanding on cooperation in diplomacy, education, information and communications, and agriculture technology.

UAE visit

In UAE, President Museveni who was on a three-day official visit, held talks with Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President of UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi.

He also attended the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Summit and held talks with government officials and the business community from the UAE.

It is not clear if the bilateral agreements and other engagements are being followed up for implementation. Officials from both the Foreign Affairs ministry and the Office of the President and State House did not respond to our repeated calls and messages.

During the same period, government facilitated visits of 19 high-level foreign dignitaries, including special envoys with protocol services, processed 827 jobs for migrant workers in Poland, evacuated 295 Ugandans from Sudan; and repatriated 3,000 Ugandans from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

According to the report, Uganda successfully lobbied for the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and G77+China and that these summits will be held in January 2024.

Government initiated, finalised and signed 151 agreements/MoUs on political, social and economic matters, according to the report.

Report highlights

. Trained 120 veteran peer educators

• Provided medicare assistance, psychotherapy, and assistive devices to 46 military veterans;

• Trained 154,780 citizens in patriotism ideology and mindset change

• Phase II of CCTV system covered 71 districts with 10 cities, 20 municipalities, 35 towns, 06 border points and all major highways;

• 219 people with criminal records seeking a certificate of good conduct were identified,.

• 77,070 cases for the certificate of good conduct were biometrically vetted.

• 97.4% (748,946) out of the 769,082 applications for NINs received were registered.

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