The World Bank has suspended the extension of new loans to Uganda, demanding that the country’s anti-gay law be repealed.
The development has been revealed by President Yoweri Museveni on Wednesday evening. Using his official Twitter handle, the President posted his handwritten statement in which he said that World Bank notified him about the suspension on Tuesday night.
“Last night, an official from the World Bank rang me to alert me about the statement from that Bank regarding the suspension of any new requests from Uganda for loans,” reads Museveni’s statement in part.
The suspension Museveni said is intended to force Uganda backtrack on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2023, he signed into law in May this year, and struck it down.
The law mandates life in prison for anyone who engages in homosexual acts, up to 20 years for promoting homosexuality, and a three-year sentence for children convicted of homosexuality while certain acts of gay sex could warrant the death penalty.
Museveni says foreign actors ought no right to impose what he called deviance on sovereign African states.
“It is therefore unfortunate that the World Bank and other actors dare to want to coerce us into abandoning our faith, culture, principles, and sovereignty, using money. They really underestimate all Africans,” says the President.
He, however, contends that the law did not make it a crime for one to be homosexual in Uganda but instead targeted those who promote, recruit, and coerce others into the act.
“I have patiently explained to some of these actors that merely being a homosexual is not targeted by law. It is going from being a homosexual to recruit or coerce others into your deviance, which is targeted by the law,” reiterates Museveni.
“If they are residual ilogicalities in the law, we shall identify them and handle them ourselves like we fought Idi Amin, the other tyrants and extended solidarity to our brothers and sisters in Southern Africa that were fighting colonisation and apartheid,” he adds.
The President explains that despite the fact that Uganda is still in talks with World Bank on the issue, the country doesn’t need “pressure from anybody to know how to solve problems in our society. They are our problems.”
“Uganda will develop with or without loans”
In the same statement, Museveni reveals that Uganda will still develop even if there are no loans extended to it.
“I want to inform everybody, starting with Ugandans, that Uganda will develop with or without loans,” says the President.
He adds that he was not privy to many loans that were extended to Uganda in the past since they “were being carelessly entered into by officials behind my back when they were completely unnecessary. That is why some years back, I put down my foot and forbade agreeing to any loan before my approval.”
The World Bank has suspended the extension of new loans to Uganda, demanding that the country’s anti-gay law be repealed.
The President explains that since his intervention to restrict the country’s borrowing, Uganda is now borrowing less and cautiously, yet our economy is growing amid several global challenges such as the wars in Europe and COVID-19.
He reveals that if such coercion persists and Uganda has an absolute need for borrowing, other options like borrowing from non-bretton sources can still be exploited.
According to the President, Uganda’s first oil will start flowing by 2025, which will be an additional source of State revenues and financial flow into the economy.
He says that with discipline, patriotism, and combating corruption, Uganda will thrive since its agriculture is there, the industries are growing, and its services sector is expanding.