What Is Africa’s Problem

10. Corruption Is a Cancer

TEN Corruption Is a Cancer I hope all of you had a happy Easter and peaceful Idd el Fitr. On the occasion of the state opening of the Fourth Session of the National Resistance Council, my remarks will center on the current economic, security , and political situation in our country. The Economy Our economy continues to make steady progress on its road to full recovery . The cumulative rate of inflation between July 1989 and March 1990 was 24 percent, down from 86 percent for the 1988-89 financial year. This gives us hope that by the end of this financial year, we shall have contained it at no more than 30 percent. Although such a rate of inflation is by no means ideal, it is nonetheless a big improvement compared to that of the 1988-89 financial year. It is most certainly a major success compared to the crippling rate of 370 percent experienced in 1986. You all know the necessity of controlling inflation — this is the only way to restore the value back into people's earnings. As I have told you before, our economy grew at the rate of 7.2 percent in 1988-89 and is projected to grow at 6.1percent in the 1989-90 financial year. These rates are commendable by any standards, and the projected rate of economic growth for 1990-91 is 6.6 percent. Sectoral growth rates for 1989-90 have been 14.7 percent in manufacturing and 7.2perAddress on the state opening of the Fourth Session of the NRC, April 30,1990. 71 72 Corruption Is a Cancer cent in agriculture. We are also continuing to make steady progress in the road construction sector. Since this time last year, we have made progress on these roads: Kampala-Jinja, Masaka-Mbarara, MbararaIshaka , and Kampala-Mityana. Once we have fully rehabilitated our road network, we shall have removed a serious bottleneck in the infrastructure . Bad roads have been constraining work in all sectors of economic and social life. They are a major factor in raising production and transport costs, which are consequently passed on to the consumer. In agriculture, there has been dramatic growth in crop production. In 1989,we produced 1.3 million tons of maize, up from 286,000 metric tons in 1986. This was an increase of 350 percent over a period of just four years. The increase in the production of beans is not as dramatic as that of maize, but it has gone up all the same. In 1989, we produced 352,000 metric tons, compared to 267,000 metric tons in 1986, an improvement of 32 percent. These dramatic rates of growth prove, therefore, that in a fairly short time, we can increase production in nontraditional export crops and thus compensate for the loss of earnings caused by the decline in coffee prices. If, for instance, we sold 300,000 tons of beans, we would earn 150million U.S. dollars. This means that it is within our capacity, through hard and disciplined work, and by utilizing our abundant land and water resources, to lessen our overdependence on coffee earnings and foreign financial support. Indeed, far from continuous dependence on foreign loans and donations , our beans and maize are being bought by the European Economic Community and the World Food Program to send to countries in the region, like Mozambique and Rwanda, that experience food shortages. If the World Food Program buys 20,000 tons of maize from us this year, we shall earn two million U.S. dollars from that transaction alone. So you can see that we are really in a very strong position. The problem in the past had been that we had neglected to tap our considerable potential. Increasing crop production, however, is not enough on its own.We must expand and improve our processing and marketing structures. The Produce Marketing Board is going to improve its processing capacity so that it can handle a half million tons of grain at any given time, Corruption Is a Cancer 73 and they will have achieved this target by the end of this year. So we shall solve the problem of wananchi growing their produce only for it to remain unbought and rotting in their houses. Because of improved capacity and techniques in the Produce Marketing Board, whereby they will be able to clean, demoisturize, sort, and grade produce, we shall soon have...