It all started with American Presidential aspirant, Donald Trump. ‘This guy is very blunt’, is the spontaneous reaction of my team member as we digest what Trump had just said about Africans, capping it with the vow to deport them from the USA, once he enters Capitol Hill. ‘People who even import match sticks’, he clinches.
Across in India, it is again time for the Afro-Indian Summit, a meeting between 53 countries and one country. The goodies? The 53 countries are offered 50,000 scholarships and US $ 10 bn in credit, from a single country.
For Uganda in particular, President Museveni reveals the balance of trade between Uganda and India: Uganda exports 1% (in value terms) of what it imports from India. We all know India consumes millions of tones of spices and one story trending in Kampala today is that of a Ugandan ‘farmer’ who recently received an inquiry from a Kenya-based Indian food processor about ginger. ‘‘…we have a lot in Uganda…’ the farmer assures the processor. The processor takes the next flight out of Nairobi, only to find his contact here had managed to collect only five tins from the major producing areas of ginger, where he was sure there was ‘a lot!’
From Burundi, we get a bizarre situation of the Secretary-General of the East African Community allegedly punched by a Burundi legislator. His crime? He has not sanctioned the operations of EAC committees meant to operate from Burundi. Matters EAC in the same week reveals the Germans withholding their funding due to the Burundi fratricide. The EAC budget is 60% foreign-funded, and this financial year, only Uganda and Rwanda have made a partial payment of the 40% that the Partner States do contribute to run the regional body. And the legislators at the East African Legislative Assembly are demanding new free vehicles.
Vehicles. Ethiopia is in the news for its latest milestone: manufacturing vehicles where the plants are largely run by soldiers. Soldiers. Tanzania’s production wing of the army, Jeshi la Kujenga Taifa (JKT) celebrates 52 years of its existence. JKT recruits and trains youth in various skills under paramilitary discipline. They run mega projects in virtually every sector. Landmark among their projects in the new Tanzanian parliament in Dodoma. Next is houses for ministers and MPs and civil servants in Dodoma. Soldiers and Youth. An interesting combination during the NRM primaries in Uganda, 2015.
Youth. My old college friend insists age is just a number. We meet during an international conference in Entebbe where our team is providing technical backstopping. She leads a youth activist movement in her country, credited with the island country’s decision to return to France, erstwhile coloniser. Mayotte, is now a DOM (departement-outre-mer) , an overseas district of France. The argument of the youth was that they would be better under France, since they would demand rights as citizens, instead of depending on hand-out aid, which in any case always ended in the pockets of the ‘leaders’. French citizens in Marseille or Aix-en-Province have the same civil rights, duties, and obligations as those living on the Mayotte islands.
Youth. Ugandan youthful doctor, Misaki Walyengera makes a breakthrough in inventing a device to test Ebola in five minutes. Thanks to the Canadian government funding. Political parties seeking votes from us spend 30 times on delegates’ conferences, what Canada spent financing our own doctor to fight ‘our’ Ebola.
You see, a week can at times condense centuries in seven days!
© Ben Kahunga Matsiko 2022
Email: isherugaba@gmail.com
Google: http://Ben Kahunga Matsiko
Photo by Magda Ehlers (pexels-photo-2660262)
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