By Mulengera Reporters
Every year, powerful political and non-political leaders or actors from allover the world converge on Davos Switzerland to engage in advocacy aimed at economically emancipating all peoples of the world including those from the developed world (the G7) and the developing world too. It’s an advocacy forum to see how prosperity and inclusive growth can be achieved, harnessed and sustained for the world population.
Davos is one place where President Museveni has occassionally had the opportunity to be invited to rub shoulders with the mighty leaders and decision-makers of this world. This used to happen regularly in his earlier years when he was still revolutionary and perceived to be inspiring as part of the “new breed of African leaders.”
Under 10 years ago, Museveni was at Davos and was mesmerized to see how deeply Winnie Byanyima, an international civil servant from Uganda, was involved in organizing of the World Ecocomic Forum (WEF) which always takes place at Davos. Byanyima says that Gen Museveni confessed to her how mesmerized he was about all this optics and seemed keen to know if there was a way she could help with getting him more acceptable among powerful actors annually descending on Davos for the benefit of Uganda as a country.
The WEF for this year has just ended and, as always, Byanyima was thickly involved. She says at this year’s Davos, she was previledged to sit through the discussions and sessions at Davos where powerful business world leaders, Presidents (Trump attended virtually), Prime Ministers, Central Bank Governors and Finance Ministers made big pronouncements.
At the Saturday news conference at her Kasangati residence, Byanyima explained how CEOs from big business entities like Google came to present and make submissions during a session that was specifically dedicated to Africa.
“The powerful CEOs and executives from these big companies presented and highlighted areas where they would be committing to invest big money during the year and Uganda wasn’t mentioned anywhere. Not even referenced. None of them made any reference to Uganda. Instead, it was only five African countries where a lot of money is going to be invested. They made committments and spoke a lot about just five African countries and these are South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda,” Byanyima said in a bid to illustrate the extent to which political violence and persecution orchestrated by Gen Museveni and his son has been and will continue to cost Uganda.
She explained that failure to attract credible investments from such powerful world companies means there is no way Uganda can sustainably create decent jobs for her youths. “Investors with such big money consider predictability, the society being free and adherence to the rule of law, all of which are lacking in Uganda. And I’m saying all this to make you see how politics of violence, impunity and unpredictability is costing jobs for our young people.”
Contrasting the two situations, Byanyima said that as Ugandacontinues joining the rest of the inappropriately-governed parts of Africa, the governed peoples in such countries become totally hopeless for a better tommorow and all they wake up hoping and looking forward to is nothing but “waiting for another war or coup.” (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
