The British High Commission in Kampala announced on Friday that the British government was withholding 9.9 million dollars as aid to Uganda for failure to make sufficient progress toward establishing a fair basis for multiparty system of governance.
Ugandan Minister of State for Information Nsaba Buturo said Saturday that government is relaxed and is going to look for alternative sources of funding.
He said there is no problem with the political transition process despite a few drawbacks, which are not of governments making.
"Yes we agreed on the conditions of the aid, but who knew that parliament would delay the motion of holding a referendum for Ugandans to decide whether they should be governed under the multiparty system," said Nsaba Buturo, adding that Britain should look at the reality on the ground.
He noted that if Britain is to give aid to Uganda, it should bein good faith and not with stringent conditions.
"This shows that our partners have vested interests in the internal affairs of Uganda and we argue that this is wrong," said Buturo.
According to a British High Commission statement issued on Friday, the British government aid to Uganda will be cut more if the east African country does not conform to the set conditions agreed on with the Ugandan government.
Urbane Analysis: And you thought only Michael Jackson lived with Peter Pan in NeverNeverland - welcome to the world of Uganda's ruling oligarchy. With a population of over 25 million people, almost half of whom are in African-style poverty (which means DESPERATE conditions, which you cannot imagine unless you been been there and really gotten involved with it), in a country about the size of Oregon - all wrapped up in an economy about the size of an average American zip code. Meanwhile, over half (about $1.4 billion of the government budget) comes from donor nations - the U.S. and Europe. All that to pay for a strongman government that is in no way a democracy: a sorry state of affairs that we bought and paid for. Why the U.S. and European governments will not support development of an established political opposition like the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), and true democratic reforms, is going to anger the American public as they begin to learn about this story from the mainstream media. Andrea Mitchell, Martin Savage, Christiane Amanpour, Walter Rodgers, William La Jeunesse, Steve Harrigan, Andrea Catherwood, Andrew North, Nic Robertson, Bridget Kendall (there, that's ten - just from television - there are 50 more in print media), are you going to let Rwanda '94 morph into Uganda '06 without troubling yourself about the issue until the blood flows?
It is already happening in northern Uganda: tens of thousands of children disappeared, kidnapped.
Many of them brainwashed into service as child soldiers - murdering at will. Learn more about that (if you dare) here.
And in eastern Uganda, this is what you need - just to herd some cattle.
What we need are a few "foreign correspondents" with the "right stuff" to make it out of five star hotel once in a while. The kind of journalist who can endure a little hardship. And get the story, even if it might involve a "Year of Living Dangerously"
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