President Yoweri Museveni speaks to CNBC Africa’s George Ndirangu in Uganda about the country’s successes and challenges.
Ndirangu: The IMF and the World Bank are looking at oil to drive growth in the next couple of years. Should we see Uganda’s GDP anchor itself to the oil sector?
Museveni: It is not Uganda anchoring itself on oil; it is oil anchoring itself on Uganda. Uganda was here before oil and it’ll be here after oil. Oil is just a bonus and a strategic raw material for energy and it brings in money that we shall use for the bigger economy, which is the renewable economy of Uganda, which is agriculture and human resources development. This is just an aid to our economy.
Ndirangu: Uganda has the Karuma and the Isimba dams to boost electricity generation. Regionally, we have Ethiopia engaging in similar projects. How important is the importation and exportation of electricity in the region?
Museveni: The population for Africa is 1.3 billion. It will be 2.5 billion in 30 years. Now if you look at the United States, with a population of only 300 million, they use only 1.5 million megawatts. If you are talking about development, there is no way we shall have too much electricity. Electricity in Ethiopia and Uganda is too small. When you hear somebody say there will be energy oversupply then you should put him in the museum of development because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Ndirangu: Lake Victoria’s water is down by 5%. What are we doing in terms of buffers because our inflation is largely determined by drought?
Museveni: We need to protect the outland area of Lake Victoria here. In Uganda, we are launching a campaign of restoring the wetlands so that they filter what comes in the lake and I’m sure we shall discuss it with our neighbors to do the same.
This story is from the October/November 2017 edition of Forbes Woman Africa.
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This story is from the October/November 2017 edition of Forbes Woman Africa.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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