Uganda: Amin's Economy Was Not That Bad After All

Source from:  The Monitor (Kampala) 25 November 2007 11/28/2007

This week, as promised, we look closer at the performance of the Ugandan economy under Idi Amin with the help of professional analysts. In an article in the Weekly Review magazine of Kenya in April 1975 founded by Hillary N'gweno, Dr Irving Gershenberg, a professor of Economics at the University of Nairobi, gave an evaluation of how the Ugandan economy had performed in the four years of Amin's rule. The article, titled Uganda No Worse Off Today, stated that between 1968 and 1970, Uganda's trade surplus averaged Shs500m and between 1972 and 1974, the figure averaged Shs930m. Dr Gershenberg argued that this increase in Uganda's balance of payments was due entirely to an increase in export earnings, since the value of imports had remained almost entirely unchanged. Said he: "While we have little available data at hand to indicate the use to which President Amin has directed this trade surplus, most sources claim that Uganda has been concentrating its efforts on building up its military establishment, paying little or no attention to the needs of the domestic economy. If this is in fact the case, the balance of trade surpluses accumulated by the president may indicate the extent to which he has been able to indulge his taste for military arms, since it is clear that Uganda has to pay on the barrel head for its imports. On the other hand, it might be noted that according to the recent report of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, there was a marked decrease in Uganda's military expenditures in 1973/1974, these having been reduced to the 1970 level." Concluded Dr Gershenberg: "There is little basis for concluding that Uganda's economy is on the brink of chaos; to the extent that weaknesses can be discerned in the economy since Amin's takeover, such weaknesses have been limited to the more industrialised, modern sectors. The vast majority of the population are involved in agriculture, and many, in real terms, have been enhancing their economic position, if ever so slowly." Mind you the cool, objective assessment of the Ugandan economy under Amin was by an American Jewish professor, the last person to wish to state anything positive about Amin after Amin publicly expressed sympathies for the German agitator Adolf Hitler in 1974. This article by Dr Gershenberg confirms the picture I gave last week of Ugandans, after the Asians are expelled, flocking in ever increasing numbers to nightclubs and able to afford the entry fees and beer, even when the nightclub owners hiked the prices steeply. If this was the Ugandan economy in 1974, how about three years later in 1977? Had Amin's misrule by then finally caught up with him? Let us turn to Compton's Encyclopedia and its Yearbook, 1979 in which it examines Uganda's economic standing in 1977: "The high price of coffee on the world market left Uganda with a budget surplus in 1977" (page 353). There we are again. It is 1977 and we are still hearing about budget surpluses. In fact, it is this 1977 surplus that Amin used to buy fleets of Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Datsun 120Y, and Fiat 131 cars for Uganda's civil servants in 1978. All this must seem unbelievable to many Ugandans too young to remember life under Amin. Uganda under Amin actually reducing military expenditure? Most educated people have been brought to believe that once Amin took power, everything in Uganda took an immediate fall, never to recover. Just to show you the efficiency behind Amin's handling of Uganda's economic affairs, here is a quote from the Uganda Times newspaper, successor to the Voice Of Uganda and predecessor to New Vision, in its edition of May 18, 1979: "Most of Uganda's industries are in good condition to resume minor production despite the recent looting, well-placed sources within the industries disclosed yesterday. Some of these industries have already started production. These include Uganda Breweries, Nytil, Nile Breweries, Uganda National Tobacco, Uganda Hoes and Pepsi-Cola." So, if industries could return to production less than a month after the massive looting following Amin's fall, what must they have been like even three months before? As the Managing Director of the Uganda Export and Import Corporation, Zak K. R. Kaheru said in a statement in October 1971: "Since April 19, 1971, applications [for trade licences] submitted to the corporation in the morning are approved during the same morning, and can be collected in the afternoon at 2:30 p.m." Zimbabwe, sanctions under Robert Mugabe. Inflation: 14,000 percent, (according to official government figures). Uganda, sanctions under semi-literate Amin. Inflation (according to Amin's enemies): 5 percent, with large budget surpluses. Enditem