OF ENTEBBE AIRPORT, THE EU AND CHINA

Last week two news events far apart but very related caught my eye.

At home, there was an uproar about reports that China had taken over Entebbe International Airport, because we had defaulted on loans to expand the facility.

The story, which went global faster than it takes to say Shokolobangoshe, was dismissed by government who argued that the grace period on the facility only comes due next year and so it was technically impossible to default on a loan you haven’t started paying for.

My attitude to the whole hoolahbalooh is we needed money to expand the airport, which we did not have, we went out begging to the usual suspects and they turned us away, China offered and set their terms, otherwise we would not have got the money. That being said we are obliged to repay the loan – if only because it is good manners, rather than resort to cosmetic nationalism to get out of our obligations. But that is just me...

Later in the week the European Union announced a €300b (sh1,242trillion) plan to invest up to 2027, in the development of infrastructure abroad. All the commentators said that this was in response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a plan of more than 13,000 infrastructure projects across 165 countries to connect china to the rest of the world.

China’s intent announced in 2013 was clear, to gain access to the natural resources it so badly needs to fuel its own growth, gain some international influence as well and improve our connectedness.

So the analysts saying the EU are playing catch up suggest EU is seeing its influence, drawn from the colonial times, is fading or being eaten away by China looking to bankroll infrastructure in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

It’s an interesting twist of fate.

When Europe was colonizing everything that moved in the last century, extracting the resources that now underwrite their wealth, China was in isolation, its stature as the leading global power that it enjoyed in the middle ages long forgotten.

Colonial Europe built a lot of infrastructure around Africa, we have them to thank for the Uganda railways for instance, which infrastructure run unashamedly from high resource centers to the coast and on to the factories of Europe or the plantations of the West Indies and the US....

When they were building this infrastructure there were no conditions of democracy or human rights to set this up, these colonies after all were appendages of their home countries and democracy and human rights were only for them at home. The same standard was not upheld for the inhabitants of the  colonies.

China has serious considerations at home. It needs to grow its economy to improve the living conditions of its billion-plus people, to put off till the future this urgent would have serious repercussions to national stability there.

The infrastructure they are helping lay down across the world is not free, and the western media have warned against recipient countries falling into debt traps and have gleefully highlighted instances where the China’s lenders have had to come in to exact their pound of flesh.

Hence the disproportionate play on the half story about Entebbe airport received around the world last week.

China are not doing what they are doing for charity but out of self-interest, which often dovetails with our own interests. The massive infrastructure outlays we require to lift our people out of poverty is only denied by people who may not want the best for us.

Development history shows you cannot develop without transport an energy infrastructure of course this has to be underpinned by an educated and healthy population.

Many years ago I will never forget, then finance minister Saida Bbumba running around to get commitments from regional leaders, that they would take any excess power that Uganda would fail to consume from the 250 MW Bujagali Dam. This was a condition for the funding required to build the dam.

At the time we were suffering day long loadshedding, the Nalubale dam was creaking under the weight of our growing demand and yet we were barely 200,000 clients or less than one in 20 homes connected to the grid.

Somehow they thought we did not need more power and the Bujagali dam would only be viable if Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda would promise to take the excess power! You had to wonder why someone would think that Ugandans do not need power. That there was no effective demand. Umeme’s financials over the last 16 years would beg to differ.

"Concerns about the opacity of some the Chinese dealings cannot be dismissed and given our public officials corrupt tendencies, it is right to scrutinize all and every deal we get into with China. But we should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater...

And before I forget China is going to spend at least four times or €1.2trillion in their own BRI up to 2027.