Ugandan woman agrees with Trump on USAID pause:
“We have depended on USAID for over 60 years, and the moment the owners of the money say, ‘Let’s take a 90-day pause so that I audit where my money is going,’ suddenly the whole country goes into a frenzy.
And this should be a moment of reflection for Uganda and the African continent in general. We have been asking for a very long time to be liberated from colonialism, neo-colonialism, and now that the opportunity presents itself, for some reason we are complaining. Because let’s get some things straight: often the money given to us in foreign aid is lost to corruption, misuse, depleted, and overrated salaries to particular individuals. Or sometimes we lose billions of money that are unaccounted for.
So it only makes sense that the donor is asking for an audit, and if that means pausing the amount of money coming in, then they should. And I do understand the implications of this pause because so many heavily funded healthcare projects run on USAID. But that should be a moment of reflection.
This is just a 90-day pause. What would happen if the United States just said, ‘We’re not giving you money anymore’? And within their rights, they can do that because it is their money. It’s high time Uganda and the African continent got themselves together and actually started looking for systems that are sustainable and not always dependent on foreign aid. Because we are struggling with debt on top of that, we have constant aid which doesn’t necessarily help us to have a more independent system.
Instead of writing paragraphs of why this is a bad move, we should essentially realize that, ‘Oh, we are actually in a bad situation and we cannot always depend on aid because it can go any day.’ African nations should wake up. Uganda should wake up because this is not even funny.”
