By Alfred Wasike
and Sylvia Jjuuko
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has urged African countries to act as a bloc while negotiating for access to global markets.

Museveni also urged Africa to stop donating value by exporting raw materials.
He was opening a conference for African finance ministers and central bank governors organised by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) at Speke Resort Munyonyo yesterday.

“Let us push for access to lucrative markets as a bloc. Let us go as a continent. They will listen. Let us go under NEPAD and state our position as a bloc,” he said.

UNECA chief K.Y. Amoako, said African leaders needed to push for a sustained struggle against poverty, disease and other misery.

He said 30 million people have been killed by AIDS and 28 million infected by HIV in Africa.

The South African finance minister, Trevor Manuel, warned against agricultural susbsidies and tariff protection on agricultural products by developed countries, saying this had hampered Africa’s development.

On donors, Museveni said, “Donors waste a lot of time on simple issues that are easy to deal with, which need common sense and decency. The real issues we should spend time on should be trade and market access.”

“The real donors are Africans because they export money and jobs,” he said, drawing bouts of laughter from his audience.

He said Africa with 800 million people had only US$500b purchasing power.
He said while Uganda was the 4th biggest coffee exporter, for every kilogramme Uganda exports as a raw material, US$15 and jobs are donated.

“This is sinful. What arrangement is this? If you are foolish enough to sell your raw materials, you are welcome. If you are clever to add value to your exports, you are shut out,” Museveni said, prompting more prolonged cheers.

“We have not been negotiating. Negotiation means mutual threats. If you say, ‘please do this for me otherwise I will collapse’, is not negotiation. It should be given another name like petitioning or supplication,” he said.

Museveni, who returned from Libya yesterday, said he had discussed with President Muammar Ghadaffi the issue of developing infrastructure to link west and north Africa.
He said Africa’s poor physical infrastructure had hampered flow of goods and services.
“We need to link up the different regions of Africa. Roads, railway networks should be established. Ports should be made more efficient,” he said.

He also advised Africa to look at other markets like China and India, though he lamented that China and India had very high tariff markets.

He hailed the USA for the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the EU for the Everything But Arms (EBA) arrangements that have allowed Africa access to their markets.

He said debt relief alone, in the form of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, was not a solution to Africa’s poverty. He said such relief should be backed by increased exports.

He said Africa incurred US$3 trillion between 1977 and 2003 in trade losses yet the aid inflows amounted to only US$165 million. Africas external debt is close to US$360b.
Museveni said vision-led aid rather than aid-led vision could bring about development in Africa.

He said although Uganda had developed a 6.5% GDP growth rate, this was unbalanced growth.

“Real growth is in adding value to exports to generate jobs,” Museveni said.
Ends