I protest strongly at the fact that neither the Minister nor the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs is present. In future when this happens, the least the Minister who is dispatched with a Civil Service brief on a matter on which he is not qualified to give an authoritative reply can do is tell us why the relevant Minister or Minister of State is not present and what duty or affair of State is so important that it keeps them away from this House on issues of—
Adjournment Matters. - Overseas Development Aid.
In fairness to the Minister of State, Deputy Kitt, he is a former Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Thank you.
I am well aware of that but the emphasis is on the word "former". Mr. Haughey is a former Taoiseach. Does he have any pal? Mr. Cosgrave is a former Taoiseach. Does that qualify him to speak with authority on these matters? Does he have some executive role in regard to them?
We will give the Senator a Government position.
It is not good enough and it shows a certain contempt for this House. I do not want a Government position. I want a Minister who can go back to the Department, having listened to an argument of this sort, and say that action should be taken. This Minister of State will not and cannot do that. He will go back to the Tánaiste's Department and do nothing about it. My experience is that Ministers come in and listen, have a brief which is circulated, then leave and nothing is done.
The Senator is being judgmental.
I am being judgmental and I would be delighted to be proved wrong.
I was in Uganda as a Minister of State and I was in other parts of Africa. The Senator is being judgmental and is presuming much.
What the Minister of State was in the past gives him no authority in the future.
I am here to listen.
I will be seeking an extension of time. The matter is about the elections in Uganda a week ago and the issue is that Irish aid to the extent of £19 million is being given to this nation. The President of Uganda is Yoweri Museveni, a man for whom this country has had great regard, and rightly so, for many years. The President of Uganda took over at a very difficult time after 15 years of tyranny, after atrocities in the reign of Idi Amin, and economically he has done an extremely good job for that country. It would be absurd and churlish in making a point about what happened in Uganda last week not to acknowledge that.
There is no doubt that the economic achievements have been almost unprecedented in many developing African countries. There has been a 20% drop in the poverty level in Uganda during this man's rule. He introduced free primary schools which is a great achievement in a country as poor as Uganda and there has been fairly consistent economic growth. It has been a stellar country, one of the stars of Africa and of the developing countries in Africa in recent years, but there has been an underlying political trend which is alarming – there has been one president for 15 years. One-body states are not regimes of which this country can positively approve. While we have, with due care, given £19 million, which was doubled in the past year, to this country we do not appear to make the same demands on Uganda as we made on other countries in terms of foreign aid. The problem here has not been what the President has done with the money, but that Mr. Museveni has been the darling of the Department of Foreign Affairs in Africa for many years and many of the blemishes of his foreign and internal policies obviously have gone unnoticed and uncorrected.
Last October on a Dublin visit he was feted and treated to a banquet, probably a State ban quet. He was given all the honours due to a head of State from an autonomous independent country. After that, almost concurrently – I am sure it is a coincidence – the President of Uganda gave full support to Ireland in its quest for a seat on the Security Council and managed to influence many other countries to support Ireland. I am not necessarily saying there was a quid pro quo in terms of the £19 million but there are obviously very close links and we have a reason to be grateful to the President of Uganda for supporting us on the Security Council.
It must have been with great horror and shock that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister of State at that Department, who are absent, heard of the elections last week held by the President of Uganda, who has done so much for that country, because those elections were improper by international standards. This was a presidential contest between the President and an opposition party. The reports which have come out, which are authoritative, are of ballot rigging, intimidation and ballot stuffing, and that police took over from polling agents. What has happened? Where is the protest from Ireland, the great champions of democracy? All we seem to do is give the President more money. There were reports that ballot papers were filled out and of serious intimidation. It is not good enough that bilateral aid should be given unconditionally, not just in terms of the way it will be spent, but in terms of the regime it is supporting.
The Minister of State's reply should acknowledge the economic responsibility the President has shown but should issue the strongest possible protest that we in Ireland who have taken the moral high ground in democratic systems in the past on Iraq and South Africa and in relation to foreign affairs matters in other countries will no longer give aid to countries which do not abide by appropriate democratic standards. Uganda does not come into that category. I hope the Minister's reply will not be a collection of euphemisms, garbage and misleading illogical statements which simply serve to cloud the issue. What I hope he will say is that Uganda has for long been a priority country for Ireland's aid, we acknowledge it has been a one party State during that period, we are deeply shocked by the fact that the President of that State has allowed himself to be re-elected in a manner of which we disapprove strongly and that we are now reviewing the matter with a view to reducing or eliminating aid to Uganda until we are satisfied the country is run on proper democratic principles.
A Chathaoirligh, I appreciate that you noted I was formerly Minister of State with responsibility for overseas development at the Department of Foreign Affairs. On occasions substitute Ministers come into the House. Senator Ross is aware that this is common practice not just in this House, but also in the Dáil.
It is a bad practice.
I accept it is not something to be encouraged but such situations arise. The Senator asked about the whereabouts of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell. The Minister of State is ill and I was asked to substitute for her. She is the appropriate Minister of State to deal with this issue as she has responsibility for the considerable aid budget.
I thank the Senator for raising this issue and I wish to outline the Government's position on aid to Uganda. The development programme in Uganda makes a material difference to people's lives and contributes to the economic development of the country as a whole. I will come back to the question of our aid programme in Uganda later but I will first address the recent presidential election.
We have been closely following developments in the election in Uganda and have been receiving regular reports from our embassy in Kampala. The election was monitored by observers from a number of countries, as well as by personnel from foreign embassies, including our own and those of EU member states. In addition, an NGO umbrella group – the NEM group – deployed 17,000 monitors throughout Uganda who were present at most polling stations.
The assessment made by our embassy and by this wide range of observers is that the election was imperfect but essentially fair. The observers acknowledged that there were malpractices, some of which were quite serious, in a number of districts perpetrated mainly by supporters of President Museveni. However, these were deemed sufficiently restricted not to have altered the overall outcome. The NEM group, in a preliminary assessment, described these incidents as random and judged the elections to have been carried out generally in accordance with law. In other words, despite the flaws, the outcome is judged to reflect the will of the people.
Nonetheless we are perturbed that there should have been such incidents during the election and by reports of intemperate language used by the victorious side following the election. For instance, there were allegations of linkages between the opposition and the former dictatorial regimes in Uganda. Additionally we are troubled by reports that the opposition candidate, Dr. Kaizza Besigye, was prevented from leaving the country over the weekend. Our concerns on these matters will be conveyed to the Ugandan Government.
However, all of this needs to be looked at in two contexts. The first context is the one already mentioned, namely, the judgment by the wide array of observers who were deployed around the country that, notwithstanding serious incidents in a number of districts and bearing in mind the tension arising from the fact that this was the first serious challenge to the incumbent President, the election was essentially fair and the outcome reflects the public will. The second context is the fact that governance in poorer countries is itself a development issue and that against the background of the chaos from which Uganda has emerged in a little over 15 years and the general instability in the region, this open election between two strong contestants can be seen as a significant and positive step in the evolution of functioning democracy. Additionally, it is not inconceivable that this rumbustious electoral process, which was the first serious challenge to the President, will further the development of a strong opposition.
It is important to support this evolution in governance. Considering the chaotic situation from which Uganda has emerged in the past two decades and the problems in governance in so many parts of Africa, one should accentuate the positive. In that regard one must note the following, all of which have emerged in recent years. First, Uganda has a free and open press with one newspaper consistently critical of the government and a network of independent radio stations around the country. Second, Uganda has a well developed system of functioning decentralised government based in turn on a strong, vocal civil society which is outspoken in its comments on government policy.
Third, the eradication of poverty is the core aim of a partnership approach agreed between the Ugandan Government and the donor community. There is significant progress to report. The percentage of the people in Uganda living below the poverty line has fallen from 56% in 1992 to 35% in 2000. This in turn arises from consistent strong economic growth of between 5% and 8% over the past five years. Fourth, Uganda has shown strong leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS and has set standards for other African nations in the fight against the disease.
As Uganda has striven in recent years to create an enabling environment for development and for the emergence of democracy, Ireland, with most western donors, has become a committed partner in its development efforts. We have committed resources to assist Uganda's economic and social development through a strong aid programme through which we will spend £19 million in 2001 on health, including HIV/AIDS, education, water and sanitation, roads, the productive sector and governance. The budget will be spent in accordance with a three year strategy negotiated with the Ugandan authorities which is based on an agreed assessment of needs.
I wish to stress the need to take a balanced view of what has happened in Uganda. An electoral process, however flawed and worrisome, has given an essentially fair result. This has taken place against a background of growing openness and respect for rights bolstered by significant economic and social improvements. Uganda has a long way to go to achieve full development in every sense but its efforts so far deserve our continuing support.
Senator Ross suggested that I would return to my own Department and that this issue would be forgotten. That is not the case and I will ask my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, to closely examine the content of the Senator's contribution. As a former Minister of State with responsibility for overseas development I am concerned about the quality of our aid programme. I have outlined the Government's position and I have no doubt it is well focused. As Minister of State I visited many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Zambia, the more troubled regions of Somalia, Rwanda, Sudan and other areas. I have nothing but admiration for the dedicated staff we have in these countries who provide quality aid programmes. The World Bank, among others, has singled out Ireland for its focused aid programme.
I saw at first hand how our quality programme works but I respect the right of Senators to raise questions about the political context in which this aid operates. It is important that we are vigilant as to how our aid is used in the poorest regions in the world. That will be done and it is important that we constantly review our aid programme. However, I have nothing but the highest admiration for those people, including the Minister of State, who are delivering our aid programme which has significantly increased in recent years.
May I exercise my well established right to ask a question?
The Senator must be very brief. The Minister of State has replied so the Senator has no right to ask a question. However, I will allow him to make a very brief comment.
I have a right to ask a question. I think that right is established.
That right is not established.
May I ask a question as that has been the practice in the House, even if it is not established? I thank the Minister of State for his comments, one of which I do not accept. The Minister of State spoke about the malpractices which did not affect the overall outcome. That may or may not be true although the estimates are around 15%. Can he assure me that the concerns he has said would be conveyed to the Ugandan Government will be made public so we know the wording used and the extent of the protest?
I know from experience that any concerns being expressed would be in the public domain. We work on the basis of co-operation with our EU partners so in that sense there is no doubt that the type of concerns I outlined will be conveyed by the Government in co-operation with our EU partners. It will be public in that sense.
So the process will not be bilateral. This is a whitewash.