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Ugandan President to buy $43-m jet

Yoweri Museveni

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is to buy a new Gulfstream presidential jet for $43-million after convincing MPs that his $28-million G4 jet bought seven years ago is out of date.

MPs on the presidential affairs committee approved the purchase this week after a presentation by Mr. Museveni’s chief pilot, who said the G5 jet would be cheaper to maintain and use less fuel.

The plans have caused outrage in Uganda, where one in three people live on less than $1 a day and donor funding is vital.

But Mary Karooro, who chairs the presidential committee, said the jet would be a “national asset”.

In 2000, when Mr. Museveni purchased his current Gulfstream G4, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank deferred a decision to cancel debts of $717 million.

In Kampala, newspapers were roundly critical of the decision to upgrade the jet, reminding readers of Mr. Museveni’s famous speech when he came to power in 1986, in which he mocked the expensive tastes of African leaders. “The Honourable Excellency, who is going to the United Nations in executive jets, but has a population at home of 90 per cent walking barefoot, is nothing but a pathetic spectacle,” he said at the time.

In an editorial, the Weekly Observer questioned the President’s priorities, noting that “parts of the country are ravaged by floods, Ebola, cholera, malaria, and even plague!”

“Why should a leader of a poor country fly a jet when leaders of some of the industrialised countries he begs from travel on commercial flights? Look no further; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived in Uganda CHOGM aboard a British Airways plane.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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