The Member of Parliament for Bugiri Municipality Asuman Basalirwa has lambasted the World Bank for expressing double standards after the institution banned Uganda from seeking any more loans over the country's controversial anti-homosexuality law.
Speaking at parliament this morning, Basalirwa, the mover of the motion that birthed the controversial law said that Uganda will be sustained by God for upholding his religious values.
He said that the decision is an attack on Uganda's legislative sovereignty.
"We are a god-fearing country, God who created us will make us survive, it isn't World Bank that created us, World Bank isn't God I know they aren't believers in God. Let us look for new friends," he said.
According to Basalirwa, the country needs to rethink the extravagance that is exhibited in public offices, Ministers moving with huge convoys of cars and fuel guzzlers, must stop so that all that money is channelled into socioeconomic transformation.
Basalirwa has now called on Uganda to look for new friends in Asia and the Arab world, saying World Bank isn't funding any project in Afghanistan but its people are still surviving.
He said the World Bank is only expressing double standards or just finding an excuse to stop lending to Uganda.
"Why do you punish a country for expressing a view? Because even where World Bank is located in the USA, polygamy is a crime in America. Are you saying that in America there are people who don't wish to be polygamous? They are there. But because the country has chosen that to be their law, it must be respected. So, my appeal to World Bank is to respect the legislative sovereignty of Uganda," Basalirwa said.
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"Unless the World Bank was looking for justification to stop lending us money, and they are using this law merely as a reason to stop lending us money. When a country decides to take a direction, that direction must be respected. Uganda isn't the only country with Anti-Homosexuality laws, Kenya, and Tanzania has, most of these African countries, why are they only targeting Uganda?" he posed.
He lambasted World Bank for displaying "double standards" and 'blackmail'.
"In fact, Uganda doesn't have the harshest law. In Ghana, even mere expression has been criminalised, here, we don't even criminalise existence. So why do they want to make the whole world assume that homosexual rights are superior and therefore if the law comes to limit those rights, everybody should be up in arms," he said.
Basalirwa now joins Museveni who has already dismissed the World Bank decision by re-affirming that Uganda will survive.
"I want to inform everybody, starting with Ugandans, that Uganda will develop with or without loans," Museveni said in a statement yesterday.
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