COMMENTATOR (COMM.): Previously on Life...
SUSAN GEORGE: The real reason for debt has nothing to do with economics and it has nothing to do with finance. It's all about politics.
PROFESSOR THUROW: I don't think there's really any evidence we've been able to use the strings on World Bank loans to force countries to do things they don't want to do.
PROFESSOR FUKUYAMA: In most poor countries they got bureaucrats that steal, you know - everything before it can be of benefit.
COMM: They are ordinary people, with an extraordinary ambition: what Christine Nantongo and her friends want is an end to corruption - in a country where it's too often a way of life. Today, they've taken to the streets of Rukungiri in South West Uganda with the boys - and the girls - in the local band. Their message: corruption means this country of wealth and talent can't play to its natural strengths.
CHRISTINE NANTONGO, Uganda Debt Network: When we talk about corruption in Uganda: combination - big time, small time, integrated - all kinds of corruption. We also, as we campaign against corruption, highlight that corruption where government officials are paid where work is not done. They spend all their time doing private work, and yet they occupy a public office. Corruption is a serious problem in Uganda.
COMM: Christine is from the Uganda Debt Network, the UDN, an NGO which tries to make sure the country's scarce resources go to the poor and not to corrupt officials. Under a debt relief programme co-ordinated by the World Bank, Uganda's been let off sixty per cent of the hundred and twenty million dollars it pays to service its foreign debt every year. Christine and her friends in the UDN - Uganda's informal "Debt Police" - want to check the money Uganda's saved gets through to the places that need it - like the Rukingiri Health Centre. For over twenty years, doctors here have had to do without running water. Now they've been able to build a new water tower, paid for with money that had been earmarked to pay interest on international debts but which can now be spent fighting poverty. These young mothers and their children now have clean water when they most need it. And in a country where sixteen out of a hundred children die under five, clean water is a matter of life or death.
Inside, Christine checks the water really is working. There've been plenty of times in other clinics when local officials have ripped off resources before they've reached people who need it. But no such problem here.
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: I think it's a good er - good job done.
COMM: To make sure kids like two year old Valentina and her mother really do benefit from debt relief, Uganda's paying the cash it's saved into a special pot called the "Poverty Action Fund".
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: So how are you feeling now?
COMM: And it's the Poverty Action Fund cash that's helping these patients.
CHRISTINE: Debt relief has really changed the performance of this health centre in terms of provision water - safe water. Now water can run directly into the maternity ward, the washrooms, the consulting rooms. Er, they did not have flowing water before. The money that comes into the Poverty Action Fund which is debt relief money also provides for subsidy on drugs, so access to drugs is now easier for the community. The health centre services over thirty thousand people.
STEVE BRADSHAW: So they've all benefited?
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: They've all benefited.
STEVE BRADSHAW: From debt relief?
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: From debt relief - yes. I really now feel that debt relief can make a lot of difference.
COMM: Christine's based a day's drive from the Rukingiri hills - in the capital, Kampala - and she relies on local volunteers to help check debt relief money really is going to the right people. Monitoring where the money goes is an important, though not an easy task.
ABDUL AZIZ, Uganda Debt Network : We need to sensitise the people. We need to create awareness in the communities that whatever services being made in their areas - they belong to them. They are the owners of those services and therefore they should have all the access, that is the information - yeah, yeah.
CHRISTINE: Mm. Mm. That's why they should participate in making sure that the systems work for them -
ABDUL AZIZ: That, that, that duty is going to cost you a lot in terms of mobilising the people, in terms of facilitating the monitors. It's not an easy job.
WARREN TUMUTENDE, Uganda Debt Network : We have found it very difficult. In fact, moving, transport is really a hindrance because - I'm lucky, I have a motorcycle, but most of our monitoring committee members don't have, and even then the fuel - the fuel had escalated so high we can't really manage. So we are limited in movement. Otherwise we would be able to move to schools, to institutions, to people - if we had the means.
COMM: But today, with Christine's van, they can check out the local primary school.
UDN WORKER: I'm sure the headmaster has much. . .
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Good morning, my name is Christine. . .
COMM: There are rumours the debt relief money here is not doing all the headmaster would wish.
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Yes, we are glad to be here; we are mostly here to see what the debt relief money has done.
COMM: The head explains what debt relief money has brought the school.
HEADMASTER, Nyamwegabira Primary School: We have got many things apart from getting hard cash. We have got textbooks, we have medical kit and so we have it - we have some medicines in stock.
CHRISTINE: And since you started getting the - the money from...?
HEADMASTER: Things like, things like this table.
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Yes.
COMM: But, as the more sparsely furnished classrooms testify, the debt relief money channelled through the Poverty Action Fund only goes so far.
HEADMASTER: This Fund, which has been channelled through the Uganda government, has so far put up this - what we call magnificent two classroom building. Really, it has come to our rescue so much so that we are too congested.
STEVE BRADSHAW: So that debt relief money has actually meant a better classroom for your kids?
HEADMASTER: It has. It has done this plus textbooks. But what we are lacking as of now is furniture for the pupils - they just sit on the floor. Though a good floor, but they have nothing to write on.
STEVE BRADSHAW: What does that mean for their education?
HEADMASTER: Oh, it means - that is a disaster in a way because they can't, as infant as they are, they can't write properly without where to place their books for good handwriting.
STEVE BRADSHAW: So you've got a classroom, but there's nothing for them to write on?
HEADMASTER: It's just a room for nothing to write on. We have books, yes; we have students; we have teachers. But furniture - no.
COMM: Outside, Christine finds the same problem - the new resources made available by debt relief help - but don't always help quite enough. Across Uganda, it's estimated two million extra pupils have been enrolled because of debt relief and here they're building a block to train the teachers who'll be needed. Close by, the pupils' old toilets have been replaced.
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: So before...?
HEADMASTER: Before we were provided with this facility we used this one and this one. And there was a lot of problems, especially with girls and boys sharing one, but now at least we have some relief.
COMM: But while there are new toilets, there's still no running water. As for collecting rainwater - well, there's a rain tank, but no gutters.
HEADMASTER: What we need now is water.
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Yes. So they can't - they have nowhere even to wash their hands when they...
HEADMASTER: We are lacking water mainly. We have the tank but we have no gutters.
CHRISTINE: But gutters are cheap. What do they say?
HEADMASTER: No - even as cheap as they are, we have no funds for it.
CHRISTINE: Debt relief is getting through because we have seen the money comes to the district officials and the headmaster has shown us that the money is actually utilised to provide these children with adequate shelter for them to be taught.
STEVE BRADSHAW: So, to be blunt, it's not being creamed off - the money, the debt relief is getting through to these kids?
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: It is getting through to them.
STEVE BRADSHAW: And you're able to check that?
CHRISTINE: Yes, we are able to check that. The monitoring committees have looked at the figures and have seen that the money has been utilised for that purpose in many of the districts - including this one.
STEVE BRADSHAW: But there's still a lot more that needs to be done, clearly.
CHRISTINE NANTONGO: There is a lot more to be done because these children need the water; we need to have enough teachers to feed into the increased numbers of students; and so on.
COMM: The kids are happy to draw water themselves - but it's four kilometres away. Here the basics of life are still a luxury. Water has to be carried back to school and back home. Debt relief cash may bring these kids a few better classrooms but - as Christine knows - it's no substitute for economic development. And a thriving economy could be within Uganda's reach. The country, after all, has an often easy-to-come-by natural wealth. And while there is malnutrition, it's often because children are fed the wrong kind of food rather than because of drought or famine. So the best thing for Uganda's future generations, some say, would be for the country to be developing a thriving free market economy. And not to keep relying on aid, or debt relief or any other kind of hand out from the West.
PART TWO COMM: During our tour of Rukingiri with the Uganda Debt Network, we stopped to show Christine and her colleagues interviews with two leading voices in the debate over debt relief - supporter Anne Pettifor and first Steve Hanke - who's strongly opposed to letting countries off interest payments on their foreign debt. STEPHEN HANKE, Prof. Applied Economics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA: We have a big political bandwagon going full speed now in favour of debt relief - everyone from U2 to the Pope is for it - so it's a little bit hard to squeeze in with a dissident voice on the issue. I think, however, reality requires a little bit of scepticism about this whole project and whether it's going to do any good for the impoverished people that are involved in so-called debt relief. STEVE BRADSHAW: Why are you so sceptical? STEPHEN HANKE ON VTR: Well, I'm sceptical because debt relief really is nothing more than foreign aid wrapped in a new package. And foreign aid in the past has led to low levels of economic freedom, lots of corruption, no civil liberties, few political liberties. All of these in a package always lead to very low levels of economic growth and prosperity. So if you're injecting more foreign aid, another form of foreign aid, it might move things backward - in fact I think it probably will move things backward. So I remain very sceptical, and-and in fact opposed to the whole notion of debt relief. I think it's a - it's a grand fraud. STEVE BRADSHAW ON VTR: But wouldn't the creditor nations, the World Bank and the IMF say that they are now trying to impose conditionalities - not just reform, but accountancy and transparency? STEPHEN HANKE ON VTR: We've heard this song ever since the first drop of foreign aid ever went to any country - that there would be controls, accountability, conditionality. And the, and the foreign aid - and most of the foreign aid, literally, has gone into Swiss bank accounts or crony bank accounts of one sort or another, or gone to the military to buy more military equipment. COMM: Campaigner Anne Pettifor concedes corruption is a danger - but says it can be overcome. ANNE PETTIFOR, Jubilee 2000: When we began our campaign, many Africans and many Latin Americans came to us and said, 'Don't write off the debts - we know that our corrupt élites will put them back into British and Swiss banks or into American banks - they will not go to the people. We therefore want you to impose very tough conditions to ensure this money goes to the poor.' But, they said, those conditions cannot be run from Washington. It's not possible to sit in Washington and watch whether or not our local élites are spending the money on schools and on sanitation for the elderly. You've got to empower us to do that locally. And we agree with that, and we, we believe local people are the best people to monitor whether or not their local élites are doing the right thing by the money. STEVE BRADSHAW: This time we're told it's different because there will be monitoring - there is monitoring - to make sure countries don't get the prize of debt relief before they have some kind of transparency and accountability. STEPHEN HANKE: Well, I mean, if, if you believe. . . STEVE BRADSHAW: And most of them are not getting the money because of that. STEPHEN HANKE: If you believe in the tooth fairy, that's your prerogative. STEVE BRADSHAW ON VTR: Isn't a group like the Uganda Debt Network - who are trying to monitor at a grass roots level that money really does go to the poor after debt relief - I mean, aren't they doing exactly what you're calling for? STEPHEN HANKE: Well, I-I, again, I would rather award the prize after the race is completed. I want to wait and see if these NGOs like the Uganda Debt Relief Network can actually live up to their promises. Historically, none - none of this has ever worked. I think the only thing that can possibly help them over the long run are vibrant economies and the only way you get a vibrant economy is to have a free free market economy and have a society where you've got civil liberties and political freedoms. STEVE BRADSHAW: What do you make of all that? ABDUL AZIZ: Er, about Professor Steve? What I would say is that maybe the system of loaning - the-the people, the governments responsible for discharging these-these loans - could rather be advised. Like - say now, we can see the element of monitoring, the communities getting involved so that corruption could be checked totally - that, that could be a sure way of ensuring that er whatever aid comes is put to the right use, and that the communities benefit. CHRISTINE NANTONGO: If he could come here and look at places that we've been to, and see how even the little relief that has been given can change lives of people - then he would see that it's not fraud. STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you believe, Warren, that you can convince ordinary people debt relief money can come to them? WARREN TUMUTENDE, Uganda Debt Network: Definitely yes; and this one is er - we have got examples because since 1998 when we had the - I think the first debt relief - and it started coming, trickling to the grass roots. People now can have an example of what it can be like- though it is still on a limited scale -they can see what can actually be done. COMM: What the Uganda Debt Network want is not less debt relief, but more. And the reason is not just the poverty of the towns and countryside. Christine's friend Alice has taken her to visit an ageing grandmother who lives close by. Her husband's died, and so have her children - victims of AIDS. ALICE: That's the grandpa but he died about fifteen years ago. And all those children are now dead - so nobody's around, they're all dead. COMM: Now the children are on their own with their grandmother - just seven of Uganda's one million AIDS orphans. STEVE BRADSHAW: What's going to happen to these kids if she passes away? ALICE TUMUSIIME: She will leave them here. Nobody - there's no way she can say because - they will be left here because there's no way she can say - there's no more she can do. She'll have to do what she can but at the end the Lord will look after the children. You see, what they use their catering system - when they are cooking, drinking food - all their plates, saucepans and they cook from that house - that little one. In school, some of these children have nothing to bring for lunch. You know, they don't have breakfast and they have nothing so they come and find what the lady has prepared. And I don't think she can afford to feed them twice - lunch and supper. COMM: The visit has been proof for Christine that Uganda should not just have the interest on its debts forgiven, but it should have its debts cancelled altogether - all 3.7 billion dollars of them. CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Well, this family lives in abject poverty - they have no safe water near, they have no parenting, they have no adequate education because they spend all their day doing domestic chores, and go to school when they are tired. The current conditions in this home are not the kind of home that a child would live in, and I think the Western world can afford to give a decent life to these children by cancelling the debt. STEVE BRADSHAW: And that's what you want to see - the foreign debt cancelled to help kids like these? CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Yes, we now want total cancellation -to give hope to the new generation. COMM: In the village, the band reaches its destination: a rally against corruption. The villagers know debt cancellation will remain a dream unless the critics are silenced, and corruption stopped. Led by a trained actor, villagers are putting on an anti-corruption play. It's about a party-loving village priest who ingratiates himself with local politicians. The real priest looks on, amused - the satire's not aimed at him - but it's still pretty credible, as every onlooker knows. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: And then expenditure... COMM: Especially when the priest wangles a job as a teacher. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: Now entertainment - yes, entertainment: one million point five! COMM: And has the chance to fiddle the hospitality budget. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: Now - now, total income is seven million, seven hundred and fifty thousand! COMM: He tries in vain to balance the books. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: And then you show an expenditure: five million thirty thousand - only! COMM: This time it's the local headmaster who knows that while his honesty's not in question -there are other teachers who behave just like this one. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: This is my school! You understand? COMM: Finally, the plain-clothes policewoman comes to call. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA : You could see that he was fidgeting with the figures. STEVE BRADSHAW: There are many officials - headmasters - teachers like that, are there? STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA, Playwright: They are like that, and this play actually - in fact, does a lot. It does a lot to those who are like that. STEVE BRADSHAW: What are you hoping to achieve? STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: The total change of such people who are found in these malpractices. They will change. SCHOOLGIRLS SING: And now we are very poor; Poverty is on our back! Poverty is on our back! Fellow Ugandans, let's be united and fight poverty! 2nd SCHOOLGIRL: Corruption in the... corruption in the civil service of Uganda, corruption in the public service of Uganda... 3rd SCHOOLGIRL: Corruption, fellow Ugandans, brought Uganda into ditch of debt begging! The top officials, through their misuse of public funds and embezzlement, find a rise to the economy and make Uganda a beggar from the international organisations... CHRISTINE: The reason why we are now launching the grass roots anti-corruption campaign is so that you, the people of Rukungiri, and all Ugandans, participate in seeing that the resources benefit all the people. You have a role to play in ensuring that you are beneficiaries. That grassroots anti-corruption campaign is a campaign to arouse the people to take their responsibility to ensure that we all benefit from both debt relief resources and other national resources that the government and others mobilise from elsewhere. And I look forward to sharing with you. Thank you. COMM: Slowly, hearts and minds are changing. Uganda's young generation wants a corruption-free country. If they achieve it, they'll expect the West to cancel the debts that still cloud their future. END
PART TWO COMM: During our tour of Rukingiri with the Uganda Debt Network, we stopped to show Christine and her colleagues interviews with two leading voices in the debate over debt relief - supporter Anne Pettifor and first Steve Hanke - who's strongly opposed to letting countries off interest payments on their foreign debt. STEPHEN HANKE, Prof. Applied Economics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA: We have a big political bandwagon going full speed now in favour of debt relief - everyone from U2 to the Pope is for it - so it's a little bit hard to squeeze in with a dissident voice on the issue. I think, however, reality requires a little bit of scepticism about this whole project and whether it's going to do any good for the impoverished people that are involved in so-called debt relief. STEVE BRADSHAW: Why are you so sceptical? STEPHEN HANKE ON VTR: Well, I'm sceptical because debt relief really is nothing more than foreign aid wrapped in a new package. And foreign aid in the past has led to low levels of economic freedom, lots of corruption, no civil liberties, few political liberties. All of these in a package always lead to very low levels of economic growth and prosperity. So if you're injecting more foreign aid, another form of foreign aid, it might move things backward - in fact I think it probably will move things backward. So I remain very sceptical, and-and in fact opposed to the whole notion of debt relief. I think it's a - it's a grand fraud. STEVE BRADSHAW ON VTR: But wouldn't the creditor nations, the World Bank and the IMF say that they are now trying to impose conditionalities - not just reform, but accountancy and transparency? STEPHEN HANKE ON VTR: We've heard this song ever since the first drop of foreign aid ever went to any country - that there would be controls, accountability, conditionality. And the, and the foreign aid - and most of the foreign aid, literally, has gone into Swiss bank accounts or crony bank accounts of one sort or another, or gone to the military to buy more military equipment. COMM: Campaigner Anne Pettifor concedes corruption is a danger - but says it can be overcome. ANNE PETTIFOR, Jubilee 2000: When we began our campaign, many Africans and many Latin Americans came to us and said, 'Don't write off the debts - we know that our corrupt élites will put them back into British and Swiss banks or into American banks - they will not go to the people. We therefore want you to impose very tough conditions to ensure this money goes to the poor.' But, they said, those conditions cannot be run from Washington. It's not possible to sit in Washington and watch whether or not our local élites are spending the money on schools and on sanitation for the elderly. You've got to empower us to do that locally. And we agree with that, and we, we believe local people are the best people to monitor whether or not their local élites are doing the right thing by the money. STEVE BRADSHAW: This time we're told it's different because there will be monitoring - there is monitoring - to make sure countries don't get the prize of debt relief before they have some kind of transparency and accountability. STEPHEN HANKE: Well, I mean, if, if you believe. . . STEVE BRADSHAW: And most of them are not getting the money because of that. STEPHEN HANKE: If you believe in the tooth fairy, that's your prerogative. STEVE BRADSHAW ON VTR: Isn't a group like the Uganda Debt Network - who are trying to monitor at a grass roots level that money really does go to the poor after debt relief - I mean, aren't they doing exactly what you're calling for? STEPHEN HANKE: Well, I-I, again, I would rather award the prize after the race is completed. I want to wait and see if these NGOs like the Uganda Debt Relief Network can actually live up to their promises. Historically, none - none of this has ever worked. I think the only thing that can possibly help them over the long run are vibrant economies and the only way you get a vibrant economy is to have a free free market economy and have a society where you've got civil liberties and political freedoms. STEVE BRADSHAW: What do you make of all that? ABDUL AZIZ: Er, about Professor Steve? What I would say is that maybe the system of loaning - the-the people, the governments responsible for discharging these-these loans - could rather be advised. Like - say now, we can see the element of monitoring, the communities getting involved so that corruption could be checked totally - that, that could be a sure way of ensuring that er whatever aid comes is put to the right use, and that the communities benefit. CHRISTINE NANTONGO: If he could come here and look at places that we've been to, and see how even the little relief that has been given can change lives of people - then he would see that it's not fraud. STEVE BRADSHAW: Do you believe, Warren, that you can convince ordinary people debt relief money can come to them? WARREN TUMUTENDE, Uganda Debt Network: Definitely yes; and this one is er - we have got examples because since 1998 when we had the - I think the first debt relief - and it started coming, trickling to the grass roots. People now can have an example of what it can be like- though it is still on a limited scale -they can see what can actually be done. COMM: What the Uganda Debt Network want is not less debt relief, but more. And the reason is not just the poverty of the towns and countryside. Christine's friend Alice has taken her to visit an ageing grandmother who lives close by. Her husband's died, and so have her children - victims of AIDS. ALICE: That's the grandpa but he died about fifteen years ago. And all those children are now dead - so nobody's around, they're all dead. COMM: Now the children are on their own with their grandmother - just seven of Uganda's one million AIDS orphans. STEVE BRADSHAW: What's going to happen to these kids if she passes away? ALICE TUMUSIIME: She will leave them here. Nobody - there's no way she can say because - they will be left here because there's no way she can say - there's no more she can do. She'll have to do what she can but at the end the Lord will look after the children. You see, what they use their catering system - when they are cooking, drinking food - all their plates, saucepans and they cook from that house - that little one. In school, some of these children have nothing to bring for lunch. You know, they don't have breakfast and they have nothing so they come and find what the lady has prepared. And I don't think she can afford to feed them twice - lunch and supper. COMM: The visit has been proof for Christine that Uganda should not just have the interest on its debts forgiven, but it should have its debts cancelled altogether - all 3.7 billion dollars of them. CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Well, this family lives in abject poverty - they have no safe water near, they have no parenting, they have no adequate education because they spend all their day doing domestic chores, and go to school when they are tired. The current conditions in this home are not the kind of home that a child would live in, and I think the Western world can afford to give a decent life to these children by cancelling the debt. STEVE BRADSHAW: And that's what you want to see - the foreign debt cancelled to help kids like these? CHRISTINE NANTONGO: Yes, we now want total cancellation -to give hope to the new generation. COMM: In the village, the band reaches its destination: a rally against corruption. The villagers know debt cancellation will remain a dream unless the critics are silenced, and corruption stopped. Led by a trained actor, villagers are putting on an anti-corruption play. It's about a party-loving village priest who ingratiates himself with local politicians. The real priest looks on, amused - the satire's not aimed at him - but it's still pretty credible, as every onlooker knows. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: And then expenditure... COMM: Especially when the priest wangles a job as a teacher. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: Now entertainment - yes, entertainment: one million point five! COMM: And has the chance to fiddle the hospitality budget. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: Now - now, total income is seven million, seven hundred and fifty thousand! COMM: He tries in vain to balance the books. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: And then you show an expenditure: five million thirty thousand - only! COMM: This time it's the local headmaster who knows that while his honesty's not in question -there are other teachers who behave just like this one. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: This is my school! You understand? COMM: Finally, the plain-clothes policewoman comes to call. STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA : You could see that he was fidgeting with the figures. STEVE BRADSHAW: There are many officials - headmasters - teachers like that, are there? STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA, Playwright: They are like that, and this play actually - in fact, does a lot. It does a lot to those who are like that. STEVE BRADSHAW: What are you hoping to achieve? STEVEN BIKUZIBWA BABA: The total change of such people who are found in these malpractices. They will change. SCHOOLGIRLS SING: And now we are very poor; Poverty is on our back! Poverty is on our back! Fellow Ugandans, let's be united and fight poverty! 2nd SCHOOLGIRL: Corruption in the... corruption in the civil service of Uganda, corruption in the public service of Uganda... 3rd SCHOOLGIRL: Corruption, fellow Ugandans, brought Uganda into ditch of debt begging! The top officials, through their misuse of public funds and embezzlement, find a rise to the economy and make Uganda a beggar from the international organisations... CHRISTINE: The reason why we are now launching the grass roots anti-corruption campaign is so that you, the people of Rukungiri, and all Ugandans, participate in seeing that the resources benefit all the people. You have a role to play in ensuring that you are beneficiaries. That grassroots anti-corruption campaign is a campaign to arouse the people to take their responsibility to ensure that we all benefit from both debt relief resources and other national resources that the government and others mobilise from elsewhere. And I look forward to sharing with you. Thank you. COMM: Slowly, hearts and minds are changing. Uganda's young generation wants a corruption-free country. If they achieve it, they'll expect the West to cancel the debts that still cloud their future. END