By President Yoweri Museveni
The Book of Mathew: Chapter 7, verse 26-27, talks about the unwise man that built his house on sand. It says: “But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell ─ and great was its fall”.
Similarly, in Economics, we must identify the firm ground from the sandy ground. The firm ground for economics is in answering the fundamental human needs which are: food, clothes, shelter, defence, the human resource development (education and health), infrastructure, medicine and spirituality. With these, the society is secure. It is these that support life, morality and enlightenment. With all or some of these, you have the basic economy that is firm.
When conditions permit, however, you can also take advantage of the leisure and pleasure economy of tourism, hospitality (hotels, bars, night-clubs, Casinos) and entertainment such as concerts, sports, etc. This type of economy should be understood for what it is: a fair-weather sector that is rewarding but very sensitive.
It is sensitive and vulnerable. Any disturbance can damage it because the tourists do not want any risk and they are right.
Even without the corona-virus, the NRM has been advising Ugandans to concentrate on the nine needs of our society and the World: food, clothes, shelter, medicines, defence, physical infrastructure (electricity, roads, rail, ICT), health, education and spirituality. The demand for these nine is not ephemeral; it is durable, it is eternal. Even this crisis cannot affect them fundamentally. Why? It is because they are the most basic needs.
The others are additional and optional. The latter, if available, are welcome; if not available, their absence is survivable.
This is why I do not easily join the pessimists in predicting doom for Africa on account of this disease that is easy to prevent, especially here in Africa. The other day, I said that the problem is not the disease but the indiscipline of the society in not observing the three things: do not cough or sneeze in public, without a protective tissue; do not get close to one another; do not touch your soft parts of the face (the eyes, the nose and the mouth) with unwashed hands. Otherwise, the disease is easy to stop. Nevertheless, as long as it is not stopped, the first casualties of this disease are the very sectors that are not basic to the needs of the society ─ the optionals, the additionals. No doubt, the sensitive tourism cannot survive. How will it survive if people cannot sit together in crammed air-crafts ─ those flying coffins ─ tourist mini-buses, etc.? How can the remittances of the Ugandans working abroad survive if those Ugandans are trying to flee and come back home and, if they cannot, they are stuck in little cubicles, not able to work, because of the total shut-down in all the countries of the Global North (North America, Europe and Northern Asia)? It seems that those countries may be more vulnerable than the Global South, without a vaccine or treatment, on account of their public modes of transport, staying in shared blocs and, apparently, some of these viruses thrive in the cold climates rather than the hot ones. The optional, the additional needs for the society and the demand for them cannot, therefore, easily survive this shock. This, however, cannot and should not apply to the basic needs of society, the nine, in which Uganda excels: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, defence, physical infrastructure, health, education and spirituality. Let us go, one by one as follows:
(1) Food, in Uganda, is produced by the 5 million families of Ugandans, farming 17.2 million acres of the 40 million acres of Uganda that are suitable for crop and livestock farming, according to the 2014 housing census. These grow:
- 5 million tonnes of maize;
- 10 million tonnes of bananas;
- 1.76 million metric tonnes of beans and other plant protein bearing crops (peas, cow-peas, etc.);
- 218,000 tonnes of Irish potatoes;
- 2.5million metric tonnes of sweet potatoes;
- 4.1 million metric tonnes of cassava;
- 392,000 metric tonnes of millet;
- 6 million metric tonnes of sugar-cane, that gives 500,000 metric tonnes of sugar;
- 60 million kgs of processed tea;
- 5 million bags of coffee;
- We rear 14 million heads of cattle, 14 million goats, 50 million chicken, 1million sheep and catch 447,000tonnes of fish from our Lakes, etc.
The above are about 14 production lines of different foods or beverages, where, even if we were to concentrate on just one or two, we would have a very strong durable economy by World standards. You have heard of the milk industry of Ireland. Milk is, apparently, the only major agricultural activity of Ireland, that takes up approximately 80% of all the agricultural land and earns Ireland US$5.2billion. How about the milk in New Zealand? It earns that country, US$7.8billion. How about beef in the semi-arid Botswana? How about coffee in Vietnam? Coffee collects US$5,682million for Vietnam. How about coffee in Brazil in the past? Uganda is not talking of one agricultural activity. We are talking of 14 separate products dealing with the food and the beverage needs of man, within Uganda, within the region and internationally. Let us maximize value from all these.
(i) Let us add value to maize by making the maize flour, all categories of animal feeds for poultry, starch for our pharmaceutical industry on which we spend US$20million per year and ethanol for driving cars, if necessary.
(ii) With the bananas, we should support Mrs. Florence Muranga to make the superior banana flour to replace wheat for baking; make starch for pharmaceutical needs for export in Africa and the World after satisfying our internal needs; bottle the eshaande for Africa and the World as one of the sweetest natural juices in nature; of course, intensify the waraginization now that, that dangerous product can end up as a more useful sanitizer for medical and hygienic purposes; make foods of all types, knowing that bananas are rich in potassium which is good for heart muscles and also for lowering blood pressure as well as vitamins A, C, B6 and magnesium. Baby foods, known as puree, are made from bananas.
(iii) You come to cassava. What are the values from cassava? Apart from eating it in the traditional way, with ebishate, slices of cassava, you can make cassava flour which you mix with millet flour, makes the very good mutsiba meal (elastic in texture), make ethanol for cooking using stoves, pharmaceutical grade starch, starch for baking bread instead of wheat, etc. Imported wheat for the unhealthy wheat bread with gluten, now takes from us US$300 million per year.
Out of cassava one can, apparently, also make bio-degradable packaging materials.
(iv) Out of beans, we can get bean cakes, baked and canned beans, noodles, instant extruded bean sauce, cooked and frozen beans.
(v) Out of Irish Potatoes, we get chips, crisps, noodles, starch, potato flour, glue, animal feeds, ethanol, glucose.
(vi) Out of sweet potatoes, we can get starch, puree, noodles, high glucose syrup, flour bread, animal feeds.
(vii) Out of millet, we can get flour, animal feeds, millet hulls in textile industry and pillows, fermented porridge (obushera obutaire), alcohol, etc.
(viii) Out of sugarcane, we can get raw sugar, refined sugar, molasses, bagasse, ethanol, gasohol (ethanol mixed with petrol), electricity by burning bagasse, gin and rum, fiber board (ceiling boards), particle board, furfural and acetic acid, manure, bagasse ash.
(ix) Out of cattle, we get milk, beef, skins and even horns. All these are very valuable raw-materials. Out of milk, we get liquid milk, powdered milk for long distance transport, butter, ghee, yoghurt, cheese, caissene, the lactogens, etc. Right now Uganda is suffering with alot of unsold milk on account of the work we did to build the milk industry. However, milk products to the tune of US$4.565million are still being imported. Which are these? They are cheese, butter, ice-cream, yoghurt, sour-milk, cream, etc. The global market for dairy products is worth US$718.9billion. We should share in that market.
(x) Beef: Fortunately, Uganda has alot of beef and it is so cheap, at only US$2 per kg while in London, a kg of inferior beef is US$17. In Japan, it is at US$200 ─ known as Kobe beef. I have not heard of any body making tinned and salted beef for the Army. It was only Tanganyika Packers in the 1960s that was making tinned beef known as: “3Bulls”. How about exporting the beef? People are dying in the World on account of eating bats, monkeys, etc. Let us save them. What is true of beef, is true of chicken, goats, sheep (mutton), pigs (ham and sausages). The global demand for these meats, which we have here in plenty, is US$945.7billion in 2018 and was forecast to increase to US$1,142.9 billion by 2023. How much of it is Uganda earning? This is a great opportunity. You have heard the parochialist farmers in Kenya crying about Uganda milk, the Uganda poultry, the Uganda maize, etc. Yet, we are just scratching the surface of our capacity. Uganda, provided we have patriots in charge of these sectors, is unstoppable in terms of agricultural products and agro-based industrial products. Some of the meat parts were used for medicine in the past. What is the situation now? Wasn’t insulin being made out of the pancreas of livestock? What is happening now?
(xi) How about our perennially under-utilized coffee, whose volumes we have now pushed to 5 million bags? We are getting only US$416million from coffee because we sell it unprocessed. If we roast it and grind it and package it, we should be earning about US$4billion.
(xii) Tea: Are we maximizing our earnings from tea? How much do we get per Kg of processed tea and how much are the intermediaries charging the final consumer?
(xiii) Cocoa: How big is the chocolate industry in the World? It is US$43.13billion. We are only earning US$75.463million (2016) and US$65.126million (2018) from our cocoa crop of 30,752 tonnes, exported unprocessed as mere cocoa beans.
(xiv) We are earning US$175.97million from processed fish, from our 12 factories currently operating. If we were to stop bad fishing, we could catch 700,000 metric tonnes of fish per annum, instead of our present 470,000 metric tonnes, but, the exportable Nile Perch would be about 45,000 metric tonnes. This would enable us to earn US$301.59million per annum. There are, however, some fish parts that we are not benefiting from. There is ennuni. This has alot of money, I hear.
All these are the foods, beverages and other industrial goods (ethanol, medicine, etc.), from the food-crops, fisheries and livestock wealth of Uganda to deal, mainly, with the food needs of Uganda and the World.
Remember, here, we have dealt only with food, beverages and some industrial products (starch, etc.), from food products.
(2) Clothing: In the previous section, we dealt with livestock as a source of food (milk, meat, etc). However, livestock are also a source of raw-materials for clothing and other industrial products. One of the main raw-materials is leather for making shoes, belts, hand-bags, jackets, car seats, etc. These, together, take US$328.944million out of Uganda. Besides, the global demand for leather and leather products is US$72.36billion. Moreover, there are yet the fibres that are wholly dedicated to clothing the human being. These start with the cotton of which we are now producing 185,000 bales per annum. The cotton plant produces fibre for cloth, cotton seeds for vegetable oil and making animal food and linters for making gun-powder (nitro-cellulose). Then, there are other fibres that can make cloth such as bark-cloth, banana-fibres, making paper for packaging, etc. In future our petroleum industry, will give us synthetic fibres such as polyester that we should mix with our cotton to produce very strong cloth. We can, however, import those polyester fibres for now. Therefore, our contribution to clothing the human being, in Uganda and outside, will be based on cotton and leather, whose raw-materials we have in plenty. The imports of cloth and shoes and curtains and car seats are currently taking a total of US$328.944million per annum and all the jobs that go with it.Our efforts to clothe the human beings could cover the weaving and knitting. Weaving makes fabrics, while knitting makes sweaters. Uganda is already making blankets, bed-sheets, etc. Are we not importing hospital linen? Why? If so, how much is it taking from our hard earned dollars? The global business of textiles and leather products is US$1,015billion. Why should Uganda fail to benefit from this?
(3) The third basic area to cover is housing ─ shelter. In the olden days, we were using emigaanda (small size branches that would form the base of the bifuuha – hut), ebikoondo (poles) for the mud huts (ebiteteyi), emiingo (reeds) for the Rukaanga (roof) and grass (obwiriiza) for thatching. With exposure to other cultures, we adopted new concepts of shelter, using permanent materials that are labour-saving ─ you do not have to rebuild the structures often. It was, therefore, more rational to use the new technology of shelter provision provided it is tailored to the local conditions so as to, for instance, eliminate the terrible air-conditioning that we do not need. Fortunately, we are already producing some of the materials that we need to build modern houses. We are autonomously producing cement, bricks, tiles and steel-bars (mitayimbwa), locally. Cement is from our limestone and we have reserves of over 1 billion tonnes of it. Tiles and bricks are from our clay (eibuumba) whose scientific name is Kaoline. Unfortunately, for mabaati (corrugated iron sheets), we are still using imported steel sheets that consume US$444.619millionsof our dollars. By developing our iron-ore (obutare) into an indigenous steel industry, we shall eliminate this haemorrhage and we can also export to other African countries. Recycled steel products cannot be used in high-rise buildings, dams, etc. That is why we need fresh steel, sometimes alloyed with some of the minerals that are being squandered today, such as nickel, titanium, manganese, etc., to close this gap.
With shelter, one of the products needed for modern housing is sheet glass. Sheet glass is from sand. This will be made here. We are now using US$27.95 million for importing glass for housing, bottling, etc. This would be saved and we can export to the other African countries. The demand of steel in the World is US$2.5trillion.
Uganda is endowed with incredible amounts of some of the strongest building and paving materials. These are granite and marble. Streets which were paved with stones in Rome when St. Peter was crucified by the Romans, are still there up to today, 2000 years later. Marble floors can last forever. In one site in Rupa sub-county (Matheniko ─ Karamoja), there are reserves of 560 million tonnes of marble. See the pictures below that I took there recently.
The global demand for marble is US$52 billion (2016) and it was forecast to increase to 64billion in 2023. It is quite an achievement to be poor in such circumstances.
(4) The fourth basic need of man is medicine and veterinary drugs for our livestock and drugs for our crops. Medicines and medical equipment currently take up US$383.035million including veterinary drugs and equipment. Agricultural inputs ─ fertilizers (US$38.996million), insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, herbicides and the like (US$ 82.56million), take up to US$121.556million. The medicines and veterinary drugs must include all the vaccines and diagnostic tests. How much do all these consume? Moreover, the global demand for medicine, veterinary drugs and vaccines for humans and livestock is US$1.418trillion. Africa never shares in this business or shares very little.
(5) The fifth human need is defence and security. Since time immemorial, the Africans were making spears, arrows, bows, swords and shields, to defend themselves. The problem for Africa is the lagging behind other parts of the World in the last 500 years in all areas of technology, including defence. Africa squanders alot of money in the importation of weapons. In the last financial year, Africa used US$40.2billion to purchase weapons, most of them ineffective if we judge by looking at the terrorists that are ravaging Africa. Uganda, in order to modernize our Armed Forces, is using US$1.8billion in the 3 years up to 2023. This haemorrhage must be stopped. The street cameras must be made here, the bombs, etc.
(6) Physical infrastructure and transport platforms. Once you deal with the five human needs of: food, clothing, shelter, medicine and defence, we find that most of those needs are satisfied by factory products that use raw-materials from agriculture, forestry, fisheries or minerals. In order for the factories to operate, they need electricity, transport (vehicles, roads, rails, planes, trains, ships, motor-cycles), etc. Our scientists are already making electric buses and Kayoola (mini-bus), Katabazi’s bus, NEC (on my instigation) has mechanized the African concept of fighting fire (kuteeera omurirro), we are now making Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV), etc. With Shs. 400billion, this industry can take off ─ i.e. the transport vehicles’ industry. There are many investors in the manufacture of transformers, cables, meters, etc., that we should link with our copper minerals at Kilembe. That copper mineral must be purified up to 99.9% into pure cathode copper instead of the previous joke of purifying it up to 94% blister copper that could not be used in our copper consuming industries like the Cables Industry of Lugazi. What irrationality it was to witness rail truckloads of Uganda blister copper going to Mombasa and Mehta had to import the copper from abroad to be used in the cables industry! Apart from the vehicles that we are already making, we must, eventually, aim at the heavy industry of making turbines for power generation. We should, however, start with making the alloyed steel for rail roads, power dams, alloyed from nickle, the other minerals the people of our minerals department have been fighting to donate to foreigners against my determined opposition. Therefore, physical infrastructure is the sixth most important element in our basic and vital economy that deals with the most basic human needs.
(7) The 7th most important need is to have a population of educated and healthy people that can do all these things, having, not only education of theory, but also the scientific and technical skills of running a modern economy. Fortunately, the NRM has already done a commendable job of building the educational infrastructure in the form of 36,285 Primary Schools (Government and Private), 5,553 Secondary Schools (Government and Private), 1,543 Technical and Tertiary schools (Government and Private) and 49 Universities. The skeleton of this infrastructure for numeracy, literacy, skilling and intellectuality is already there. We just need to deepen the content. The Pre-primary institutions are 7,308.
(8) When we talk of the human resource development, you cannot forget health which involves: immunization, hygiene, nutrition, vector-control, treatment, maternal health, etc. In order to do all this, we have built1,079 HC IIIs, 182 HC IVs, 53 District hospitals, 14 Regional Referral hospitals, five (5) National Referral hospitals and five (5) Super Specialized hospitals. Building this capacity is both an opportunity and a challenge. Therefore, the story of saying that we are allowing in medicine, veterinary drugs or scholastic materials from outside tax-free, is not correct. All or most of the medicines, vaccines, scholastic materials, etc., must be made here so that that importing stops. Health and education should not only be sectors of expenditure and importing (kusasanya n’ okusaka), but also sectors of business, import substitution, export promotion and jobs creation.
(9) The ninth crucial human need is morality. Where does morality come from? It comes from spirituality (the fear of God) and, sometimes, from culture (obuntu bulamu). Both religion and culture play a crucial role here. If our religious and cultural groups could emphasize the double mandate of establishing “dominion over nature” and “multiplying and filling the Earth” (Genesis Chapter 1, verses: 28-29); the two greatest commandments: “Loving God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind”(Mathew 22:36); and “loving your neighbour as you love yourself”(Mathew 22:39); and “the story of the talents” (Mathew 25:14-30), as a minimum according to my understanding of Christianity, this would create a good foundation for our youth and the population in general. I do not accept the escapism of some preachers who blame everything on God and disclaim their own responsibility. We are not cows or goats. We were created in God’s image and we need to solve problems with God’s blessings. Spirituality and morality would help with fighting corruption.
When we are planning for these nine (9) areas, we should not only plan for Uganda ─ because the internal market is not enough. We should plan for the African market and also the international market on the basis of the concept of comparative advantages in a dynamic manner (after partners have fully developed their potential). Therefore, Uganda may not have to undertake each and every one of the activities above. We shall pick some and our brother African people will pick others. Then, we can trade among ourselves and also with the others. It will all depend on the competitiveness of the respective countries.
I have, for instance, already advised that the factory for fabricating the oil pipe-line sections, should be based in Tanga, Tanzania, as long as the steel is still coming from outside. I have even seen a proposal from one industrialist saying that the iron-ore of Uganda should be carried by train to Mombasa so as to meet the imported coal there to make cheaper steel for East Africa. Other ideas are, however, coming up saying that we do not have to use coal. We can use hydrogen as a reducing agent in steel manufacture. There was also the idea of using methane gas from Lake Kivu in Congo and Rwanda. Minimum costs, maximum profitability in each of these situations, should be our guiding principle.
After securing the basic economy that does not depend so much on human movement, but depends, more on cargo movement, by train, by ship, by truck, by plane, then we turn to the additionals if conditions permit. These are the sectors of: tourism, externalization of labour (kyeyo), hospitality (hotels, etc.), leisure (bars, casinos) and entertainment (music, drama, sports, etc). Of all these, sports should be regarded as part of the vital economy. This is, however, sport for fitness. Sports for entertainment and, especially for commercialism (professional), would fall among the optionals ─ if conditions permit.
I, therefore, reject totally the view of the neo-colonial economists that are mourning the current shake-up of the distorted and parasitic World economic system in which Africa has got a very limited role on account of the neo-colonial African actors (politicians, civil servants, etc.), supported by their imperialist masters. It is good that some of the leaders in the World, when dying on a mass-scale (ekyorezo) was on the table, started talking of only “producing for their national needs”. Where would that leave the perpetually dependent Africans? Good lesson for the neo-colonial agents.
I told one of our officials that, as a Christian and an indigenous African that never believe in okuhemuka (to let down others), I did not want to hear of the banning of the export of food because Uganda needs it or the export of sanitizers because Uganda needs them. Produce more. This is both a duty to Africa, to humanity, but is also an opportunity to use the under-utilized vast resources of Uganda to solve our problems and humanity problems. The maximum you could say, is that we shall reserve 30%for internal use.
Therefore, patriots, Pan-Africanists, disregard the nonsense of the neo-colonial agents who have for long abused our respect of the principle of broad-based politics when they are mourning the shake-up of the parasitic system originating from the 500 years of betrayal by the African chiefs, who failed to unite in the face of imperialist aggression, by this virus. Let us, finally, without compromise with any neo-colonialist agent of whatever description, implement our decades ─ old NRM points nos: 5 and 9. Point no. 5, talked of building an integrated, independent and self-sustaining national economy, linked to the African economy through point no. 9 ─ the co-operation among the African countries.
We already have the basics, the obstructions by the neo-colonial agents notwithstanding. We have enough electricity. We have good trunk roads. We have alot of educated people, including the scientists who, now, must be paid well and we have a healthy population, on account of the immunization, of 42 million people that will be 106million by 2050. This is all part of the 1.25 billion African population that will be 2.5billion people by 2050.
We must, first and foremost, start with the basic economy for the nine (9) basic needs of man: food, clothing, shelter, medicine, defence, infrastructure, education, health and spirituality for the population. This is the economy for survival and good living. It is durable and not opportunistic and ephemeral. It will be there whether there are wars in other parts of the World or whether there are epidemics like this one. All it needs are: cargo planes, trains for cargo, lorries for cargo and ships for cargo. People will be served where they are, even if they do not move. We shall also continue to benefit from the opportunistic and ephemeral leisure and pleasure economy of: tourism, music, bars, cinemas, concerts, etc., if the conditions allow. However, this time, we must be awake to its vulnerabilities: terrorist attacks somewhere, fear or onslaught of epidemics like this one, even cycles of elections (people fear to travel when Africans are holding elections), politically motivated advisories by the Governments of origin, etc. However, there is no harm in Uganda benefiting from these industries when they are not under attack. The externalization of labour (kyeyo), is a temporary phenomenon.
By implementing what I have outlined above, especially if we work with other Africans, we shall create so many jobs that it will no longer be necessary for our children and grand-children to go abroad. Some of our children, especially, the doctors and nurses, have been helping the elderly populations of Western Europe and the USA, which is a commendable service to humanity. Unfortunately, on account of gaps in the health systems of those countries, some of our children have died there in this epidemic. May their souls rest in eternal peace.
I will make it mandatory for all our health workers to wear all the necessary protective gear all the time, especially the gloves, the masks, the goggles and maybe even the aprons so that we rule out all these repeated surprises like what we suffered from the ebola attack when we lost Dr. Lukwiya and, now, this tragedy where our children have died abroad, helping other human beings.
When this crisis is over, we shall have to engage the Governments of those countries to compensate the families of our children who have died in service to humanity. That is why I do not want to hear of the nauseating position of the neo-colonial agents of lifting taxes on imported gloves, masks, etc. We must make the gloves ourselves, we must make the masks, we must make the medicines.
Economy of survival, economy of living, ahead of the economy of pleasure and leisure; economy of independence rather the economy of dependency.
In order not to confuse the readers, I will not this time dismantle the errors of the pseudo-neo-liberals that wasted alot of our time and abused our partnership. Even the errors of the authentic neo-liberals in the West have been exposed.
Once we have rejected the nonsense of the pseudo-neo-liberals of our system and adopted the strategy of real economy based on the basic human needs and we have listed all the areas of potential opportunity, we now face the problem of prioritization.
What do we start with given the long list? I would propose the following example of prioritizing:
- Fund the planting of more maize and beans so that we do not run out of these basic relief foods, given the global crisis.
- Complete the gaps in the cassava industry so that it becomes an alternative source of flour in case maize flour is not enough; besides, we need cassava for starch for medicine, for ethanol, for fuel for stoves and for animal feeds.
- Complete issues with Dr. Florence Muranga with bananas and its products ─ banana flour, starch, etc. ─ so that we kick out wheat flour that consumes US$300million of our foreign exchange.
- Take advantage of the corona-virus crisis by supporting Nytil, Mulwana, UIRI, Prof. William Bazeyo, etc., to make the surgical masks, N-95, scrub-suits, rubber gloves, test kits and the vaccines by Prof. Nantulya and Uganda Virus Institute.
- Enable the Quality Chemicals to clear their debts and start making all the drugs we need such as hydroxy-choloroquine and all our other drugs.
- Help Mayuge Sugar to make Industrial grade sugar for coco-cola and pharmaceutical grade sugar for medicine. This will save us expenditure of US$40.251million per annum.
- Continue down the whole list of our potential in that way using UDB money.
The external friends, if they are friends at all, should cancel all the multi-lateral and bilateral loans because this problem has been created for Africa by Asia and Europe. This will save our Ug. Shs. 1.3trillion that we are spending per year to pay loans which we were happily doing until this additional burden.
Any new borrowing, if at all, must not be in order to support more importing by Uganda, clothed as “balance of payments support”. “Balance of payments support” must include developing my suppressed potential to be competitive in terms of import-substitution and export-promotion, not to just re-inforce my imports-dependency and my indebtedness.
With the funding of UDB, our entrepreneurs will, then, be encouraged to attack all the areas of Uganda’s potential on the basis of the private initiative but using cheaper loans from the UDB, not the criminally extortionate loans from the Commercial Banks.
