International Monetary Fund (IMF) came to Uganda a while back and declared that we lived on less than a dollar a day. Meanwhile, in Washington where they come from, one finger of a yellow banana is one dollar. I highly doubt that the average Ugandan cannot afford one finger of bogoya.
To survive in Washington you need to spend a monthly minimum of 1,700,000/- on food (Google, never been to Washington). Meanwhile, in Uganda, you can survive on about 500,000/- monthly with even a much wider variety of non-processed food. My personal minimum is 300,000/- (excluding the 'free' food at office). We spend a third of what they spend on food not because we are broke but because the food is extremely cheap.
Where does the IMF get its figures to conclude that Ugandans have ever lived on less than a dollar a day? I am confused. How are we so poor that we cannot afford a dollar a day? I do not think that because I grow my own food then it should imply that the food has no monetary value. Because you have no cash in your pocket but can still afford to eat a decent meal everyday that you got from your own garden does not necessarily mean that you are broke. Money I think has been overrated.
Ever noticed what happens to poor people in most societies currently? They are avoided like Ebola patients by those richer than them. However, as far as I know, we are not avoided by the international community. They are in fact so tied up in our internal affairs that they even send "election observers" to "observe" our elections. If we were indeed poor, China would have never stepped a foot on our soul. France wouldn't be making its former colonies pay taxes directly to them up to now. They wouldn't have offered to print their currencies till now. They would have avoided them as much as possible. But they do not.
I think that we are perceived as poor by the average westerner because we do not own our story. They control the narrative and the medium through which those narratives are shared so they choose the story that is told about us, and that is the story that we read and the story that we believe. We have rotten infrastructure, but we are by no means a poor country. If you want to see real poverty, go back to Europe before the industrial revolution.
