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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ordered the closure of a democracy fund supported, among others, by Swedish Sida.
Democratic aid has been used to undermine the government, says Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Stock Photography.
Since 2011, the Fund for Democratic Governance fund, initiated by Sweden and seven European partners, has worked to strengthen human rights, democracy and civil society in Uganda. But now the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni, is ordering the closure of the operation.
Democracy money has been used “to finance activities and organizations that seek to undermine the government,” Museveni writes in a letter to the country’s finance minister, quoted by the Norwegian news agency NTB.
The Swedish contribution to the fund is channeled through Sida.
– This information has contacted us and my colleagues employed by Sida at the embassy in Kampala are following and assessing the situation in consultation with other donors, says development agency press secretary Mattias Bengtsson Byström.
Museveni, 76, has ruled Uganda since 1986 and was recently re-elected for another term, in an election that opposition leader Bobi Wine dismissed as rigged.
According to NTB, the president claims that he was never consulted when the fund started and that democracy aid constitutes undue interference in the internal affairs of Uganda.
The fund is managed by the Danish Embassy in the country. Since its inception, Sweden has contributed SEK 200 million through Sida. The current period of the Swedish project runs until next year.
