Uganda’s parliament passed \u200blegislation to curb alleged foreign influence after scaling back proposed restrictions on funding from \u200cabroad that the central bank governor said risked “economic disaster”.<\/p>\n
The proposal, entitled “The Protection of Sovereignty Bill\u201d, was adopted late on Tuesday and now awaits the signature of President Yoweri Museveni.<\/p>\n
Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, \u200band allies in the ruling party regularly decry outside influence in Uganda, accusing domestic \u200bpolitical rivals of receiving funding from abroad and pushing foreign agendas such as \u2060LGBTQ rights.<\/p>\n
Several Ugandan opposition parties have traditionally received some of their funding from outside the \u200bcountry.<\/p>\n
The law, which calls for penalties of up to 10 years in prison for violations of \u200bits terms, bans anyone working on behalf of foreign interests from developing or implementing policy without the approval of the government.<\/p>\n
It also criminalises the promotion of the “interests of a foreigner against the interests of Uganda”.<\/p>\n
Rights groups have \u200bsaid that such broad language would allow the government to criminalise just about any form \u200bof political opposition. The government has accused critics of exaggerating the bill’s impact.<\/p>\n
FINAL LEGISLATION SCALES BACK FOREIGN FUNDING \u200cDISCLOSURE RULES<\/strong><\/p>\n The \u2060final legislation, however, softened earlier language that had drawn concern from economic actors.<\/p>\n For example, a provision requiring any Ugandan receiving money from abroad to register as a foreign agent and disclose incoming funds was amended to apply only to people receiving funds for political purposes that advance foreign \u200binterests.<\/p>\n Remittances from Ugandans living \u200babroad are an \u2060important source of foreign exchange for the East African nation.<\/p>\n Central Bank Governor Michael Atingi-Ego had warned last week that the legislation would diminish financial \u200bflows into the country and risk running down foreign exchange reserves \u2013 a \u200bsituation he \u2060called “economic disaster for our country”.<\/p>\n The World Bank also\u00a0said last month\u00a0that the bill could expose to criminal liability a broad range of its “routine development activities”, including meetings in which alternative policy ideas are discussed.<\/p>\n It \u2060was \u200bnot immediately clear to what extent parliament’s amendments had addressed \u200bthose concerns.<\/p>\n The World Bank halted new lending to Uganda in 2023 after the government enacted a harsh anti-homosexuality law but \u200bresumed funding two years later after authorities agreed to some compromises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Uganda’s parliament passed \u200blegislation to curb alleged foreign influence after scaling back proposed restrictions on funding from \u200cabroad that the central bank governor said risked “economic disaster”. The proposal, entitled “The Protection of Sovereignty Bill\u201d, was adopted late on Tuesday and now awaits the signature of President Yoweri Museveni. Museveni, who has been in power […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,32,2362,33],"tags":[3765,5132,132,462],"class_list":["post-20810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-economy","category-featured","category-politics","tag-michael-atingi-ego","tag-the-protection-of-sovereignty-bill","tag-uganda","tag-yoweri-museveni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20811,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20810\/revisions\/20811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}