Brace yourselves for inflation after elections – Obedgiu Samuel

Most of you remember the inflation we suffered after the 2011 elections! The high consumer price inflation (CPI). Remember when the price of sugar doubled? When fuel prices tripled? When the Dollar strengthened greatly against the shilling, reaching almost 4000sh a dollar? If we are not careful, we are going to have that same situation repeated after the 2021 elections.

The walk to work 2011 protests was a direct consequence of a government that printed money to buy out an election through patronage, which led to higher consumer prices eventually.

The 50,000 notes you see in this picture are 3 different notes. However, they have the same serial number. This money printed is known by the bank of Uganda, but they have deliberately not recorded it in their books. But after elections in the month of July, they will withdraw this money from circulation.

Some commercial banks know this, and they are scrutinizing 50,000 and 2000 notes carefully, and they have rejected a considerable number of 50,000 notes that unsuspecting citizens are taking to bank with these financial institutions.

The kind of politics Mr. Tubuhaburwa Museveni is doing might leave this country worse than Mugabe left Zimbabwe.

Recently, the daily monitor reported that Museveni will spend over 60 billion shillings on aspiring NRM members of Parliament. Where do you think he is getting all this money from? Some of it is taxpayers’ money, the rest is printed.

The cost of printing money coupled with a high velocity of that printed money in the Economy results in inflation, which is a hidden tax on the population. It kills the purchasing power of money, meaning a loaf of bread will cost more after elections, and the purchasing power of your savings in the bank will be stolen by the state.

It’s the entities that get this newly printed money first that benefit more than ordinary citizens. And whoever gets that money first drives up the value of whatever they decide to spend their money on.

By the time people further down the line get their hands on that “new printed money,” prices would have risen and that new money won’t buy as much as it did.

Religious leaders are very much part of the problem in this country. They have lost the moral authority to speak to the population on moral guidance, they should do us a favor and keep quiet.