The Anti-Homosexuality law will inflict a monstrous loss of upto U$8.3billion on Uganda in the next five years, according to a report released by Open for Business, a coalition of global companies organized as a charity with the objective of promoting LGBT+ inclusion.
Since 2023 when President Yoweri Museveni signed and effected the controversial Law, the Open for Business report claims Uganda has so far lost U$1.6billion.
Open for Business published on October 10, claims that the Anti-Homosexuality law is not only “regressive” to LGBTQ rights, but also the economy.
The report identifies foreign direct investment, donor aid, trade and tourism, and public health and productivity as major areas that economic losses have impacted.
“Combined losses over five years are projected between U$2.3 billion and U$8.3 billion,” the report states.
The report, which the Ugandan government has not yet responded to, breaks down the projected loss the country will suffer in the next five years.
In foreign direct investment, Uganda will lose U$75 million, more than U$1 billion in donor funding, U$312 million in the fight against HIV/AIDS and other public health efforts, U$99 million in tourism and U$500,000 in trade for tariff payments after Washington suspended Uganda from the preferential Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Other projected annual losses over the next five years include U$24 million in labor production, U$58 million in national productivity from homophobic stigma and legal repercussions for LGBTQ people, and U$500,000 from over-policing and legal costs associated with the law’s enforcement.
The report claims that at least 15,000 gay Ugandans have fled the country.
The report points out that nearly half of the 49% of Ugandans who sought asylum in the UK last year said homophobia prompted them to flee the country.
President Yoweri Museveni has previously observed that Homosexuality is a serious issue with grave consequences for the human race.
He revealed that before signing the law that he had consulted widely to try to determine whether homosexuality was genetic and that he had been persuaded by experts that it was not and described it instead as “psychological disorientation.”
“The problem is that, yes, you are disoriented. You have got a problem to yourself. Now, don’t try to recruit others. If you try to recruit people into a disorientation, then we go for you. We punish you,” he said.
“But secondly, if you violently grab some children and you rape them and so on and so forth, we kill you. And that one I totally support, and I will support,” Museveni warned.
“Nobody will move us,” Museveni said last year after signing the Anti- Homosexulaity law.