By Moses Bukenya
I watched the celebration mood in Dubai when the lockdown was lifted and wondered if they were launching a cure or vaccine. This however should remind us that humanity would rather die than live a life without basic freedoms.
On the other hand, anyone that has been to Dubai knows that the business community there is mainly foreigners. The UAE has perfectly leveraged its attraction to FDIs. A local emirati needn’t worry about work to survive. The leadership there designed a system where their citizens directly benefit from foreign investment through what they refer to as sponsors. Any entry or business into UAE must be backed by a local sponsor. From this, they keep earning from the efforts of foreigners.
Government also decided to directly invest in key sectors more less as a business unit. They therefore have a great deal of non tax revenue from the airport, airlines, hotels and recreational facilities, malls, public transport including metro trains, trams, buses, taxis etc. Ofcourse their economy has for long been backed by huge oil reserves although for many Countries oil has always been more of a curse than a blessing. Their transition from a low developed Country 40 years back to a first world now is mainly down to their leadership.
Now back to the celebrations. Majority of the people celebrating on the streets are foreigners. Their survival and progress hinges on their daily hustles unlike most of the locals. Many of their locals are given special incentives to join the workforce. I once together with a friend visited a University in Al Ain and a foreign professor there told us that local qualifying University teachers earn twice as much as their foreign counterparts, are given free housing and many other perks. This is in contrast to our situation where expatriates are a big deal.
While I trust the UAE government’s potential to devise means to control the spread and impact of the disease, it would mainly affect the foreign community if it were to escalate. The same way the African-American community in the USA are suffering due to the nature of work they do coupled with discriminating access to medical care.
