Members of parliament were today united in criticizing President Yoweri Museveni’s state of the nation address for lacking serious action against corruption.
The MPs, a number of them NRM, said the president’s speech to the nation last month was only good in ideas but not on implementation points.
The NRM MPs joined their opposition colleagues in pointing out that much as Museveni’s promises look good on paper, many gaps still exist in critical sectors such as health, education, agricultural development and poverty reduction among others.
Parliament yesterday started debating the president’s state of the nation address.
Cerinah Nebanda, the new woman MP for Butaleja, moved the house when she drew comparisons between Museveni’s promises to develop agriculture made in the 2010/2011 speech and the ones made for the 2011/2012 national budget. Nebanda said she has been reading the two speeches and found no difference in the promises made.
The youthful MP also attracted more approval from opposition MPs when she said that the same promise of fighting corruption by the president was made in last year’s state of the nation address and yet the cancer continues to grow bigger. She said that what is needed to develop Uganda is not nice promises and plans but action on plans already available.
She said that most health centers and hospitals in the country were lacking medicine, with only few nurses serving hundreds of patients.
Muhammad Nsereko, the youthful Kampala Central legislator called on government to seriously address the rising inflation and improve salaries of doctors, teachers and servicemen. He said it is important that government urgently tackles the traders’ concerns of being charged in dollars within Uganda.
Grace Namara, the woman MP for Lyantonde district said she has always wondered why the economic growth registered by government every year is not being reflected in the real lives of Ugandans. She said that despite the government’s talk of 9.1 per cent economic growth, the poor are still failing to have shelter as well as a decent meal to eat in a day.
Opposition MPs called for a list of shame to be introduced in the country so that public officials who are successfully prosecuted for corruption can be exposed nationally and internationally.
They said the culprits of corruption are not just at the sub-county levels only but right from the central government level beginning with the ministers.
