President Yoweri Museveni has called on all leaders to prioritize industries and other critical sectors that possess a potential to create more jobs for the country instead of a skewed economic growth like is happening currently.
The president said on Thursday that Uganda’s less critical sectors such as beauty salons and drinking bars that do not bring any social transformation, were growing faster than core Industries that sustain human life through job creation and market expansion.
In his State of the Nation address in Kampala, Museveni said that Salons were growing by 9.6 percent in Uganda and yet the Agriculture, a critical sector for an agro-based economy like Uganda, was only growing at 1.4 percent. He referred to such a growth as a paradox that should be changed because the fast growing sectors were not bringing in a lot of money in revenue to government.
He said that if many investors such as Mehta and other such Indian investors were promoted and not frustrated through corruption and unnecessary delays to process their documents, thousands of Ugandans would be employed, Ugandan raw materials would be bought for the factories and local utility services such as water and electricity would be used by them.
He accused the opposition, led by their leader in parliament, Nandala Mafabi, of lying to Ugandans about investors. He said MP Nandala and his members were only interested in seeing the growth of small sectors such as petrol stations, boda boda businesses and taxis.
As he made the attacks, Nandala who was seated in the front opposition row, and a few meters from the president, just smiled, while other opposition legislators such as Kyadondo East MP, Ssemujju Ibrahim Nganda and Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze, kept interrupting the president by shouting out Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi’s name.
The president said that the salary of civil servants and politicians was consuming up to 25 per cent of the entire revenue generated every year and yet development sectors such as health, roads, energy, education, defence and security were all sharing the balance. He said in the last year, the revenue generated by the Uganda Revenue Authority totaled to 7.1 trillion shillings and yet salaries alone took 1.8 trillion of it. He challenged the leaders to forsake their salaries for more budgets to go towards development oriented sectors.
The president mentioned over 15 roads that will be prioritized in the next year’s budget for construction. He said Uganda currently needs up to nine trillion shillings to tarmac the 44 major roads with a total distance of 3,466Kms. He said he was negotiating with the National Social Security Fund – NSSF, to lend government some one trillion shillings to construct some of the priority roads in the country that need urgent attention.
The President’s address was interrupted several times by some opposition politicians who kept shouting the names of Police boss, Kale Kayihura, Amama Mbabazi as well as businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba. When the president said that Uganda was living beyond its means, a reference to the high salaries paid to the MPs, Ssemujju instead shouted the fighter jets, prompting the president to say the jets were the reason for better security and the MPs to do their work in safety. The president had to several times leave his written speech to first respond to the stubborn MPs.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, was forced to intervene and call the errant MPs to order. She told the legislators that they would soon be invited to debate the President’s address after the Leader of Opposition has also presented an alternative budget speech.
The national budget is what is now awaited to underline in more details what the next year will be like. It will be read next week.
