President Museveni meets NRM parliamentary caucus and EALA MPs in Kisozi farm

5 November 2024, 9:38 am

By Ronald Ssemagonja

The President of the Republic of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni together with the first lady who also doubles as the minister of education and Sports, Janet Museveni, had a fruitful engagement with the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Parliamentary Caucus and East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Members of Parliament in Kisozi Farm where the president elaborated why leaders should educate their people about wealth creation.

In his speech the president told members of parliament to remain focused. “We have been educating Ugandans about the importance of commercial agriculture, focusing on intensive farming to maximize yields. I urge the members of parliament and our East African colleagues to follow suit by educating our people on wealth creation.” he said. Adding that in the cattle corridor, the National Resistance Movement has made significant progress as many are now engaging in dairy farming and what is needed now is to expand the effort across crop-growing areas to help lift their own people out of poverty.

It should be remembered that the past few days, the president has been writing letters regarding the significance of rationalization of government agencies and many people have come up with different commencements concerning this issue. In one of his letters the president stated that rationalization means doing away with the irrationality and only doing things that are rational and wastage eradication. “In order to achieve our goal, remember the difference between the colonial and Neo-colonial enclave economy of Uganda of three Cs and three Ts Coffee, Cotton, Copper. Tea, Tobacco, Tourism and the broad-based, vertically and horizontally integrated economy of Uganda under the NRM that aims at covering the whole spectrum of Uganda’s huge potential.” the letter reads.

In addition the president said that in order to reach the target of social-economic transformation, the government insists on the mass-line as opposed to the parasitic elite line of colonialism and Neo-colonialism. “It is clear that groups like NAADS, Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA), DDA, etc are incapable of understanding the mass-line to prosperity for all. This is why they failed until I had to bring in Operation Wealth creation (OWC) which also started developing problems and we are now using PDM , Emyooga, the Ghetto youth projects, state house interventions, etc.” he said in a letter.

It is against this background that the Prime Minister of Buganda Kingdom, Charles Peter Mayiga gave his views concerning rationalization. “The Buganda kingdom has severally advised against scrapping UCDA since it superintends coffee production upon which nearly two million Ugandas households depend. Apparently, scrapping UCDA is a punishment to the Baganda who contribute nearly 50% of Coffee.” he said

According to other people we managed to reach, they are thankful for the president’s idea to rationalize the agencies because it helps the country not to spend much money like the president has been explaining. However, they believe that if agencies like UCDA that has been performing somehow well, is integrated into the ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries, it won’t function the same way it has been functioning since the ministry has been struggling in one or the other. Mr. Sebiranda Moses, a mechanical engineer says that the government should empower UCDA rather than scrapping it way.