President Yoweri Museveni's Speech to members of NEC in Entebbe

8/10/2019 President Yoweri Museveni's Speech to members of NEC in Entebbe

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ideology, progressive politics which means applied ideology and

organizational work which means the forms of political organisation

and the methods used in the process.

Let us start with ideology. Ideology is the sum total of both the

diagnosis of societal problems and the prescription for their cure. I

do not have to protract this discussion by quoting the writings of the

various cardinal historic thinkers and actors over the ages such as

Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Lenin, Maynard Keynes, Mao Tse Tung,

Mwalimu Nyerere or Samora Machel. They were all grappling with

these two aspects: the diagnosis of societys problems and the

prescriptions for the cure of those problems. When the diagnosis is

accurate like when Adam Smith said in his book, the Wealth of

Nations, that Industrialised production is admirably suited to the

application of the division of labour, whereas agriculture, by its very

nature, resists specialization, then society is able to move forward

until it meets a new obstacle that needs fresh diagnosis. He gave the

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expect our dinner but from their regard for their own interest. We

address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love. In

other words, the butcher, the brewer and the baker work so hard in

order to serve us, not out of their altruism and love for us, but out

of their self-love. If, on the other hand, the diagnosis is inaccurate

like in the case of the bullionists who held that wealth is measured

by the amount of precious metals owned, society will stagnate like

Portugal and Spain, who excelled in stealing gold and silver from

South America and killing the Red Indians, did.

In the case of the NRM, after many years of scrutiny, we discovered

two useful words and targets. The two words were: Prosperity and

Security. The question we had to answer was: What are the factors

that can lead our society, our tribes, our clans, our families, to

prosperity in the context of the modern world characterised as it is

by the money nexus? What are the factors that can lead these

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component parts of society to security? The two words: Prosperity

and Security.

What does prosperity mean in the modern context? It means that

each of our individual families has sufficient income to live a good

life, the family members are educated and they are healthy. Where

will the income come from? The income can only come from any

one of the 5 sectors: commercial agriculture, industries

(manufacturing, processing big and small), services (shops,

transport, hotels, professional services, etc), ICT (ebyuuma bya

kalimagezi) and Public Service. Family members who are old

enough to engage in gainful employment can participate in four of

the above sectors either as entrepreneurs or workers. The four are:

commercial agriculture, industries, services and ICT. As far as the

fifth one, Public Service, is concerned, people can, of course, only

participate in the form of employees of the central government, local

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governments, municipal council governments or government

parastatals and agencies.

What, then, are the factors that can stimulate, sustain and cause

the thriving of the four sectors to guarantee the prosperity of our

families? There are three major factors. These are a critical mass of

the buyers and consumers of the goods and services produced by

our families and communities; infrastructure to support production

and exchange of those goods and services (electricity, roads, the

railways, ICT, etc., etc.) and security of person and property (in

other words, peace in the country). There are other subsidiary and

supplementary factors such as regulatory framework, etc. However,

in my opinion, the three are the basic and cardinal ones: market

(buyers of goods and services); infrastructure; and peace security

of person and property.

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It was this understanding that helped the NRM to de-fog the

ideological and political situation that we confronted in the 1960s,

70s and early 80s. The question we had to answer was: If the

prosperity of families and communities was dependent on markets

to buy their goods and services, on good infrastructure and on

peace, what, then, should be the ideological principles of a political

organisation that could have the capacity to provide a solution to

the predicament of the people? This is why I always like to descend

to the lowest rung (level) of the ladder, the family and the

community (the latter commonly referred to as the tribe). Who buys

the goods and services of a given community? Most often those

goods and services are not bought within the tribe. Why not? It is,

mainly, because many of the tribes or sub-tribes produce similar

products as already pointed out. Hence, A in that tribe cannot buy

from B or vice-versa because they are producing similar products.

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I always like to give the example of the Banyankore who specialise in

producing milk, beef, bananas, coffee and tea. As far as the first

three products are concerned, they rarely buy from one another on

account of producing similar products. Who, then, are the rescuers

of the Banyankore in the form of buying their products? It is the

people of Kampala, the people of Uganda who buy their products.

Hence, the prosperity of the Banyankore is not, mainly, based on

the Banyankore but on the rest of Ugandans. Coffee and tea are

bought by the international community; but, of course, they are

conveyed to the coast through the non-Banyankore parts of Uganda

and other parts of East Africa. Even in these, the Banyankore are

dependent on the other Ugandans and East Africans for prosperity.

Even in the pre-colonial, pre-capitalist times, barter trade existed

throughout the whole length and breadth of East and Central Africa

between Bunyoro and Buganda, between the interior and the

coast. Banyoro, for instance, used to specialise in hoes

manufacture, Kooki and Buhaya in bark-cloth, etc. Unfortunately,

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the tribal kings would foment endless troubles through inter-tribal

wars which would, somehow, interfere with this trade.

It is this realization that galvanized our abhorrence to the sectarian

ideology of tribes or religion, the chauvinism against women and the

marginalisation of the disabled, the youth, etc. It enabled us to

firmly and scientifically distil the first principle of NRM from the fog

of perceptions that were abundant in Uganda at that time.This is

the principle of patriotism or nationalism as it is sometimesdescribed.It, therefore, became the first ideological principle of the

NRM.

In order to guarantee the prosperity of the families and the

communities, we have, however, already seen that the internalUgandan market is not enough first of all, the coffee and the tea of

the Banyankore are consumed mainly outside Uganda and conveyed

to the coast through the other parts of East Africa. Besides, even

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for the products consumed in Uganda milk, beef, bananas, etc.

the internal market is not enough. Our prosperity will be better if

our regional partners in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South

Sudan, Congo, etc. buy from us as they are doing. You all have seen

the impact of those markets on our economy and prosperity. This

need for the Ugandan market and the regional market is necessary

for all the tribes of Uganda, not just for the Banyankore.

Hence, our second principle became Pan-Africanism.It is not

only patriotism that will guarantee our prosperity but also Pan-

Africanism.

Then, the NRM identified the third principle of socio-economic

transformation that is indispensable for our society to move from a

peasant society based on subsistence farming to a middle class,

skilled working class society as has happened in Europe in the last

500 years. It is a shame that Africa is, at least, 200 years behind

Europe in social metamorphosis. Two stimuli are crucial here. One

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is education for all. That is why we, in 1996, introduced UPE

(Universal Primary Education) and, later on, added USE (Universal

Secondary Education). An educated person has more chances, by

no means automatic, of social mobility from the peasantry to either

the middle-class or the skilled working class.

The other channel of mobility from peasantry is that provided by

money making activities. As already alluded to above, the sectors

that have those channels are: commercial agriculture, industry,

services, ICT and public service. The public service has got limited

jobs, standing at a figure of 350,000 only. It is, therefore, the other

four that offer us opportunities for how one can move from

peasantry to middle-class and skilled working class. The two means

of sustenance of the middle-class and the skilled working class are:

profit the difference between the input costs and the price of the

end product; and wages for labour offered by the employer to the

employee in any of the five sectors mentioned above. In the census

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of 2002, only 32% of the homesteads had joined the money

economy. 68% of the households were still in subsistence economy.

This is where the problems of Uganda and Africa lie. It is the pre-

capitalist nature of much of the sustenance means and activities of

the Uganda population, of the African population. The lack of the

total monetisation of the Ugandan economy, the lack of thetotal

eradication of the traditional, non-monetary modes of production

(e.g. traditional cattle-keeping, traditional crop husbandry,

subsistence farming, etc.) are the mainstay of the under-

development of the Ugandan population.

The recent census has not yet processed the updated figures on

these parameters. We shall inform you when they are computed.

The pre-capitalist modes of production feudal relations ( bibanja

andbusuulu), subsistence farming, etc. are inefficient and non-

rewarding. Moreover, they are characterised by drudgery and back-

breaking labour mainly dependent on manual labour based on

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human muscle-power; sometimes, in a few places like Kapchorwa,

on animal power (the donkey). You can, therefore, say that of the

traditional modes of production, the people of Kapchorwa who use

the donkey to carry loads and the people of Teso, Lango, etc., who

use the oxen to plough, had slightly more advanced implements of

production. Much of the rest of the country were using the raw-

muscle-power of the human being using the hand-hoe, carrying

loads on the head, etc., etc. We must move from the human

muscle-power labour, the labour of the donkey and the oxen to

intellectual labour. It is the human intellect that produced

machines the tractor, the motor-cycle, the pick-up truck for loads

and locomotion, the calculator, etc, etc. We have already moved in

some cases. By using the mobile phone, it is no longer necessary to

shout across the valleys when calling somebody (okweeta)or

sending runners(entumwa)to carry the message to the distant

village. Let us cover the whole spectrum of shifting away from

manual, muscle-based labour to the use of the products of

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intellectual labour. All these immediately mentioned above are what

constitutes socio-economic transformation. Therefore, socio-

economic transformation, from the pre-capitalist feudal or

traditional society to the middle-class, skilled working class

society, became the third principle of NRM.

The fourth principle of the NRM was democracy.This is clear

enough. In the case of the NRM, we created a very powerful

structure of village-based committees covering all the 57,792

villages of Uganda. There are 30 NRM leaders in each of those

villages. The weakness that this Conference must cure is that these

village NRM Committees and also the Local Government LCIs must

be fully engaged and taken advantage of to improve the welfare of

everybody in our society. The NRM, therefore, did not only provide

the diagnosis and possible therapy for the problems of Uganda but

also created a massive structure that could help the leadership to

more easily explain and implement that vision. In the bush, these 4

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principles were divided into 10 points (hence, the 10 points

programme) and, later, into the 15 points programme.

These four principles have already helped us to successfully form

student study groups in the 1960s, to form a politico-military

organisation that helped us to successfully prosecute the two wars

of resistance, the resistance wars culminated in the capture of

power in 1986, helped us to bring total peace in the whole of

Uganda for the first time in the last 120 years (since 1894 when the

British colonised Uganda) and enabled Uganda to start on the long

march to economic recovery and modernisation.

The economy has expanded from US$ 1.5 billion in 1986 to now

almost US$ 28 billion. The GDP per capita is now US$788. The

Ugandan exports of goods and services ever since 1962 are listed

here below in terms of value in US dollars:

Exports of goods and

services in the current US$

Exports of goods and

services in the current US$

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(millions) (millions)

1962 108.28 1988 492.90

1963 146.07 1989 419.71

1964 176.17 1990 311.67

1965 226.24 1991 247.95

1966 236.60 1992 250.34

1967 244.72 1993 227.44

1968 248.36 1994 348.78

1969 251.57 1995 678.73

1970 294.13 1996 723.00

1971 280.83 1997 837.55

1972 289.09 1998 634.71

1973 281.68 1999 734.92

1974 308.95 2000 659.67

1975 204.11 2001 672.71

1976 278.70 2002 702.85

1977 268.76 2003 834.01

1978 330.43 2004 1132.29

1979 415.00 2005 1542.02

1980 242.00 2006 1735.59

1981 215.00 2007 2439.03

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Kyetume-Katosi; Mubende-Kakumiro-Kagadi-Ndaiga;Mbarara-

Kikagate; Tirinyi-Pallisa-Kumi, Hoima-Kigoroobya-Biiso-Wanseko,

Masindi Port-Apac-Lira-Kitgum etc., etc.

Using loans and grants from outside, we have already done, we are

doing or we shall also do the following roads in terms of tarmacking:

Arua-Oraba, Gulu-Atiak, Atiak-Bibia, Masaka-Mbarara, Mbarara-

Kabaale-Katuna, Fort Portal-Bundibugyo, Arua-Oraba, Gulu-Atiak-

Bibia, Mbale-Magale-Bumbo-Lwakhakhawith a branch toManjiya,

Rukungiri-Kanungu-Ishasha-Nyakishenyi, Kapchorwa-Kween-Bukwo-

Suam, Kigumba-Masindi-Hoima-Kagadi-Kyenjojo, Iganga-Kaliro

(reconstruction) Tirinyi-Pallisa-Kumi, Soroti-Katakwi-Moroto, Moroto-

Kotido-Kaabong, Soroti-Amuria-Acan Pii-Abim, Masaka-Bukakata,

etc., etc.

(Insert pictures of some newly constructed roads)

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In order to modernise our economy, we must lower the costs of

doing business in our country. The two factors that push up costs

are transport and electricity. Let us start with electricity. A unit of

electricity produced by Nalubaale power station or Kiira power

station is at US$ cents 3. That produced by Bujagaali is at US$

cents 11 per unit. What causes this difference? It is the fact that

with Bujagaali we used private people who used borrowed money to

build that dam. Those developers have, however, had to charge a

high electricity price per unit because they are trying to pay back

those loans and also make profit for themselves. This is something

we must avoid in future. Unfortunately, those of our people who

negotiated for Bujagaali did not even stick to our position negotiated

with AES where we had agreed on US$ 4.9 cents per unit.

Unfortunately, on account of the delays caused by our internal

actors, by the time we came to Bujagaali, our people had accepted

the price of US$ 11 cents per unit because, as they are saying, the

financial situation globally had changed and contractors were also

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diverted to other jobs such as the re-building of the city of New

Orleans in the USA that was destroyed by floods. Whatever the

reasons, however, this price of US$ 11 cents is not favourable to our

industrialisation programme. In order to ensure affordable

electricity for industrialisation, the following is our plan. As far as

Karuma and Isimba are concerned, we are going to use loans from

China and our own contribution, using the money from the Energy

Fund. This will be the Government borrowing. As a consequence,

the unit cost for power from Karuma will be US$ 5 cents and that of

Isimba will be US$ 4.8 cents. Our negotiators must, henceforth, be

very careful about this point. This electricity is not for just disco

playing(ebikeesa); but for production, especially manufacturing.

Therefore, expensive electricity must not be heard of again. With

regard to the power from Bujagaali and other expensive sources, a

more expeditious reduction of unit costs needs to be worked out

rather than the present schemes. According to the present scheme,

the unit costs of Bujagaali power will come down from the current

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US$ 11 cents per unit to US$ 3 cents per unit, after 18 years, when

the borrowers have finished paying their loans. This is not good for

manufacturing.

The other cost pusher is transport. A 20 ft container of 18 metric

tonnes from Mombasa to Kampala is US $3200by road. The same

container but weighing 32 metric tonnes costs US $1500 to

transport from Peking (Beijing) to Shanghai by railway. Today, even

with our present inefficient railway, the cost of the same container

from Mombasa to Kampala is US $2100,which is US $1100 less

expensive than the road. With the Standard Gauge Railway we are

going to build, the transport cost of the same container weighing 32

metric tonnes will be US $1650 and will take only one day from

Mombasa to Kampala compared to the present railway which takes21 days.

With cheap and abundant electricity and cheap and efficient

transport, our economy will modernise, go through the middle-

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income phase, so as to become a First World economy. With our

partners in East Africa and COMESA, we have already created an

important stimulus for growth and transformation by creating the

big market of 150 million people for EAC and400 million people for

COMESA. Besides, we have negotiated for international markets

access, at zero tax and no quota limitation to the USA, the EU, the

Indian and the Japanese markets. China has also given us market

access for 440 products.

(Insert some pictures of the big factories e.g. Roofings)

One effort of job creation is to encourage the setting up of Business

Processes Outsourcing (BPO). This is in order to exploit sector No.4

(ICT)-whereby Ugandan accountants and auditors, work on

company books from the USA or Canada, transmit the product of

their work via the internet and are paid their remuneration while

they are here in Kampala or in any other Ugandan towns provided

there is reliable internet connection. We can also set up call centres

to provide solutions to companies in the USA, Canada etc, while our

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people are operating from Kampala, in respect of electricity

companies, water supply companies, hospitals etc. As of now, the

Government is operating a Business Processes Outsourcing centre

which employs 280 people while the private sector has 40 registered

operators in Kampala who are employing 5000 people and the

numbers are increasing. This sector can, potentially, employ many

of our children given that they speak very good Kampala Parents

School English, different from Kyamate Boys School English spoken

by us, the older generation.

The other two interventions to help create jobs are, on the one hand,

to create, improve or expand the marketing points e.g. urban

markets, work sheds etc and, on the other hand, to implement and

proliferate our policy of industrial estates and export free zones

such as Namanve, Kaweweta etc. You have seen the quality of the

markets we have commissioned in Wandegeya, Jinja, Mbale etc. We

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are going to roll out more and more of these as well as the industrial

estates and the export free zones.

Besides, the socio-economic interventions we have been carrying

out have not been in vain. While in 1986, we had only 1,209,640

pupils in primary schools, in 2014, we have 8,459,720 pupils in

government and private primary schools. While in 1986, we had

123,589 students in secondary schools, we now have 1,362,739

students in the Government and private secondary schools. In

1986, we had 5,390 university students. We now have 140,403

students in the government and private universities. In 1986, we

had one university. We now have 32 universities, both government

and private. The society is somehow metamorphosing. In 1986,

only 10%of the people were living in the urban areas. Today, about

22% of the people are living in the urban areas. As you know,

urbanisation is part of the necessary social-economic

metamorphosis to decongest the villages so as to make room for

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more rational, commercial farming and provide manpower for

working in the towns, in factories, services and ICT.

Although our school enrolment has increased tremendously, there is

still the problem of skilling all these products of the educational

system. It would be desirable if many of the 10 million Ugandans in

schools and Universities could go beyond the numeracy and

alphabetisation and acquire technical skills across the whole

spectrum. The country and the global job market needs nurses,

technicians, machine operators, mechanics, mathematicians,

engineers, computer scientists, laboratory technicians, doctors,

pilots, singers, sportsmen, etc., etc. This is not to forget

accountants, auditors and managers. In order to thus skill the

Ugandans, the NRM Government has been implementing the

programme of building a technical school per district and,eventually, one per constituency. As of now, we have 5 Technical

Colleges across the country for S.6 Leavers i.e. Uganda Technical

College Kicwamba, Lira, Bushenyi, Mt. Elgon-Mbale and Kyema in

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Bunyoro, 5 Teacher Training Colleges for S.6 Leavers i.e. Uganda

National Teachers College Mubende, Kabale, Kaliro, Muni-Arua and

Unyama-Gulu, 57 Technical Institutes for S.4 Leavers, 42 Technical

Institutes and Community Polytechnics for P7 Leavers and 4

Tourism Schools i.e. Jinja Hotel and Tourism Training Institute,

Uganda Wildlife Training Institute-Mweya, Makerere University and

Makerere University Business School. I have directed the Ministry of

Education to build a Marine School at Namasagali to train boat

drivers, ferry technicians, water navigators so that we equip the

growing fleet of fresh water transport operators. The plan is to build,

at least, one technical institute (for S.4 Leavers) per constituency. At

one time, we had intended to build a vocational school per sub-

county. It proved too expensive. Hence the fall back plan, per

constituency and per district as appropriate.

(Insert some pictures of some newly constructed schools)

This social-economic metamorphosis will accelerate as we solve the

bottlenecks of infrastructure as pointed out above. Low costs of

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electricity and transport will definitely, attract more investors in the

four sectors: commercial farming, industry, services and ICT and

enable those already in those sectors to thrive better. Our economy

has been growing at the rate of 6.6% per annum for the last 28

years in spite of the lack of roads, lack of electricity, a poor railway

network, no ICT back-bone, etc. How much more will this economy

grow now that we are solving these bottlenecks? Clearly, the sky is

the limit.

There are four weaknesses that we have been pointing out to our

NRM colleagues and government officials. One weakness has been

the delaying of private sector investments by Government officials.

In Canada, it takes only 2 days to register a new investment. In

Singapore it is also two days. Here in Uganda, it is 32 days,

allegedly. In reality, however, sometimes, it takes four years or more.I can think of a number of investments Amuru Sugar factory,

Sango Bay Lukoma Airport project, the Buvuma Ssese Islands

Palm Oil project, etc., etc. This is treason to our people. It is these

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very projects that will generate more exports for us, create jobs for

our youth and give incomes to our homesteads by buying raw-

materials from the rural households. I am getting to the position of

zero-tolerance to this type of conduct by any actor official or

otherwise.

(Insert some pictures of palm oil trees in Kalangala)

The second weakness or mistake has been the prolonged failure toimplement our plan of Prosperity for All (PFA), first launched in

1995 when, after the successful pilot projects in some parts of the

country and in order to rescue the homesteads that had already

fragmented the family lands on account of wrong inheritance

practices, we advised the rural homesteads to adopt a four acres

plan. This involved planting one acre of clonal coffee, one acre of

fruits, one acre of bananas or any other food crop and one acre of

pasture for the dairy cattle. In the backyard (emanju), we

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recommended poultry for meat or eggs and piggery for those who

are not Moslems. Those near the swamps, we recommended fish

farming. To cater for those families that had already fragmented the

land, we recommended piggeries, poultry, onions and vegetables and

mushroom growing. Meanwhile, we advised all Ugandans against

any further land fragmentation through inheritance. We advised

that the better way of inheritance is by the use of shares(emigabo)

so that the children of the deceased divide what comes from the

land but not the land itself.

Besides, we also provided money for the campaign for homestead

incomes in the form of entandikwa, PMA, Restocking, Peace

Recovery and Development Plan (PRDP), Northern Uganda Social

Action Fund (NUSAF), Micro-finance, NAADS, etc, etc. Altogether,

as of now, these different funds have got an annual total of Uganda

sh485.65b. NAADS alone is given sh203b per annum. All this

money, however, has, unfortunately, not gone through to the poor

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families that we intended to help. While attending the Heroes Day

on the 9thof June, 2013, at Butalangwa, Nakaseke, after the

function, I was, again, besieged by the peasants who were

supporting us in the latest resistance war of 1981 85, complaining

about their conditions of life and asking for my intervention. My

intervention meant the so called pledges of the President. These

pledges are never adequately funded because much of the State

money goes to the institutionalised solutions such as NAADS rather

than these ad-hoc channels of pledges. I decided that enough was

enough. I had to intervene in NAADS to begin with in order to

empower the families of the peasants that supported us between

1971-1986, as a start off point.

In order to show the scale of the wastage, I will just use sh100b,

which is slightly below the 50% level of the NAADS funding for oneyear. If we were to use just this sh100b to provide seedlings to the

homesteads that can and want to grow coffee, at the current price of

sh300 per seedling, plus sh10 for transport, we would divide

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100,000,000,000 by 310 and get 322,580,645 seedlings. Let us

correct to the nearest whole number figure of 323 million coffee

seedlings. If these are Robusta seedlings, we would end up planting

about 717,000 acres of land. Assuming one homestead was to get

one acre, this would mean 717,000 homesteads. The total number

of the old coffee trees that have been giving us 4 million, 60kgs

bags, per year all these years have been 220 million trees of the less

yielding varieties. These new coffee trees will yield 5more times

than the old coffee trees. By planting the 323 million new coffee

trees, Ugandas production in future will be20million, 60kgs bags.

It will cover 717,000 acres of land. All at a cost of just sh100b, less

than 50% of one years NAADS allocation!! How could we fail to help

our people with all these possibilities?

That is why I moved in with UPDF in NAADS, starting with the

FRONASA NRA war zones of 1971-1986. In the last 3 seasons

September 2013, to date the UPDF officers have supervised the

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planting of 26.4 million seedlings of coffee, 389,824 seedlings of

mangoes,846,756seedlings of oranges (fruits), 2.2million seedlings

of tea, 2,008.5 tonnes of maize, 812.1 tonnes of beans, 9,248.6 bags

(cuttings) of cassava, etc. The coffee seedlings covered 58,445.4

acresof land, fruits covered 14,553.9 acres and the tea seedlings

covered 549.8 acres of land. Most of the homesteads of the civilian

FRONASA and NRA veterans have now been covered, in just 3

seasons. The maize seeds and beans have generated bumper crops

in these areas. The problem now is post-harvest handling and

value-addition. We have now deployed the UPDF officers to all the

constituencies of Uganda. You will see the impact. Let everybody

co-operate. We shall succeed.

The third weakness, are problems created by Uganda NationalRoads Authority (UNRA). After a lot of struggle, we managed to get a

reasonable amount of money for the road sector sh1,700b (1.7

trillion shillings). Much of this money is for the tarmacking of the

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new roads listed above. However, there is sh180b for maintaining

the old tarmac roads and maintaining the murram roads under

UNRA. UNRA claims that this sh180b is not enough to maintain

these old tarmac and the murram roads. This is turning out not to

be true because there is the example of the Local Governments that

receive sh142 billion for the maintenance of their roads. Their roads

are better than the UNRA roads. Why? It is, mainly, on account of

two factors. One, the Local Governments have now decided to listen

to our advice of using their one grader per district and the few

tippers we gave them to work on the murram roads themselves

rather than relying on tenders with the private sector where they

use sometimes five times more money than when they do the works

themselves. To work on a kilometer of properly graveled, drained

and compacted murram road using tendered contractors, you can

spend on average sh50m and yet, using our own Government labour

(i.e. our own machines), you will spend on average sh25m.

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My proposed solution to this problem is to buy about1,000 pieces of

very good road and other earth-moving equipment from Japan so

that we are able to add an excavator, a road-compactor (roller) and a

water bowzer to the lone grader we have already given to each

district as well as the tippers that we gave each district. In this way,

the districts will be enabled to work on the murram roads that are

now being mismanaged by UNRA. The big districts like Mubende,

Arua, Wakiso, etc. will get two or even three road units to cope with

their size and population. Some of the sh180b that we give to UNRA

will be given to the districts as a consequence of taking on the new

roads. The second reason, I think this will work is that the LC V

chairman, the councilors, etc. in the district who have got a vested

interest in ensuring that the roads are done because they want to be

re-elected by the people, unlike the unpatriotic, remote,

unsupervised and unaccountable UNRA staff, are likely to put in

more effort in working on these roads. There was some mistake in

involving this group in the rural roads.

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I have also already instructed the new Prime Minister and the

Minister of the Presidency to scan the whole spectrum of

Government expenditure and indentify the money that is supposed

to be for monitoring in the ministries and agencies that is never

used for that purpose. Some of this money can be given to the

districts so that the councilors, the Resident District Commissioners

(RDCs), etc. can help us to do the monitoring that is never done.

The NRM structures in the district and the Sub-Counties can

also help in monitoring Government programmes.

The fourth problem is corruption. It is true that corruption by State

officials has been part of the problems facing the people of Ugandasince the colonial times. I remember that in the colonial and post-

colonial times, veterinary and medical staff would sell Government

drugs, the policemen would take bribes from the taxi drivers

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(wakadaala)that would overload their vehicles, chiefs would take

gifts from the public, the people had to gather food (eggs, chicken,

cattle, etc.) for the visiting chief or District Commissioner (DC), etc.

etc. In the post-colonial period (especially during Amins time and

after), this crime of corruption was reinforced with extra-judicial

killings (disappearances), rape, defilements, looting of peoples

properties, extortion of money at road-blocks by the army, grabbing

of peoples cars, killing of the animals in the National Parks

(poaching), illegal logging of timber from the Government forests,

etc. etc. Even, when the NRM was still in the bush, it abolished

most of these crimes in the librated areas. When the NRM liberated

the whole country, we extended the abolition to the whole country.

Out of the 13 or so crimes and forms of corruption enumerated

above, we abolished all the crimes immediately except the three we

are still struggling with. These are: embezzlement of public funds,

bribes to public officers for services that should be free and for

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contracts awarded by government agencies and nepotism. All the

others were stopped promptly by the NRA/UPDF. Why? It was

because these crimes and forms of corruption only needed two

elements to stop them: political ideological orientation and will as

well as a committed cadre-ship (e.g. officers and men of

NRA/UPDF). The problem with the residual crimes and forms of

corruption is that they require an additional element. Apart from

political will guided by a correct ideological orientation as well as a

committed cadre-ship, the crimes and forms of corruption of

embezzling public funds and bribery, require the additional element

of expertise that is only acquired after prolonged training and also

experience. You, in particular, need good Investigators, prosecutors

(Lawyers), auditors, accountants, accounting officers (Permanent

Secretaries, Chief Administrative Officers, Town Clerks and

Gombolola Chiefs) as well as adjudicators (magistrates and judges)

that are also ideologically well orientated and are upright. While

stopping extra judicial killings, requires a form four (4) leaver (S.4)

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whom you have given an officer cadet course of 12 months (to

become a 2ndLieutenant), with embezzlement and bribery, you do

not only need a university graduate (18 years of education); but to

become a Grade 1 Magistrate, which is the lowest level, he/she must

be a qualified lawyer with a degree in Law ( 4 years of study) and a

Diploma in Legal Practice (1 year) totaling to 5 years and to become

a Judge, he/she must have had a working experience of not less

than 10 years as a practicing advocate before a court with

unlimited jurisdiction in civil and criminal matters. In other words,

for one to become a Judge in the High Court, he needs 29 years of

preparation. This is why this front has been slower.

We simply did not have these types of people. Besides, even

assuming we had them, which we did not have, we could not have

dismissed the public servants we found in place without causing a

big political crisis. To fight corruption in the roads sector, you do not

only need engineers, but you need upright engineers of adequate

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years of working experience. To fight theft of drugs, you need

medical consultants to supervise other doctors who may be corrupt.

It is, therefore, not an emotional venture where you simply abhor

corruption and it goes away. It is both abhorrence (which I have in

plenty) but also upright professionals, whose professional

processing has a long gestation period (unlike an army officer who

needed just a year after O-level in the past) and also a long working

experience. Do not forget that these inherited anti-corruption

warriors are not political appointees. The PS, the CAO, the Town

Clerk, the Gombolola chief, the magistrate, the judge, the auditor,

the accountant, the investigator, the prosecutor are all, without

exception, brought forward by professional bodies. These are: the

Public Service Commission, the District Service Commission, the

Education Service Commission, the Judicial Service Commission,

the Health Service Commission, etc. Even where the President is

involved, he signs the instruments (documents of appointment) that

are forwarded to him by these professional bodies. In all the 28

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years I have been President, I can only remember two or three times

when I refused to sign an appointment instrument forwarded to me

by these bodies. I would have been wrong to do so. I also cannot

blame those professional recommending bodies. They normally look

at the academic performance of these people which is, of course,

excellent. The recommending bodies cannot be expected to know the

integrity of all these applicants. They must be assisted by the other

structures. The corruption in them is not easy to detect, especially

when they have no track record, yet. Where there is a track record of

poor performance, I have rejected the nominees. These are the few

cases that I rejected. Moreover, these public servants are given

security of tenure by the constitution which is also perfectly in

order. I do not agree with those who say that public servants

should be easily dismissed. That will make matters worse.

Therefore, the only correct strategy is what I adopted. On the one

hand, be patient and give the people brought up by our professional

bodies a chance to manage. When they fail, I use the same

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Constitution to come in where you have the alternative cadres. That

is what I did in Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) where I had to

headhunt for the ladies that, eventually, rescued that body. That is

what I did with the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), the

Health Services Monitoring Unit headed by Dr. Diana Atwine as well

as the Engineering Monitoring Unit in State House. This is not to

forget the Police where I had to bring in Generals Katumba Wamala

and Kale Kayihura. Give trust to all and intervene after clear

failure. As you have seen, these interventions of mine always face

resistance. They even come to Parliament and try to use it to

oppose my selected sweepers of the AegeanStables such as Jennifer

Musisi in KCCA.

Recently, you saw what I did with NAADS. We had given freedom of

action to the Ministry of Agriculture and NAADS for a total of 14

years since NAADS started and a total sum of sh2,800b (2.8

Trillions). They had achieved little in the majority of cases.

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Meanwhile, since I have for long identified commercialisation of

agriculture for all homesteads in rural Uganda as being asine qua

nonof socio-economic transformation, I kept inspecting, randomly,

their performance, haranguing them, giving exhortations to them,

appealing to them, etc. Last year, however, I came to the conclusion

that NAADS was incurable, that is why I decided to bring in the

UPDF. NAADS has now started working well, beginning with the

FRONASA NRA former war zones. Therefore, I want to assure all

and sundry that the residual forms of criminality i.e.

embezzlement, bribery and nepotism will be defeated, albeit with

new type of soldiers, just as we did the other forms of corruption

and criminality i.e.:

(i) Extra-judicial killings,

(ii) Rape,

(iii)Defilement,(iv)Poaching the animals in the National Parks,

(v) Looting peoples property at road blocks,

(vi)Confiscating peoples property,

(vii)Destroying government resources (forests) by government

officials,

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(viii)kidnappings and

(ix)Brutality of security forces with impunity, etc.

The tempo of extirpating each of these forms of crime and

corruption was only determined by the nature of each category.

One category was overt while the other was covert.

The immediately above mentioned crimes are some of the

weaknesses that we are still grappling with on the side of the

economy. On the side of politics, there are two problems. One

problem is the neglect of the vast structure the NRM created for

itself and for the country these are the LCs and the NRM

branches in the 57,792 villages of Uganda. After these structures

are elected, they remain dormant until the next election time. This

is not correct. It is a misuse of thishuman and political resource.It is wasted opportunity. NRM was the first political force to create

enough consensus among Ugandans to the extent of garnering 75%

support in the 1996 elections. In spite of the rigging by the

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opposition and in spite of the poor mobilisation by the NRM

Secretariat, the lowest this consensus ever went was 59% in 2006.

In 2011, it went back to 68%. This is a far cry from 1962 when

none of the Political Parties could boast of even 50%. UPC got 37

Parliamentary Seats which was 45% of the 82 total seats in

Parliament and DP got 24 seats, 29%. Kabaka Yekka, by

intimidation and stopping the Baganda from participating in direct

elections, got 21 seats which was 26% of the total. This is

according to the seats in Parliament. However, according to the

popular vote, DP and UPC were fairly close. The picture was

distorted by the gerrymandering of constituencies by UPC.

Therefore, the people of Uganda have been lucky to have got the

NRM that finally put a huge chunk of them together. In the 2011

elections, they were even luckier when, for the first time, in the

history of Uganda, a political force won in all the four regions of

Uganda. It is, therefore, inexcusable for the NRM managers not to

fully use this opportunity.

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Some people try to talk about money lack of money. I do not

accept this because when we created these committees (the secret

ones and the elected ones) in the Luwero Triangle, we neither had

money nor did we have even peace. We moved on foot and bicycles

to supervise these committees. What is crucial is concentration. I

have quoted to some of you the example of St. Paul, that very good

mobiliser for the early Christian church. Through his letters

(epistles) to the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Thessalonians, the

Romans, etc. he was able to give guidance to those branches of the

early church. I myself used that method in the bush. The only

resources I had were JOI Kagumire, a typist that had escaped from

the Police force, a looted type-writer and cyclostyling machine. We

would, using those rudimentary means, send articles, Resistance

news to all our branches within the country and outside. This

problem must be cured by having full time workers of the party even

if they are just a handful. Haji Kigongo and a few of the political

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workers supervised our committees from Kawanda to River Kafu

and from Nakasongola to Mubende road. That is an area of about

10,000 sq. miles i.e. 11% of the whole land area of Uganda without

radio broadcasts, telephones, vehicles, etc. However, the staff of

the Secretariat of NRM today, have much better means of keeping in

touch with the branches than Haji Kigongo and his small group of

the late Eriya Kategaya, Otafiire, Mukwaya, Asiimwe, etc., etc. had

at that time.

The other political mistake is the use of money in elections and the

distorting of the purpose of leadership. A political leader is not a

welfare officer, he is not an employee of the population, he is not a

service provider. He is from the people, by the people and for the

people. His role is to lead to show the way by speech (advice,

sensitization, etc.) and by example. Suppose a group of people is

lost in the forest and, in order to get out of their predicament, they

gather and choose one of them to lead the way, believing that he has

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knowledge of the forest and how to get out of it, what will be the

relationship between him and those who selected him? If it is night

or early morning, his job will be to beat the dew (omusulo, orume,

lime,erindii - Lugbara, ekuuna - Ateso,toyo - Acholi,to clear away the

thorns and crush through the tall grass (kubaanda omukyenkyea

particular type of tall grass the one they get drinking straws from).

His job is to get the correct bearings of the geography (North, East,

South or East) and lead his group out of the forest. His job is,

therefore, having correct bearings of the compass, beating the dew

(kuteera orume), cutting the thorns and crushing through the grass

(kubaanda ekishaka). He is not a carrier(omwekorezi, omuheekyi)of

any of the group members. If anybody needs to be carried, it cannot

be the group leader because that may interfere with his ability to

navigate the direction. It is actually very dangerous for the leader of

the group to be burdened with carrying somebody who has

collapsed. The whole group may end up being lost in the forest.

Above all, as I said, a leader is not a service provider. That is done

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by the civil servants. He is not an employee. That is, again, the civil

servants. To lead is to show the way, by speaking and doing things

of how people can get out of subsistence farming and engage in

commercial farming etc. etc., sending children to school and

providing them withentaanda(packed lunch) as we agreed under

UPE so that we minimize the issue of money, how to save money

and join cooperatives, how to be frugal etc. etc. Many of the leaders

have failed to know this. They wrongly attempt the extreme of

futility to run their constituencies using their personal money, by

providing petty sums of money to their supporters. I call this futile

because an individual cannot manage to support the families in a

constituency or a sub-county. They attempt to fundraise for this

church, the other mosque, this other school, etc., etc. What is the

result? Heavy indebtedness by the leader to the extent of having

their properties sold off. This is not only total failure of leadership

but endangers the security and independence of our country. We

cannot have financially beleaguered people deciding the destiny of a

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country. This mistake must stop. Fortunately, there are

institutionalized solutions for our people in place that have not been

properly utilized. As pointed out above, the total money for NAADS

and other funds that could be used for wealth creation amount to

about sh500b per annum. These do not include Universal Primary

Education (UPE) money which is of the magnitude of sh950b per

annum. UPDF, on my orders, has started using some of the NAADS

money. You can see the impact already, just after three seasons.

In attempt to cope with these pressures, some groups agitate for

higher salaries even before we have dealt with the issue of

infrastructure. Demand for higher salaries by one category of

public servant incites other categories to make similar demands.

Soon this mistake where Uganda, still a low income country,

creates a high wages structure that scares away investments, will

become very detrimental. Factories migrated into China attracted

by low wages. Factories are now migrating out of China into East

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Africa partly attracted by lower wages. Some of the leaders of

Uganda, however, are scaring away these factories by, on the one

hand, mishandling the investors and, on the other hand, leading the

premature campaign of over pricing of Ugandas labour that will lead

to Uganda, again, missing out. This is not acceptable. We must go

back to the arrangement where wages are fixed by one authority.

Besides, the wages policy must fit in our overall strategy of economic

development. Let us also look at countries that have recently got out

of poverty. What was the wage structure in China between 1949

when the Communists came to power and now? How about India?

How about South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia? Why? I will cause

a paper to be written on this subject for future discussion. At a

personal level, however, you could look at my testimony. In the last

50 years of my contribution to Uganda, I either get no salary (e.g.

1971-79 minus the two years at the Moshi Cooperative College and

1981-86) or I get very low salaries. However, using whatever little

money that I earn or borrow, I, prudently, invest that money. The

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consequence is that my low Government salaries notwithstanding, I

am a rich man, by the route of the private sector (farming). We can,

therefore, sacrifice by offering our services to the State of Uganda

cheaply but compensate for that by engaging in wealth creation. In

time, when the State of Uganda is able, it will remunerate us, even

when we are no longer there. I trust the future Ugandans will see

that their President since 1986 was lowly remunerated and his

descendants are entitled to something better. We have already done

this for pensioners and even the former leaders (Presidents, Vice-

Presidents, Prime Ministers etc). We have revised upwards the

money that we paid their families as gratuity or pension. Let us take

care of Uganda. Uganda will take care of us. Let us develop Uganda;

Uganda will remunerate us or our descendants. We are now taking

care of the Kings African Rifles (KAR) survivors the Ugandans who

fought for the British in the Inter-imperalist wars (e.g. 1939 and

1945). Yet we are not the ones who employed or utilized them.

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Up to this financial year, I resisted the pressure of increasing the

salaries of public servants, teachers, etc. because we had to, first

and foremost, provide money for the roads, electricity, schools,

Defence etc. It is this prioritisation that has enabled us to

guarantee security in Uganda and also cause this development you

are seeing in spite of starting with a very low base. On account of

our resistance, we were able to provide sh1, 700b for roads per year

and sh1,752b for electricity per year. Earlier on, I talked about the

roads that have been tarmacked. Regarding the electricity, I would

like to remind all of you that all the district towns are now

connected to electricity except for Buyende, Kotido, Buvuma and

Kaabong. These will also be connected. All these would not have

been possible if we had not sacrificed consumption of today to put

money in the Energy Fund just as we did with the Road Fund.

Having secured, as already pointed out, sh1.7trillion per annum for

the roads and sh1.752 trillion for electricity, I was relaxed enough to

allow the expenditure of an extra shs.480 billion on salaries for the

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public servants and the teachers this financial year. With the

money already allocated to the roads, electricity and defence per

annum, although it is not enough to cover all our needs for

infrastructure, this level of funding is much better than anything

Uganda has ever had in the last 120 years. I will have to use, some

methods to, for instance, tarmarck Rwenkunyu-Masindi Port-Apac-

Lira-Kitgum road. However, as already pointed out, we have never

had it any better. Accordingly, I have given instructions that for the

next financial year, we shall look at 3 groups: the University

Professors and Lecturers, the district councilors and the traditional

leaders. We need to pay the Professors and Lecturers well so that

they stabilise and educate our children well. The councillors are

near the people and can help us monitor Government programmes

better, not using their personal money but using the money meant

for monitoring as already mentioned. Since we restored cultural

leaders, it is common sense that we should concomitantly give them

decent funding beyond the present level.Kamwe kamwe nigwo

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muganda. Akwaata empola atuuka wala. Bugu bugu si muliro. One

by one makes a bundle.

All the efforts I have talked about above, did not include the

petroleum and gas we discovered in 2006. By 2017, we shall start

pumping the oil out for our refinery and the pipeline. We estimate a

production of 180,000 barrels on average per day. If we assume a

low price of US dollars 70 per barrel, that will give us an annual

extra income of US $4.6b. 70% of this money i.e. US $3.2b will be

Uganda Government money. This money will never be used for

salaries, imports, etc., etc.; it will only be used for hydro-power

dams and other forms of energy, the Standard Gauge Railway,

industrialization (industrial-estates), scientific innovation and

research and high-level science education and technical training.

With this money per annum we can pay for the much talked about

Standard Gauge Railway in just two years. Uganda is unstoppable.

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(Insert pictures of oil rigs and when they flared)

In conclusion, the four principles of the NRM Patriotism, Pan-

Africanism, Socio-economic transformation and Democracy have

served us well. Distilled in the student study groups of the 1960s

and within the progressive wings of the old political parties, these

principles have helped us to successfully wage two resistance wars

(1971-79 and 1981-86), culminating in the capture of power, in

1986. Once we captured power, we were able to unite the people of

Uganda as never before. We have been able to reconstruct and

strengthen Uganda as never before.

(Insert a picture of H.E.s photograph with Tanks/Tank Crews)

However, we could have done better if it was not for the following

weaknesses: delaying investment projects, lack of cohesion in

budgeting, corruption in UNRA and in other Government

institutions, failure to universalise the Prosperity For All (PFA) in the

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whole country until UPDF had to come in and the

commercialization of politics which is very dangerous. There is the

weakness of not keeping in touch with and utilising the 30

Committee Memberswho make up the branches of the NRM thatare in each of the 57,792 Ugandan villages. Finally, the achievement

of the high literacy rates (now at an average rate of 77.1% for the

males and 75.2% for the females, making a total average of 76.1%),

notwithstanding, we need to skill the Ugandan youths with

technical, professional and managerial skills. We also need, afterappropriate reform of school and university courses, to promote the

effort of further intellectualisation of our middle class and

academia. If we address these bottlenecks, Uganda will be

unstoppable. The sky will be the limit.

I thank all of you and wish you a successful conference.

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Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

CHAIRMAN

15th

December, 2014

President Yoweri Museveni's Speech to members of NEC in Entebbe

Documents

Transcript of President Yoweri Museveni's Speech to members of NEC in Entebbe