By Mulengera Reporters
On Saturday, NRM Presidential Candidate Gen YK Museveni held his campaign rally in Buikwe district in Lugazi Municipality where he travelled in the afternoon having spent the earlier part of the day campaigning in the Island district of Buvuma.
It all started with the Buikwe NRM district chairman making brief welcome remarks, after which he called area Woman MP Minister Diana Mutasingwa Kagyenyi who read out a brief memorandum containing NRM’s achievements in the district and pressing issues the President needs to take note of and prioritize addressing.
Next was NRM Deputy Secretary General Rose Namayanja who said a few things and invited Buganda region NRM Vice Chairman Haruna Kyeyune Kasolo, who spoke briefly and signaled the NRM’s 2nd National Vice Chairperson Anita Among to invite the President.
Because it was threatening to rain, Among introduced a few investors present, including a delegation from the Madhvani Group, and implored voters to vote for the President and other NRM flag bearers in order to expedite development and transformation of their area instead of continuing to vote opposition MPs who, she said, make it hard for the President to keep track of the area’s social services urgent needs and priorities.
INVITES PRESIDENT:
As she invited the President, a heavy down pour started. After chanting NRM Oyee, Museveni (who was enthused to see the crowd comprising of mainly youth and women not moving even an inch even as the rain pounded them) called his wife First Lay Janet Museveni to say hello to the Buikwe people.
In brief remarks, chiefly made in flawless Luganda, Janet thanked the crowd for loving the President and thanked them for braving the rain. Apparently, she must have at some point been fearful that the huge crowd was going to melt away to find shelter from the rain-but they didn’t.
“Thank you for loving our President and more importantly for realizing that this is part of the price we must collectively pay to win this election and carry on with the agenda of building and transforming our country. I’m happy that you the people of Buikwe are aware that, to build a house, some price has to be paid and we are here to pay that price together. Thank you, the people of Buikwe for demonstrating that you are aware of that and for loving our President,” Janet said in her soft-spoken Luganda.
M7 DELIVERS HIS MESSAGE:
An equally elated Museveni said he wasn’t surprised with the Buikwe people’s readiness to pay such a heavy price (enduring the listen to attend his campaign rally and listen to his message) because they are grand children of fighters like himself. “There is no price that the grandchildren of the balwanyi [fighters] can not pay because that’s how we fought and liberated this country,” he said at the beginning of his speech that centered on what NRM has been delivering through its election manifestos since 1996.
He talked about the need to make all Ugandans rich beyond just delivering physical infrastructure for roads, schools and hospitals. He also talked about Uganda as a country’s collective corporate wealth and individual citizen’s wealth which his NRM has always been determined to deliver through income generating projects or interventions like Entandikwa, Prosperity for All, NAADS, Emyooga, OWC and now PDM.
He explained what PDM seeks to achieve and who qualifies to benefit from it. He said many more such interventions would continue to be enacted into place by the NRM until when every citizen becomes wealthy.
He spoke about categories like those involved in the fishing business on the lake as well as processing and exportation of fish. He said some of these are rich people for whom a special fund will be created immediately after elections since they are too big for PDM, which he said is meant for the emancipation of the very poor.
Museveni also talked about job opportunities for the youths who he said are too many to be satisfactorily catered for under government jobs, which are few and not enough for everyone. He said the private sector has capacity to create many more jobs and employ many more Ugandans than the public sector.
To illustrate his point, Museveni enumerated several sectors like ICTs, services, agriculture and manufacturing for which many industrial parks continue to be created. He enumerated several private sector-spearheaded industrial parks showing how many jobs each one of them has created so far and still counting. He revealed the number of factories in each industrial park and said all this had been put in place by the private sector with support from the government.
He also made reference to several serious-minded Ugandans who have been able to privately transform themselves from poverty-stricken citizens to wealthy actors in the private sector simply because they listened to and took seriously his advice on things like the 4-acre model.
He had each one of them (four of them in total) narrate their experiences and grass to grace stories through benefiting from government programs. These were relayed through pre-recorded videos, a short version of which was played to the crowd on the large projectors at the rally venue. Museveni said these had demonstrated that its possible to merely listen to his advice, take advantage of the government programs, the political stability and become rich instead of waiting to get a job in government.
One of these is a Kamuli district man who is now a successful poultry farmer with annual turnover of Shs7.2bn simply because he listened to the President’s advise.
The Kamuli man, who demonstrated currently employing 300 fellow Ugandans, recalled how Museveni advised them as he persuaded them to leave the 2007 Kamuli LC5 by-election race to NRM flag bearer, the late Hajji Kawugu Kawooya Mugaino.
Museveni demonstrated to them that not everyone would become MP or LC5 chairman and this man bowed out of the race and went into poultry farming which he has now grown to the level of selling thousands of trays of eggs from which he earns Shs20m per day. He said he is now a proud MD of his poultry company and doesn’t envy being LC5 Chairman or even MP anymore.
The President also invited two beneficiaries of his Presidential Skilling Hub initiative (namely wielder Ivan Wamoto and sewing machine operator Dorothy Nanteza) who explained to the crowd how they have since become skilled and established their businesses and are now employing other fellow young people. They are both children of Buikwe with one operating in Mbiko and another Njeru town.
The duo thanked Gen Museveni’s State House for the training and skilling opportunities and the Shs50m investment he made in their respective Saccos. Each Sacco comprises of 24 members into whom the President collectively invested Shs50m to boost their Sacco.
Museveni also spoke about foreign investors who he said are a very good avenue through which jobs can be created for the youths besides the government growing its tax collection.
He talked about the NRM government’s efforts to lower the cost of doing business and as a result be able to attract many more such foreign investors who can bring in money and employ Ugandan youths.
He enumerated some of the things the government has done and is determined to keep improving on in order to attract more such investors. These include enlarging and revamping the railway transport system to lower the cost of transport, investing in sufficient electricity generation/availability and marketing the idea of regional integration among neighboring countries so that such foreign investors’ market size-related concerns can be convincingly addressed. That it’s easier to attract an investor once it’s demonstrated that investing in Kampala won’t only avail him or her access to the Ugandan market but the whole of East Africa and beyond.
CLARIFIES ON NRM POSITION ON MINIMUM WAGE: Museveni said even his reluctancy to immediately embrace the need to enact the minimum wage legislation is largely aimed at keeping Uganda attractive to such foreign investors. He explained that, contrary to what detractors keep telling the population, the NRM government isn’t opposed to minimum wage but the issue is on the timing.
He said it would be suicidal for him to insist on minimum wage when other things that government needs to put in place to lower the cost of doing business in Uganda by investors haven’t yet been fully worked on and delivered.
He gave the example of cost of doing business relating to expensive electricity, expensive interest rates on capital and high transport costs deriving from absence of a functional railway transport and others. He made it clear that foreign investors will have more reason either not to come or simply quit (for those who are already here) once a government, which hasn’t yet addressed these above constraints, goes ahead to impose and insist on minimum wage.
He said when the right time comes, the minimum wage law will be enacted and strictly enforced. Priding himself in being a life time guerrilla warrior, Museveni reminisced their NRA strategy during the bush war. “We were waging our war in Luwero here not very far from Kampala but we took long to capture Kampala and this was all deliberate. We were not ready and we didn’t want to attempt capturing Kampala before we were ready to do so. We had to buy time, capturing other areas, as we built capacity and got ready to finally capture the capital city of Kampala,” Museveni said in Luganda.
The President also called on Buikwe residents to disregard propaganda by the likes of Betty Nambooze who like demonizing his government with false claims that he and other officials have a conspiracy to grab Buganda’s land in order to weaken and demystify the institution of Kabakaship.
Museveni said his point is about protecting Kibanja owners against deprivation and exploitation by landlords and mailo land owners. He explained that there is nothing legally that a landlord or registered land owner (whose name appears on the title) can do to a kibanja owner who is in possession and occupation of the land. He said that whoever buys land on which Kibanja owners are already settled, buys in vain because legally, there is no way he can force out Kibanja owners.
He likened the Busulu the landlord is entitled to getting to nominal payment which doesn’t have to reflect any commercial or market value. He said he deliberately stood up to chauvinists like Nambooze on this issue during both CA and the land Act debates of 1998 because he deliberately wanted Kibanja owners protected against dispossession by the mighty and the rich who like conniving with the registered land owners.
The President likened the nominal Busulu to which the landlord is entitled under the law, to the tokenism and recognition that comes with a soldier of the UPDF or SFC saluting him whenever he comes in his presence. He also likened the same to that little sprinkling water the priest uses during children baptism.
“I get no monetary value from that salute. It’s just recognition of my authority as the President and Commander-in-Chief. That is all,” said Museveni while directing Attorney General Kiwanuka Kiryowa to commence Minister Sam Mayanja-like weekly radio talk shows on Bukedde fm aimed at sensitizing Kibanja owners in Buganda about the legal protection they have under the law against extortionist landlords or Mailo land owners.
He encouraged the people of Buikwe to listen to such educative radio programs and even ask clarification questions to the AG aimed at the deepening their understanding of their legal entitlements and rights regarding land possession and occupancy. Museveni implored them to turn up in big numbers on voting day to elect for him and other NRM candidates for the country’s transformation agenda he spent his time explaining to be consolidated and carried forward. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
