By Obed K. Katureebe
President Yoweri Museveni has, for over the last 20 years, been passionately crusading for wealth creation for all Ugandans. Indeed, he has championed several programmers all meant to uplift the economic status of Ugandans. From Entandikwa to Operation Wealth Creation, NAADS to now Emyooga, Youth Livelihood Fund, Parish Development Model (PDM) and many others.
President Museveni has been so fervent in this ‘war’ against poverty by combining direct financial inclusion programmes, with putting up infrastructure projects and running prudent macroeconomic policies that are changing Uganda for the better.
Without a doubt, these interventions have since changed the economic status of Ugandans. In 2026, data from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and international agencies reveals that Uganda’s income poverty rate stands at 16.1%, while its multidimensional poverty rate affects 27% of the population. By every standard, this is no mean achievement. President Museveni’s efforts to completely end poverty among Ugandans remain steadfast, as more interventions are being put in place.
However, all these are facing serious existential threats. Apart from the general corruption that is being decisively handled by a team of new cadres like Hon. Balaaam Barugahara, Hon. Fred Byamukama, Hon. Justine Nameere and many others, Uganda is now under siege by thieves, who on the surface are seen as committing ordinary crimes, but in the real sense are failing hardworking Ugandans from lifting themselves out of poverty.
Ugandans are giving up on rearing animals like goats and their cows are being stolen left, right and centre! Their gardens are being harvested at night by these criminals. Some people are now hiring armed private security guards, to protect their farms at night. Those that can’t afford to hire armed security guards are losing their wealth to these terrible criminals.
Just last week, Police in Mbarara arrested three suspects intercepted with two trucks packed with meat from 39 stolen cows and 10 goats. The suspects were caught loading the carcasses into two box-body vehicles in Kageeti, Sanga Town Council. These thieves were so daring that they allegedly stole some of the cows from one of the President Museveni’s ranches, because some of the slaughtered cows had his initials YKM.
This is the terrible trend across Uganda in the cattle-keeping corridors. Thieves are loading stolen cows in tiny saloon cars to evade roadblocks. Citizens are now giving up on farming, because of the loss they are incurring. It is a common story now that people giving up on herding goats because of thieves. Farming vanilla and now coffee, if you can’t hire armed guards during harvest time is risky venture.
However, we need to interrogate this threat much deeper. Why is robbery a thriving enterprise in Uganda? Certainly, this goes back to the slackness of laws that treat such crimes as ordinary crimes. How can someone steal someone else’s 20 or 30 cows, or harvest someone’s coffee garden and when arrested he or she is treated as having committed an ordinary crime ?
Methinks, such thieves have committed a capital offense. You can’t steal the wealth someone has suffered to acquire in their lifetime and you pull them down into poverty again, isn’t that a capital offense? Poverty is the number one killer across the world. When you steal someone’s wealth you have quickly condemned them to death. Leaders at all levels need to look into this as a matter of urgency and if it means making new punitive laws to curtail this vice, so be it. Let us make stealing people’s livestock and harvesting people’s cash crops a capital offense.
In Tanzania, stealing livestock or cash crops attracts a maximum sentence. You don’t serve less than 20 years in prison, on top of compensating your victim four times what you stole. Several African nations that have maintained low crime rates and high safety standards like Mauritius, Rwanda and Botswana have strict and strongly punitive law enforcement.
These countries have developed strong grassroots security systems that involve citizens directly in local safety. Making economic sabotage a capital offence means such crimes can be punishable by the death penalty, if the need arises. Indeed, several nations still maintain, or have heavily legislated capital and maximum severity punishments for acts deemed destructive to the national economy.
China, for example, is one country that routinely issued strong punitive measures for extreme cases like thievery and bribery and the victims have faced execution under China’s anti-corruption campaigns.
To make stealing people’s wealth a highly risky and unprofitable business, governments must tilt the risk-reward ratio drastically. This requires attacking the core vulnerability of financial criminals; their ability to hide, move and enjoy stolen assets.
Finally, we must in equal measure make this risky to those who aide thieves hiding in state institutions like the Judiciary and the police force. There are many stories of victims failing to have justice, simply because the investigating officers, together with the prosecuting organizations, are compromised by thieves through huge cash offers. The writer works with Uganda Media Centre. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
