President Museveni has taken a swipe at his critics who he said are shouting at him to retire from power, noting that they are not serious.
“Those People who shout you go, you go, do you think I don’t know where to go? They are not serious. I sometimes wonder why they are making noise. Is it for food or noise for war,” Museveni said.
The NRM presidential candidate was on Tuesday addressing a scientific meeting of the party leaders from Bushenyi, Rubirizi, Sheema, Mitooma and Buhweju districts of Greater Bushenyi at St Kaggwa primary school in Bushenyi.
Museveni who was accompanied by the First Lady, Janet Museveni as he entered a second day of scientific campaigns in Ankole sub-region told the party leaders that there is need for unity for not only Uganda but also the East African region and Africa at large.
“The NRM started long ago to warn you against sectarianism. Let us work for unity of Uganda, East Africa and Africa to have a bigger market for our products. If China with over a population of over one billion is looking for foreign markets, why not us with only 40 million people,”Museveni.
The President also commented on the latest ranking by Bloomberg that put Uganda as one of the five fastest-growing economies in the world.
He noted that such a feat has been achieved due to wise decisions taken by the NRM government after capturing power in 1986.
“This is because of the wise decisions we took. We introduced privatization and liberalization of the economy. We used peace as a bait to attract foreigners to invest here and we get money from them in form of taxes. These have helped our economy grow,”Museveni said.
The NRM presidential candidate noted that because of the wise decisions, Uganda can fund every program it wants but noted this can only be done through proper budgeting and avoiding corruption.
“If budgeting is done properly, we can do all things we want. Like these roads we have constructed here are done using our own money. Tell your MPs to listen to my advice. You find they have diverted money to do other things, to go London and Europe to benchmark so that they can do exact things like Europe. We should do like we did in 2006 when I put my foot down and we increased funding for roads and electricity,” Museveni said.
Wealth creation gospel
Museveni also reminded the party leaders of their role to ensure people get out of poverty through wealth and job creation.
“You need to ask people to start working for both their stomachs and pockets but with a calculation. I need you to do an audit of how the villages are performing in terms of this idea of working for both the stomachs and pockets,” Museveni.
Earlier, President Museveni took time off his campaign trail to commission the Kashenyi-Mitooma(11.52km) and Katabi seminary access road(0.8km) whose construction was funded by government money.
Leaders react
Sheema Municipality MP flag bearer, Dickens Kateshumbwa said with the achievements in the district by the ruling NRM party will get more votes in the forthcoming election.
“I expect the performance to be higher than before because we have taken it upon ourselves to move to various areas to highlight the achievements of the party and in particular President Museveni to the people,”Kateshumbwa said.
He noted that they have already recruited over 12000 mobilisers put of the polling population of 41000.
“That tells you how much of the force is behind our campaign to try and deliver a landslide victory for our candidate.”
According to Hatwib Katoto, who is coming on the independent ticket for Katerera county MP post, a lot has been achieved in terms of development in the area.
“Some sub-counties had no health centre IIIs but currently, at least three sub-counties have got them. Water and electricity have been extended to several areas but also the road network has been expanded,” Katoto said.
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