I greet all of you the delegates of the National Executive Committee.

I extend condolences to all of us for those of our members who,

since the last conference, are no longer with us on this earth. One
of those who left us is the Rt. Hon. Eriya Kategaya, one of the
Executive Committee Members of FRONASA in 1971.

When we talk of political organisations, if we are to do so

meaningfully and profitably, we must talk about three words:
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,
1

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
example of a pin which, though small, had 18 specialised
operations. His pointing out of the importance of the division of
labour and specialisation was a historic understanding to the
struggle of producing more wealth. Of no less importance, was his
pointing out, at that time in 1776, that while agriculture was
important, it is manufacturing that made countries richer. He wrote
on page 13 of his book, The Wealth of Nations, as follows: The
most opulent Nations, indeed, generally excel all their neighbours in
agriculture as well as manufactures; but they are commonly more
2

distinguished by their superiority in the latter (Manufacturing) than

in the former (Agriculture).

Society, guided by that insight, will

progress until it meets a new obstacle that needs fresh diagnosis

and prescription.

He also helped to understand the role of self

interest (private enterprise) in creating wealth.

One of his famous quotes on this issue goes like this: It is not from
the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we
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.
3

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

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

sectors:

commercial

agriculture,

industries

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

transport, hotels, professional services, etc), ICT (ebyuuma bya
4

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
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
5

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.

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,

6

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.

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
7

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,

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 sometimes
described. 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 internal
Ugandan 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
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 PanAfricanism.

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
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
10

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
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 precapitalist 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 the total
eradication of the traditional, non-monetary modes of production
(e.g.

traditional

subsistence

cattle-keeping,

farming,

etc.)

are

traditional
the

crop

mainstay

of

husbandry,
the

under-

development of the Ugandan population.

11

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

and busuulu), subsistence farming, etc. are inefficient and nonrewarding. Moreover, they are characterised by drudgery and backbreaking labour mainly dependent on manual labour based on
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 rawmuscle-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
12

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

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
13

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
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.
14

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

Exports of goods and

services in the current US$

services in the current US$

(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

15

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

1982

182.50

2008

3039.72

1983

194.00

2009

3353.75

1984

458.91

2010

3467.64

1985

483.55

2011

4297.50

1986

502.57

2012

4915.76

1987

517.05

2013

5176.46

On the side of the infrastructure, we have repaired the 1,200 kms of

tarmac roads we inherited in 1986 and built another 3,800 kms of
new tarmac roads.

We are now planning and we have secured

16

money for the tarmacking of the following roads using Uganda

Government money:
Kampala-Masaka;
Kaisotonya;

Tororo-Mbale-Soroti;

Ishaka-Kagamba;

Jinja-Kamuli;

Moroto-Nakapiripirit;

Hoima-

Mpigi-Kanoni;

Kanoni-Sembabule-Villa-Maria; Musita-Lumino-Busia; Olwiyo-Gulu;

Gulu-Acholibur; Acholibur-Musingo; Mukono-Kayunga-Njeru; MukonoKyetume-Katosi;
Kikagate;

Mubende-Kakumiro-Kagadi-Ndaiga;Mbarara-

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, MbararaKabaale-Katuna, Fort Portal-Bundibugyo, Arua-Oraba, Gulu-AtiakBibia, Mbale-Magale-Bumbo-Lwakhakha with a branch to Manjiya,
Rukungiri-Kanungu-Ishasha-Nyakishenyi, Kapchorwa-Kween-BukwoSuam,

Kigumba-Masindi-Hoima-Kagadi-Kyenjojo,

Iganga-Kaliro
17

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

Soroti-Amuria-Acan

Pii-Abim,

Masaka-Bukakata,

etc., etc.

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.
18

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
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
19

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
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 $3200 by 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
20

Mombasa to Kampala compared to the present railway which takes

21 days.
With cheap and abundant electricity and cheap and efficient
transport, our economy will modernise, go through the middleincome 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 and 400 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.
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
21

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
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

22

such as Namanve, Kaweweta etc. You have seen the quality of the
markets we have commissioned in Wandegeya, Jinja, Mbale etc.

We

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.
urbanisation

is

part

of

the

necessary

As you know,
social-economic
23

metamorphosis to decongest the villages so as to make room for

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,

pilots,

singers,

sportsmen,

etc.,

etc.

This

is

not

doctors,
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
24

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

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

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 subcounty. It proved too expensive. Hence the fall back plan, per
constituency and per district as appropriate.
This social-economic metamorphosis will accelerate as we solve the
bottlenecks of infrastructure as pointed out above.

Low costs of
25

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.
Singapore it is also two days.

In

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
26

very projects that will generate more exports for us, create jobs for
our youth and give incomes to our homesteads by buying rawmaterials from the rural households. I am getting to the position of
zero-tolerance to this type of conduct by any actor official or
otherwise.
The second weakness or mistake has been the prolonged failure to
implement 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

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
27

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

families that we intended to help. While attending the Heroes Day
on the 9th of June, 2013, at Butalangwa, Nakaseke, after the
function, I was, again, besieged by the peasants who were
28

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 one
year. 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
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
29

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 5 more times

than the old coffee trees. By planting the 323 million new coffee
trees, Ugandas production in future will be 20 million, 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
planting of 26.4 million seedlings of coffee, 389,824 seedlings of
mangoes, 846,756 seedlings of oranges (fruits), 2.2 million seedlings
of tea, 2,008.5 tonnes of maize, 812.1 tonnes of beans, 9,248.6 bags
30

(cuttings) of cassava, etc.

The coffee seedlings covered 58,445.4

acres of 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 National

Roads 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
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
31

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.

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
32

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.

I have also already instructed the new Prime Minister and the
Minister of the Presidency to scan the whole spectrum of
33

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 Uganda
since the colonial times. I remember that in the colonial and postcolonial times, veterinary and medical staff would sell Government
drugs, the policemen would take bribes from the taxi drivers
(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.
34

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
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

35

elements to stop them: political ideological orientation and will as

well

as

NRA/UPDF).

committed

cadre-ship

(e.g.

officers

and

men

of

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)
whom you have given an officer cadet course of 12 months (to
become a 2nd Lieutenant), with embezzlement and bribery, you do
not only need a university graduate (18 years of education); but to
36

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
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
37

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

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
38

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

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
39

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 Aegean Stables 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
Trillions).

sh2,800b (2.8

They had achieved little in the majority of cases.

Meanwhile, since I have for long identified commercialisation of

agriculture for all homesteads in rural Uganda as being a sine qua
non of socio-economic transformation, I kept inspecting, randomly,
40

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)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
(v)
(vi)
(vii)

Extra-judicial killings,
Rape,
Defilement,
Poaching the animals in the National Parks,
Looting peoples property at road blocks,
Confiscating peoples property,
Destroying government resources (forests) by government
officials,
(viii) kidnappings and
(ix) Brutality of security forces with impunity, etc.

41

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 this human 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

opposition and in spite of the poor mobilisation by the NRM

Secretariat, the lowest this consensus ever went was 59% in 2006.
42

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.
according to the seats in Parliament.

However, according to the

popular vote, DP and UPC were fairly close.

distorted

by

the

gerrymandering

of

This is

The picture was

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.

43

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
workers supervised our committees from Kawanda to River Kafu
44

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
knowledge of the forest and how to get out of it, what will be the
45

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 omukyenkye a
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

by the civil servants. He is not an employee. That is, again, the civil
46

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 with entaanda (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
country.

This mistake must stop.

Fortunately, there are

47

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
Africa partly attracted by lower wages.

Some of the leaders of

48

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
consequence is that my low Government salaries notwithstanding, I
49

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, VicePresidents, 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.

50

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
51

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-ApacLira-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
52

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
industrialization

(industrial-estates),

scientific

Railway,

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.

53

In conclusion, the four principles of the NRM Patriotism, PanAfricanism, 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.

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

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
54

Committee Members who make up the branches of the NRM that

are 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, after

appropriate 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.

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

CHAIRMAN

55

15th December, 2014

56