President urges leaders to support production to get rid of poverty

President Yoweri Museveni has reiterated his call to all leaders at all levels in Uganda to support the new production programme of seedling distribution that is overseen by the Army so that wananchi in rural areas are enabled to get rid of household poverty.

The President made that call yesterday during the ceremony of launching the issuance of the National Identity Cards at the ongoing 5-day Government Budget Conference Retreat at Speke Resort Munyonyo in Kampala.

The Retreat that has attracted Cabinet Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Heads of Department and District Local Government leaders nationwide, is reviewing the government performance in the Financial Year 2013/2014 and the Budget Strategy for the Financial Year 2015/2016.

The retreat is being moderated by the Prime Minister who is also the Head of Government Business Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda.

President Musevenig, who told delegates of the 4 elements he described as his LCM, include fear of God, peace in the country, infrastructure and household income, said following the success of the programme overseen by the Army Officers led by Gen. Salim Saleh at all zones in the country where there was the people’s protracted liberation struggle, the government decided to roll out the programme to the whole country.

He said 18 million seedlings of coffee, 191,000 of mangoes, 297,000 of oranges and 6 million seedlings of tea, have been distributed in the last 3 seasons. He added that the total amount used was only Shs.16 billion compared to Shs.203 billion that NAADS used to get annually for the same exercise.

The President wondered how much would have been done if only half of Shs. 203 billion was used to help wanainchi in eradicating poverty in rural areas. Mr. Museveni, therefore, called on all leaders at all levels to support the new programme in order to get rid of poverty in Uganda through production.

He also pointed out another evil that he termed as ‘brucellosis disease’ among leaders who sabotage development projects. He stressed that this is not acceptable.

“So many projects are conceived but they abort. The recent one was the Palm Programme in Kalangala. Investors were to get more land but couldn’t. This is not acceptable. In Canada and Singapore, it takes only 2 days to conclude anything on any programme. But in Uganda it takes 4 years. This is not acceptable,” he stressed.

The President also called on the Minister of Agriculture, especially leaders in the South West of Uganda and Kabarole in particular, to assist people in their area to develop pasture in their farms that can make dairy cattle yield more milk.

“In the South West, cows are not eating. People must be assisted to develop pasture in their farms so that cows can yield more milk. You find District Agricultural Officer, District Veterinary Officer supervising starvation of cows. How can people be so irresponsible?” he asked.

He warned that if the unsuitable grass is seen in the farm again he will do something about it.