President Museveni reveals way forward on the economic recovery while addressing the nation
President Yoweri Museveni once again addressed the Nation on a cocktail of issues dwelling mostly on economic recovery. The address was televised on all local T.V stations and broadcasted live by all radio stations on the evening of Friday, 5th August 2022.
In his opening remarks, president Museveni revealed that he had appeared again to share with the country on the issue of imported inflation. “We are suffering from imported inflation, these high prices originate from the outside,”
According to the President, In 20 years, petroleum and diesel for use in cars will no longer be allowed globally. Because of that, the business people have abandoned investing in petrol and this only calls for vigilance among leaders to quickly respond and the time to respond is now.
“Some people think politics is just talking and going to weddings and funerals, From the beginning, NRM told you politics is a matter of life and death. When you handle it badly, you get bad results, as NRM, we have invested heavily in production and we plan to expand eveb further, When you export raw materials, you make less money than you would if you exported processed products” Said president Museveni.
The president further revealed that during Amin’s time, the economy collapsed because it entirely relied on production of raw materials like cotton, Tobacco and coffee. “When we came, its only coffee and tobacco that were surviving. We came in to transform the economy from dependency to self-sufficiency,” The president asserted.
President Museveni believes that problem of Uganda and Africa has been like the unwise villager who chooses to sell raw materials than processed products. “We never wanted to sell the raw materials, and we are making progress. We have surplus sugar. We are also getting ethanol and electricity from sugar. You can imagine ‘ekikajo’ sugarcane gives you sugar, ethanol, electricity, and rubber tyres,”he added
Uganda has now moved not only to processing the above here but also to making cars, automobiles of different types, vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and sanitizers.
The president still maintains that the country suffers economically because of four products which include Fuel, palm oil, wheat and fertilizers and said that it would be worse if the country was still importing beer, soda, cement, and milk.
“The question is, what can we do? Do we intensify dependency or disengage? Should we bleed ourselves white? When we had this big problem of rising commodity price , the debate was that subsidize the petrol from outside countries and remove taxes. That one, we say no, the real problem is fuel, and the answer is to go to electric vehicles and electric motorcycles and to use the railway,” he asserted.
It is axactly a fortnight since the president delivered his previous National address. The question is, do these addresses answer questions and give alternative solutions to the most volunerable or it is a political theology meant to purge and yield calm among the populace amidst a looming economic collapse.
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