‘President Museveni’s address on commodity prices was nothing but a waste of time- LOP Mpuuga

The Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga has said President Yoweri Museveni’s Sunday address was a waste of time since he did not provide any solution to the existing problems Ugandans are currently facing due to the skyrocketing commodity prices of essential goods.

Mpuuga who was speaking after the address, said Ugandans expected to have relief from the President’s address, unfortunately, the his address was like a bombshell to the poor citizens.

“We expected something useful from his address but sincerely he just wasted our time. You cannot tell people to reduce their expenditure that you are not cutting taxes yet after every quarter, Parliament receives State House supplementary budgets to cater for him and his family. In other words, for him he does not care about Ugandans as long as they pay taxes, he will be able to get his supplementary budgets to look after him and his family.”

While making his address to the nation on Sunday night, President Museveni asserted that he cannot cut down taxes because it can lead to the collapse of the economy.

“Some of the ideas people think about when confronted with high commodity prices, are the idea of subsidy (Government okutu kwatirako) or removal of taxes by Government from those commodities. With imported commodities, this is a recipe for disaster. It will lead to collapse. It would seriously encroach on our reserves. Moreover, removing taxes on some of the commodities would mean tax loss to the Government of: Shs1.53 trillion for petroleum, Shs 1.15trillion for diesel, and Shs 520 billion for wheat. How, then, do we fund our budget for–roads, electricity, schools, medicine, security, etc.?” he asked.

Museveni asserted that since the government does not tax crucial items such as Medicine, raw materials, etc. It is, therefore, not true that everything is taxed.

“Therefore, removing taxes or subsidizing many of the imports is suicidal and a blunder.”

Commenting on the same, two-time presidential candidate and former president-general of Justice Forum (JEEMA) Dr Kibirige Mayanja said although President Museveni does not want to cut taxes, he can reduce the huge government expenses to reduce the country’s expenditure.

“Government can cut on its expenses by reducing numbers presidential advisers, the size of the cabinet to 30 members. It can also reduce international travels by ministers, and stop currying out unnecessary workshops. Unfortunately, that president did not talk about it, yet the huge government expenditure has caused hiking of prices for routinely used commodities.”