President Yoweri Museveni has vowed to decisively deal with corrupt politicians and civil servants, whom he says are a barrier to Uganda’s socio-economic transformation agenda.
“There is nothing that we aim at, that we cannot achieve. The only delaying factors have been the phenomenon of parasitism by some careerist politicians and civil servants (abakola kipakasi) and introduce corruption in the process of implementing government programmes such as: PDM, Emyooga, micro-finance etc. These should not be tolerated and will not be tolerated. Otherwise, the sky is the limit,” he said.
The remarks are contained in President Museveni’s Easter message to Uganda released yesterday.
The President said that since the colonial times, he has seen the parasitism of unpatriotic civil servants and extension workers such as vets and medics at the expense of wealth creators (the cattle-keepers, crops farmers, artisans, fishermen etc.) by taking bribes, selling government drugs and policemen taking bribes from the wakadalas (taxis).
“After independence, some of the politicians joined the corruption. Before Independence, the few politicians that were around, such as IK Musaazi, had no access to power (decision-making). Hence, they had no opportunity to be corrupt or otherwise.”
Gen. Museveni added that It is a great shame that those elected by the wealth creators, betray them and become corrupt by stealing government money and taking bribes to provide service.
“All these wealth creators are suffering because of the parasites in the form of some corrupt civil servants and politicians. However, this suffering is artificial. It is because the victims of corruption do not report. If they report, the corrupt will be crushed,” he said.
“Foreign investors and other service providers are being harassed by these parasites for bribes. Just report. It is easy to eradicate this vice. The war is between the genuine wealth creators (farmers, manufacturers, fishermen, service providers) on the one hand and the parasites in the form of some corrupt civil servants, now joined by some politicians who sell decisions for bribes.”
On the other hand, President Museveni assured Ugandans that the country’s economy is expanding both quantitatively and qualitatively.
“Picking five examples is enough to illustrate this. The 5 examples are the following: coffee, milk and tea. Coffee production in 1986 was only 2 million, 60kgs bags; it is now producing 8.5 million bags, targeting hitting 12 million bags soon. Tea was 3 million kgs in 1986. It is now 60 million kgs. Milk was a mere 200 million litres per annum; it is now 5.3bn litres per annum. The portion that comes to the factories, is 3.6bn litres,” he explained.
“Fourthly, cotton is no longer being exported as just lint cotton. The shirts I put on are from Uganda’s cotton, made by fine-spinners. Fifth example is that of Kiira Motors, where the Uganda Scientists supported by, sometimes, government funding, are addressing the issue of Electric- mobility by making electric cars, buses, etc.”
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